Don't want to start a debate about the pluses and minuses of the treatment, I personally just don't care for the looks of it.

I've found some older rifles that I wouldn't mind picking up and doing some work to (customizing, rebarreling), but they have jewelled bolts. Is it possible to stone the bolt to remove the jeweling and still have a safe, good fitting bolt? I know that it may depend on how the jeweling was done and how deep they made it but for a light, well done surface treatment, could it be done?

Any opinions are appreciated.

I too like a nicely polished bolt over a jeweled one unless the Jeweling is done right.....and very few of them are.

I'm sure you've seen rifles where the jeweling is worn off.....and the bulk of factory jeweled rifles are extremely thin in the design.

I wouldn't hesitate for a minute to polish off the jeweling on a factory jeweling job with minimal concern for removing a couple thou on the bolt bady.

Bead blast, then re-blue

I'd buff on a felt wheel and polishing compound. Stay away from the lugs and any bluing you want to keep.

For it to be done right, it needs to be polished off in a lathe. In the case of the Remington for instance, the bolt handle can be removed, the bolt body polished, and then the bolt handle reattached. You don't have to do it that way, but if you had several to do, it would make sense.

The way we do it is to use some 300-400 grit paper and a good block. Keep the paper moving and don't dwell in one spot unless you want flat spots. Then use some scotch brite on it like you are polishing your shoes.

A trick that I use to sand/polish something round is to cut a long length of the sand paper, wrap it around the item, in this case the bolt, bring the ends close together, and pull the paper back and forth, like a polishing cloth on a shoe shine. This keeps you from getting flat spots.