Recently I posted that I had seen a good deal on a .458 Mauser at a local store if anybody was interested. Lots of money had been invested in a custom stock, custom barrel, 3 position safety, etc. on a Whitworth magnum action.

Well, a fellow member purchased it and reports being very happy with the workmanship and the value. This is what he told me. "Overall it was a great buy. Someone put $1000 or $1,500 worth of work into a $800 rifle, and then sold it for $900."

However, he says that the 3rd position on the safety is not working. He says the 2nd position works fine, but he is able to open the bolt while the 3rd position is "on".

From looking at a number of them on both Mauser and Winchester actions, I know that the 3rd position causes a pin from the safety to engage with the rear of the bolt so that the bolt cannot rotate. (it is definitely a 3 position type safety)

I have not examined the particular safety, but other than the pin not actually being there, what else could cause a malfunction so that the third position does not work?

don't know the facts - assuming it's an actual 3 position safety, which seems to me that there is a couple things that jump out to me -- these aren't the entire universe of answers, but just the things that i would check first, if it was in my hands

1: retaining pin for 3rd position is missing or broken -- this MIGHT be visible with a strong light, with the gun still in the action ..
2: recess for the pin is too deep, could be combined with 1: above

3: problem with recess/pin planned interference .. could be oversized, several things..

4: safety could be broken, internally, preventing pin from engagement

Or....It could be a Gentry, it is a known problem with them, has to do with the camming surface on the lever.

There's not much "whoops" room in fitting the locking pin...Bet it's too short now. Pesky part to make, but hopefully it's something you can get from the mfg.

Lindy2

To further what Jeff said.

Sounds like the end of the plunger is either damaged or too short. Most of the plungers are mild steel that has been lightly case hardened, SO IF the safety is in the 3rd position and locking the bolt, AND the bolt handle is hit hard enough upward,
it can shear off a part of the plunger. ALSO at this point the safety lever itself can be damaged,

You will need to figure out who made the safety and then take the safety apart to look at the small end of the plunger that locks the bolt. Then contact the maker for a new plunger or lathe turn a new one to long and fit the overall length properly.

If the lever is damaged well that is a whole issue in itself replacing the safety lever.

One other thing I have seen a couple of times, is the customer did not want the bolt to lock closed, so when fitting the plunger it was left short so the bolt would not be locked.

Hope this helps

James Wisner
Life Member American Custom Gumakers Guild

Mr. Wisner

Thank you for joining in with your insights.

Sounds to me like there is a consensus that the pin (plunger) is too short for any one of a number of reasons, from having been damaged, to having the camming surface that operates the pin being screwed up. When I looked at it at the store the lever seemed just fine and working well, but of course that doesn't mean that internally its working well.
Next move is to advise the buyer to take it apart and see whats up.

I am the person who bought the rifle. I'm going to take apart the safety and see what the issue is. I have a lathe so I think with some drill rod and patience I can get it to lock up correctly.

Thanks to everyone for their responses about the safety, and especially to Lindy2 for pointing out the rifle. It is quite nice indeed, and for the money it was an awesome deal. Whoever built it knew how to balance a rifle just right, it in no way feels like what it weighs.

Okay...I need to resurrect the thread as I would like advice.

I chucked a section of O-1 with a 5C collet and made a new plunger. I could see the tip of the original plunger had been sheared off so it wasn't long enough to engage the shroud fully. This issue is exactly what had been described in previous thread answers.

I carefully fit the new plunger so it was long enough to engage the full depth of the notch with perhaps 0.01" or 0.02" of clearance to allow for dirt build up, but kept the other dimensions the same. This has almost fixed the issue, but with a good wiggle on the shroud the bolt handle can slip and unlock.

The issue at this point seems to be the fit of the bolt shroud and bolt threading. The shroud has male buttress threads and they don't look good. They either weren't cut well or weren't hardened and got chewed up by the female thread on what I assume is a fairly hard bolt. It might have been both for all I know.

So without getting a new bolt shroud, the way to fix the problem would seem to be to make another plunger with the same increased length, but also increase the diameter to as large as it can be, and still have it fit its hole. With a wider cross-section hopefully the plunger won't be able to slip out of the bolt notch with shroud movement. Of course the diameter might need to be bigger than the hole which it fits to get enough engagement and then this will require me to drill and ream the hole that the plunger rides inside.

All this is doable, but I am not sure if it is the best solution. The shroud threads aren't 60 degree V threads so some sort of hinky heli-coil-ish solution isn't going to work. I thought about heat-shrinking a steel collar onto the shroud above the thread and turning it down to shim up the fit. That seems like it would be a massive PIA as that shroud section doesn't have full radial clearance. Is there a way to "fix" sloppy buttress thread engagement that doesn't involve the letters T, I, and G and re-threading the shroud?

Also what kind of hardness should I take the plunger to? I am using straight O-1, and I kept the heat under control so it should be in the low 30 something RC for hardness. I don't have an oven to precisely do HT, but I can Mark I eyeball the temper color change. What hardness would you all think I should go for?

Thanks in advance

From the good news/bad news department: the new rifle is now blooded, and the blood was all mine. A fricking pox on people who don't break the edges of metal items that should have their edges broken. Everything seemed to be polished so nicely when I took off the extractor, I neglected to check the edge was smooth before I put my fingers on it. That sucker might as well have been a kitchen knife as it sliced three of my fingers and my thumb as deeply as grabbing a blade would have.

It was my fault for not checking or putting on a glove, but it was surprising to see all the careful polishing work and find a Band-Aid magnet like that.

Did you get it fixed?? if not give me a call at 208-731-4120..We many live in the same area..Im in Filer.

Everything is fixed. I made another plunger at the maximum diameter that would slip fit, and the maximum length that would fit the bolt lock notch. Both dimensions were larger than the original.

I made the plunger head slightly larger, and ground a truer radial curve on it. I also found a spring to match the original plunger spring that looked like it had a coil or two cut off, and replaced that spring.

I put it all back together, and the bolt now locks up nicely in the third position. There is a tiny bit of lift on the handle before it locks due to slop in the thread mating of the bolt and shroud but it does lock. I am not going to mess with those threads as it does work now. The replaced spring on the plunger, and increased curve of the plunger head also has improved the feel of the safety as each detent is engaged.

It would seem that 1) the original plunger was undersized in the radial dimension 2) the plunger tip was pinched and sheared off at some point which allowed the bolt handle to lift out of the locked position 3) the weakened plunger spring and bolt and shroud thread slop possibly contributed to event (2) occurring.

I also broke the edges on the removed extractor, and then smoked the bolt to see where to buff the bolt raceway to slick up the action feel. I will jewel the bolt later for some added bling, but the action feels pretty nice at the moment so I will leave it for later.

Now all is good once again in the land of the Mark X, it is time to take it to the range, and she how she shoots. Thank you to all that contributed advice on causes and solutions.

Webfeet

You sound very talented. Do you do gunsmith work for hire?

(By the way, I have 4 Winchester Model 70 classic rifles and every one of them has what you call "bolt slop" in the third position.)

likely 55 v 60 deg threads .. and if gentry/dakota, there is LIKELY thread interference -- and perhaps whoever did the work didn't lap the threads in, just gorillaed it in and galled the threads .

quote:

Originally posted by lindy2:
Webfeet

You sound very talented. Do you do gunsmith work for hire?

(By the way, I have 4 Winchester Model 70 classic rifles and every one of them has what you call "bolt slop" in the third position.)

No, I don't do work for hire, maybe someday although the $2,500 annual ITAR seems like a big hurdle to jump for a small volume of work. Suffice to say I don't have a FFL, but in the past I have worked for free on a friend's handguns, rifles, and shotgun. I was an engineer when I worked for a living, and when I stopped that, I bought a lathe and mill to tinker with. Like many people on this forum I would assume, I like learning how things work and fixing them when they don't.

Fortunately I had a top notch revolver guy and a top notch benchrest guy who lived not far, and after showing interest and a modicum of skill, worked with me on my own stuff I brought in. I learned a lot from them, and then I took a couple machining courses along the way as well to learn speeds/feeds, basic heat treatment...all that good background and fundamentals stuff.

I mostly did revolver work, but I have chambered rifle barrels, rebuilt a 1911 or three, and fixed a litany of shotgun issues. Right now I just fix the odd thing that I buy that has issues (like this Mark X), and occasional make what I own as nice as they can be.

This was actually my first "real" Mauser rifle to work on. Up to know it has been several CZ-USA actioned rifles, a whole bunch of Remingtons, a Weatherby, a Savage, , and a couple Sakos. Over the weekend I ordered Jerry Kuhnhausen's Mauser Shop Guide (I am building a JK library of sorts) so I can come up to speed on the Mauser. I knew the CZ so I was comfortable with controlled feed and metric threading, but obviously their safety is very different. Also this was my first time encountering buttress thread issues. I have cut 60 degree, Acme, and a couple Whitworth threads but not the buttress. I'll grind a cutter and see how I go on some 1045 for practice.

I think I'll also buy a Mauser flag safety just to play with, and then replace that 3 piece with another 3 piece as a full project because just knowing those gnarly shroud threads are in there is going to annoy me over time.

Enough life story and waffling on from me. The fingers are healing nicely, unfortunately that one was a lesson I have learned before. Without gloves I handled a heavy metal plate after it had been surface ground. I had the asked for the edges to be broken and they hadn't. It cut my fingers as you would expect that it would, I suppose I needed a reminder to expect the unexpected.