.

Thanks for the photos, any chance of a enlargement showing the difference between the Oberndorf and the Burgess.
Bob

i suppose this eliminates the need for super glue

What photos?

From Duane's website

Obie Left, Burgess right

Duane, do you have any more pictures of the weld area before finishing. Also how deep and wide is the bevel when you start. Jack Belk post pictures of his weld handles and his looked to be one large bevel with multiple passes.

Thanks Duane. I forget what the reason Belk felt he needed 100% penetration. It seem to me to that it added alot of unnecessary heat to the bolt.

I'm totally amazed.

If you've never seen full penetration then IMO you've never seen it done correctly.
Regards, Joe

quote:

Originally posted by J.D.Steele:
I'm totally amazed.

If you've never seen full penetration then IMO you've never seen it done correctly.
Regards, Joe

You don't need full penetration to do it "correctly". You just need enough so when the final shaping is finished, it will withstand an idiot and his rock.

quote:

Originally posted by J.D.Steele:
I'm totally amazed.

If you've never seen full penetration then IMO you've never seen it done correctly.
Regards, Joe

I would like to see some photos of your method that is done "correctly".

It's not necessarily a question of being 'strong enough'; in my mind it's more a question of at least reasonably-good workmanship as opposed to 'just good enough'.

One of the first things I was taught at Trinidad was welding bolt handles, and the first test that the instructor used was to clamp the bolt body in a vise and give the handle a heckuva whack with a big hammer. If it bent then it was OK; if it cracked then it failed. Full penetration was not only taught, it was emphasized and made a requirement for passing.

As far as breaking it off without tools, if I can clamp the welded handle in a vise then I can easily bend or break the body off using nothing more than my hands. 'Course, I'm 6"-5" and weigh close to 300....

I'm not a REAL pro welder but have done plenty of bolt handles (haven't kept count but certainly w-a-a-a-y more than 50; MIG, TIG, stick and gas) and other things, and have worked around REAL pro welders for decades down at the nukie. We, like most nuke plants, have a Weld Test Shop where the pro welders come to practice and get professional help from our (degreed) Welding Engineers on the more than 50 different welding procedures used in the industry.

We, like all nukies, have Non-Destructive Examination facilities with X-ray, magnaflux and sonic capabilities, plus we routinely require that the weld-test 'coupons' be sectioned for visual examination of completed welds. I'm intimately familiar with faulty welds as well as the problems with interior voids left by insufficient beveling and shallow penetration.

I repeat, I am astonished and somewhat embarrassed for anyone who does this sort of work. All it takes for a proper job is a root pass and then 1 or 2 filler passes on each side, an extra 5 minutes, what's the big deal?

Leaving any interior voids is CERTAINLY NOT 'best' quality work IMO. I personally would be ashamed. Kinda like polishing the visible parts of the rifle for blueing but leaving the hidden parts rough, it's just not good workmanship IMO.

I don't have anything against Duane personally, in fact I've said before that I genuinely admire and applaud his willingness to share his experience and expertise with the rest of us. However, like the rest of us, I have my own opinion and sometimes it's different, unfortunately.
Regards, Joe

I suppose one can just add full penetration bolt handle welding to the list of other debateable subjects like;

-whether or not one should alter an pristine original mauser action for a custom,(some say no,.. until it comes to buiding their rifle.)
- whether one should re-heatreat an mauser.
-whether one should lap a barrel
-whether one really requires the fanciest walnut & finest inletting to kill an elk.
-whether one should strive for .5" groups in a hunting rifle or be glad with 1.5"
-what is the offical distance at which hunting becomes just plain shooting...if there actually is a diff.

quote:

Posted 17 February 2010 13:21 Hide Post
.

One of the first things I was taught at Trinidad was welding bolt handles, and the first test that the instructor used was to clamp the bolt body in a vise and give the handle a heckuva whack with a big hammer. If it bent then it was OK; if it cracked then it failed. Full penetration was not only taught, it was emphasized and made a requirement for passing.

Joe, I don't think either of you guys are "wrong" in your method, Personally, I do it like Duane and have also never had one come off. One of the things about the above quote is you have to understand that the instructor at Trinidad has his opinion and passed it on to you. Who's to say if you had a different one you would be doing it like Duane and I.

quote:

Originally posted by J.D.Steele:
'Course, I'm 6"-5" and weigh close to 300....

Okay I give... what are you???

Anyway, back to the topic at hand.

WOOHOOOO! That 375H&H up there is mine!

quote:

Originally posted by Westpac:

quote:

Originally posted by J.D.Steele:
'Course, I'm 6"-5" and weigh close to 300....

Okay I give... what are you???

You mean, besides big & ugly & opinionated? (VBG)

Yes, I've expressed only an opinion and it's worth every penny it cost you. It's always up to the observer to evaluate all input on the subject and then to make the best decision for the circumstances.

Obviously Duane and others have so far been quite successful with their particular approach, and I hope that situation continues. However I personally will continue to spend the extra 5-10 minutes that it takes to make all my welds the full-pen type.

To me, it's an indication of the quality of the rest of the work. Sure, the void is hidden and the partial weldment may be 'strong enough', but what could it possibly hurt to spend an extra 10 mins to make it 'best quality'? If a craftsman skimps on the hidden work, then.....

As always, the person who pays the piper gets to call the tune. If you, as the customer, are prepared to accept this level of work, then your particular chosen professional craftsman is fully justified in working to only this standard and no higher. OTOH I'm not doing this for a living and so will only work to MY standards, regardless of what the 'customer' wants.

Quite frankly, I'm still astounded that any professional craftsman would actually admit to doing this level of work. ESPECIALLY any Guild metalsmith.
Caveat emptor, Joe

quote:

Originally posted by J.D.Steele:
Quite frankly, I'm still astounded that any professional craftsman would actually admit to doing this level of work. ESPECIALLY any Guild metalsmith.
Caveat emptor, Joe

I'm taking an online correspondence course in Proctology and am in need of subject material. Are you available by chance?

quote:

To me, it's an indication of the quality of the rest of the work. Sure, the void is hidden and the partial weldment may be 'strong enough', but what could it possibly hurt to spend an extra 10 mins to make it 'best quality'? If a craftsman skimps on the hidden work, then.....

Duane Wiebe may be a lot of things to a lot of people, and may well be very opinionated himself, but he is far from being the shortcutting hack that your words above imply. He didn't get to where he is by being a slacker or producing sub standard work.

quote:

Originally posted by Duane Wiebe:

Duane, did you make this fixture?

Duane,
In that third picture, are you pre-heating the bolt body? If so, I wasn't aware that that step was required. Probably give you better penetration ;-).
That clamp holding the bolt handle looks eerily similar to one of those strut clamps for hanging stuff from threaded rod off of overhead beams.
Greg

I was thinking lab clamp. I like that fixture plenty of room to weld.

quote:

Originally posted by Westpac:

quote:

Originally posted by J.D.Steele:
Quite frankly, I'm still astounded that any professional craftsman would actually admit to doing this level of work. ESPECIALLY any Guild metalsmith.
Caveat emptor, Joe

I'm taking an online correspondence course in Proctology and am in need of subject material. Are you available by chance?

quote:

To me, it's an indication of the quality of the rest of the work. Sure, the void is hidden and the partial weldment may be 'strong enough', but what could it possibly hurt to spend an extra 10 mins to make it 'best quality'? If a craftsman skimps on the hidden work, then.....

Duane Wiebe may be a lot of things to a lot of people, and may well be very opinionated himself, but he is far from being the shortcutting hack that your words above imply. He didn't get to where he is by being a slacker or producing sub standard work.

I'd have to agree with you Westpac! It would take a sledge hammer & more than a little effort to remove one of those handles.

I can assure that there were no corners cut on the Wiebe rifles I've handled.

quote:

Originally posted by J.D.Steele:
It's not necessarily a question of being 'strong enough'; in my mind it's more a question of at least reasonably-good workmanship as opposed to 'just good enough'.

One of the first things I was taught at Trinidad was welding bolt handles , and the first test that the instructor used was to clamp the bolt body in a vise and give the handle a heckuva whack with a big hammer. If it bent then it was OK; if it cracked then it failed. Full penetration was not only taught, it was emphasized and made a requirement for passing.

I don't want to piss you off(in part because I would like to hear about stick welding bolt handles) but I would be willing to bet you were not taught using TIG when you were at Trinidad.

As we all know the void left behind in a less than full penetration gas or stick weld would have slag that would cause occlusions in subsequent passes. If you want strength with a gas or stick weld, you better have full penetration.

Not so with TIG. The void in a TIG weld would not weaken the weld itself and would only weaken the joint according to the size of the void.

If you look at Duane's bolt handle root you can see that there is a great deal of weld area. Even if he has a small void he most likely still has more total weld than the traditional welded bolt handle.

A properly TIG-ed handle should be more than strong enough, even if it includes a small void. I would be willing to bet that a TIG weld with a void would be stronger than a full penetration Oxy-acetylene weld.

JD, you musta been asleep. A)I'm not a professional so I don't have a photo portfolio, B)I've posted plenty of pics of my work on this forum but I don't brag about it being my work, my work, my work and C)I don't really care if you believe me or not, just think of it as being 'evolution in action'.

I'm not trying to get more work for myself by tearing others down, AAMOF I turn down work all the time. However I AM trying to pay forward and pass along some of my hard-won experience of the last 45 years. If you don't wanta listen, fine, like I said, just consider it to be an example of evolution in action, survival of the fittest.

But just so you don't get your panties in a wad, here are a few pics.


low wall Win with cartridge trap in belly and CDCDSTs


Mauser with multiple traps and a 7-panel Dale Goens checkering pattern.

Now, how about some pics of some of YOUR work?
Regards, Joe

Don't know jd steele from anybody but I know Duane and his work and it is second to nobody!!!. I enjoyed his company in Reno and it was a pleasure to handle his work. I would like to meet the guy that has ever lodged one compplaint about his workmanship and his CHARCTER.

Darrell Ragar

Satterlee advertises a dovetail and weld bolt which seems like a neat idea.

quote:

Originally posted by JBrown:
I don't want to piss you off(in part because I would like to hear about stick welding bolt handles) but I would be willing to bet you were not taught using TIG when you were at Trinidad.
I would be willing to bet that a TIG weld with a void would be stronger than a full penetration Oxy-acetylene weld.

No, of course I didn't learn it at Trinidad, back in the '60s it was called heli-arc welding and folks used Helium as the inert gas. A favorite prank of us simple-minded students was to take a few puffs of Helium and then try to make an operator-assisted collect telephone call while talking like Donald Duck. Simple pleasures for simple minds, I guess. No, I learned modern TIG down at the nukie and later with my own machine. Never did have much success with stick welding of bolt handles, too much spatter and too much cleanup when compared to TIG. Plenty strong though. Found 6010 and 7018 rods to give OK welds, as good as any others I've tried but I have little experience when compared to a REAL welder.

IMO you would be all too likely to lose your TIG-&-void versus oxy-acetylene-&-full-pen wager, depending upon the size of the void, the filler metal and the PWHT of the oxy-acetylene weldment. However as I mentioned, ultimate strength isn't the main point of my opinion; the question in my mind is WHY OH WHY would such an obviously-gifted craftsman stoop to such a ploy to save a mere 10 minutes? I guess it might be different if it was an assembly line with multiple welds to be done in minimal time, but for a multi-thousand-$ custom bespoke supposedly 'best grade' rifle? May be adequate, but then again many things are merely adequate.

But if it makes you happy, why then go for it!
Regards, Joe

Doesn't Homer Simpson work at the Nukie?

I'm puzzled...

Seems to me that it was on this very forum just a few short years ago that there was a similar controversy about a welded bolt handle. Posted photos of the work showed a beautifully finished product, and nobody implied that it wasn't strong enough. However, a photo of the underside showed what appeared to be the two surfaces butted up against one another with the root pass being made from the outside, and the rest subsequently filled in. There was apparently no filler pass made on the underside.

I seem to remember at the time this accusation was taken as a serious insult against their craftsmanship.

Is my memory fading or does anybody else remember this? Wish I could find the post...

Monte,
Yes I remember something like that, and IRCC, the smith in question admmitted to his compromised quality of work.

JD Steele,
whether its ultimately required or not, your desire to achieve close to perfect welds is not a value to be ignored.
If full pen. is an std. you strive for, go for it i say, if others are content with less, that be their freedom of choice.
Barreled Actions dont fall out of a stock if the inletting aint perfect, yet a regarded smith still strives to get his inletting as close as possible.
..Is it because its visual to the eye that it concerns people more?, whereas striving for the best weld penetration aint eye candy, so it dont seem as important, as long as the weld is adequate.

But put out a custom stock with gaps that really dont effect the accuracy and function of a rifle, and the forum critics will be sure to surface.

There are people who appreciate that Satterlee,H&W,GMA?, produce weldless Integral bolt handles, and are prepared to pay for the time & effort it takes.
Likewise,Why do people bother with the extra time & expense of integral feature barrels,..
surely sight components & brl. bands with an less than perfect molecular join to the barrel have proved well adequate?

So Jd,
put an Xray photo here of a perfectly welded bolt handle and you risk being told, why bother its not really needed,
but they may well go all gaga over an intergal featured Ralf Martini barrel on the same rifle.

How strong is strong enough. Not many contemporary rifles have one piece forged bolts. Most are attached somehow. Remington brazes the bolt handle on (I have not seen one that has failed, but I have heard a lot of reports of Rem Bolt Handles coming off). I see on the newer Winchester rifles that they somehow press the handle on the bolt.

I did get to see a true one piece bolt at the SCI Convention this year. I stopped by Satterlee's booth and he spent some time with me explaining how he makes his "bitchin" actions. He makes two bolts with handles from what appears to be about 15-20 pounds of 4140 steel. I'll tell you that there has to be one helleva lot of chips when he is done.

I think (and by no means do I claim to be a good welder) that a properly, closely fitted bolt handle as Mr. Wiebe does will look a lot better than one that has been welded at the root and requires filing/grinding to get the bolt to close.

I am told by good welders that one can place a piece of copper on the underside of the bolt handle and you can weld the joint cleanly.

In my opinion, the real test is will the handle come off in any real world test. One can get enough leverage or a heavy enough hammer to completely destroy the bolt while attempting to get the handle to let go.

The one piece bolt is an option on the Satterlee web site. Standard is the the dovetail/welded bolt.

Duane,

How do you reharden the cocking notch on the bolt. Kasenite? (sp)

From what I have seen and read,Duane does some fine work.I would like to see more of his product.

22WRF,

You are right. It does look good

Thanks Duane,

That makes sense, I guess the carbon is still there from the original heat treat...no need to add more. Just reharden it.

22WRF, the guy accused me of not posting any pics of my work, he didn't specify that the pics be of bolt handles. I'll be sure to rush right out and take some more pics, especially for you!

And furthermore the quality of my work, or lack of same, is not the question here. You may try to draw attention away from the central issue by personal attacks on me and/or my own work, but it's just more weasel-words. Didn't someone say that you were a lawyer....?
Regards, Joe

Well, I took the challenge and brought my Wiebe made 416 Rigby into the shop to do a strength test on the welded bolt handle. I smacked the crap out of it with my 2.5 pound sledge hammer. The good news is that the bolt handle held up just fine. The bad news is that the stock didn't fare so well.

Duane, do you happen to have a spare blank lying around?

For what it's worth I've seen and handled Joe's work. It is very good.

Jerry Liles

I have no problems with Duane's work...(WELD)





He sure has a way with the Mexicans...