I'm working on a couple of '09s.

I had two new bolt handles welded on, and I'm very pleased with them.

Today I started relieving the rail behind the bridge to accept one of the new bolt handles.

I've only done one of these before, and was pretty lucky. I judged the bolt to be vertical, and was right on. One test fitting, and I was done.

This one looks very close to vertical.

I put a shrouded firing pin on the bolt, added a trigger to the receiver, and... it seems to work.

The safety goes easily into the upright position, the thing fires when the safety's off, but... the safety doesn't want to go into the far right full lock position.

Okay, it did once, but I struggled a little.

So.

Do I need to remove just another RCH's worth on the receiver rail?

Is there a better way to judge when you're done than trial and error?

I know I don't want to take too much off.

TIA,

flaco

If I understand your post, the bolt is not fully locking when closed, ie it needs to go clockwise a bit more to fully lock. I've always relieved the bolt rather than mess with the rail.

flaco,

Who did your welding.

Tell me it wasn't Jeffe.

LD

An easy way to tell would be to install and lock the bolt with the firing pin assembly removed, and look at where the bolt's cocking notch is, in relation to the cocking channel. When the bolt lugs are fully engaged, the right edge of the bolt's cocking notch and that of the channel should be aligned.

Malm's way is correct and easy also, but you need to know that the safety will work when you are done. You need to allow the bolt to rotate a bit more. take some more material from the receiver until the flag safety will rotate fully to the safe position. Then check the cocking piece/action relationship. If you have it too far, or not far enough, you will get a bolt jump, or a jam (tighten) when you fire it.