Back last October I sold a gentleman two new Ruger American .270's. One Blued and one stainless. He and his son used them for deer hunting and put about two boxes of ammo each through them. The ammo was Federal. He brought them in to be cleaned and lubed for storage. I noticed while cleaning them that the bolt faces were both pitted around the firing pin hole. The pitting is a uniform donut. I've never seen new guns shooting new ammo do this. Yeah, sure after several hundred rounds you see a little but this is different. They look like some old Mauser war relic. Has anyone else observed this?

I have seen Federal brass loosen primer pockets when the factory load was fired and, of course, the primer would leak. Sometimes, Federal brass is just too soft. A few years back, a fellow was shoot some Federal 308 Match at an "F" class match. He said I could have the brass and at least 70% of the primer pockets were too loose to hold a primer! Regards, Bill.

Are you sure the pockets are enlarged?
FWIW,
In the past 6 years or so, I have had problems with several lots of Remington and Winchester primers that were defective to the point where the primer would blow out in the corner of the cup, NOT at the base of the primer pocket. Gas would leak and pit the bolt face as well as the case face just like a classic blow-out from an enlarged primer pocket. But the primer pockets were NOT enlarged and the pocket itself wasn't gas-cut. The brass could be resized and reloaded with a tight seated primer on the next go.
Upon the next firing, there were zero problems.
IMO, with globalization, a lot of the materials being used now-a-days are simply inferior and do not meet traditional requirements.
Frankly, I have the least problems with CCI primers.....so far.

95eaR,
I have not, of course, seen the offending ammunition but from the description, there was no failure of the primer cup. I have to say, every case of a primer cup failure such as you describe and of which I have heard, has been either Winchester or Remington. No Federal, No CCI. You may be right about the inferior materials. Who knows where they get the stuff. Regards, Bill.

Similarly, I've never had this problem with CCI primers, regardless of the brass origin. I just use regular old CCI-200.

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I noticed while cleaning them that the bolt faces were both pitted around the firing pin hole. The pitting is a uniform donut.

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Has anyone else observed this?

Yes, I have seen precisely this. My son and I shoot reloads through our Blaser 30.06 rifles. We use the same projectile, but each rifle requires it's own load. To distinguish loads I use CCI 200 primers ( steel colour ), he used old Norma Superflash primers ( bronze colour ). After shooting about 200 rounds the exact symptom you described so well appeared on the face of his bolt. However there was never a blown or leaked primer seen. We use Norma brass and often found the seated Norma primers projecting above the surface of the rim. A more forceful repeat of seating was required to push them deeper and below the rim surface. We don't know if this distorts the primer somehow and leads to pitting but he has changed primers now so hopefully end of problem. I can say with CCI 200 primers and approx 1,000 shots there has never been an issue, and they almost always seat beautifully every time.