Guys-

Was looking at a pre-64 FWT (30-06) of mid 50's vintage the other day, and noticed that the bolt face had been "machined" as though the action had been trued up, or something similar. The face of the bolt where it appeared to be "turned" was not blued (like the r est of the boltface), and was slightly depressed relative to to the rest of the bolt face outside the diameter of the case head.

So, while I am far from an expert, I do not recall seeing a bolt on an unmodified rifle that appeared this way, and was hoping to get some input from the more knowledgeable of you. The shop owner, knew nothing, of course. There were no stampings on the barrel other than the factory ones, and the front receiver ring still had its blue finish, so......?

Any thoughts as to whether this rifle could have left the factory like this?

TIA,

Bob

The only way to know for sure is to check the head space on the rifle to see if it was altered. With a feather weight barrel it is easy to tell if it has been taken up any to accommodate the machining on the bolt face.

The pre-64 bolt faces are usually not polished out pretty and most of the bolt faces are somewhat recessed(a lip) on the mid-50's on up.The early years are flat with no lip or recess on the bolt face.Allthe fwt's. that i have owned and looked at have this lip or recess,nothing like a 700,but a small one.I never owned one with a blued bolt face??

Thanks for the replys guys!

Well I have learned (from a very reliable source) that what you say, WTB, is in fact the case. Starting somewhere in the mid-50s, the bolt faces were "machined" to ensure that they were squared-up. This operation was not performed on earlier models, and thus the earlier ones do look different, which is what confused me as I had been looking primarily at older M-70s. Also, on rimless ctgs (ie 30-06) the bolt face is likely to be left in the white (may be factory blued though), whereas the belted mags will typically be blued on the bolt face.

Regards,

Bob

Blackbart

It was something like you last posted.

The early guns had the bolt faces machined and polished out most of the tool marks. Then chamber was recut to headspace them.

Then to reduce time, Winchester left about .010" in the bolt face and recut the face of the bolt to headspace it to the barrel. If you measure enough of them you will find that the prewar and postwar are still usally within .003" of each variation.

This was simply a different way of fitting the headspace and save time due to type of machinery used.

One of the bad ones I have seen though that fell thru the cracks were. A 264 that they left about .035" lip which caused feeding problems.

Jim Wisner