NEW M305 broke the bolt!

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Hi!

I broke the bolt on a new M305 about 100 rounds in! The failure occured in a fairly stong part, too, right behing the main locking lug, the one holding the roller. It looks like that's some pretty bad steel those chinese are shipping. That or it wasn't tempered right and was brittle. It doesn't skate a file though so I think its just bad steel.

Anybody seen that before?


Broken%20bolt.jpg


I have to say the rifle is awesome to shoot though, I will be dropping a new bolt in there quickly. I just have to find a good one.

Was grouping about 4 inches, I will unitize the gas system soon too and see what it does

Nice forum!
 
There seems to be a run on broken bolts lately....

There’s a few GI bolts out there right now (Wolverines Supplies would be my first call for a GI Bolt), and a few of us have spare Chinese bolts laying about (the Equipment Exchange have a few floating around), if you have any trouble sourcing a replacement ask in the forum and somebody will point you towards one.

John
 
maltextract said:
If the Norinco specs followed the m-14 production spec GI bolts they are only low-carbon steel to begin with, I doubt that it could ever get hard enough to skate a file
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Maybe! With that kind of failure though I would be willing to bet they are not following original specs...
 
m14medic.ca said:
There seems to be a run on broken bolts lately....

There’s a few GI bolts out there right now (Wolverines Supplies would be my first call for a GI Bolt), and a few of us have spare Chinese bolts laying about (the Equipment Exchange have a few floating around), if you have any trouble sourcing a replacement ask in the forum and somebody will point you towards one.

John
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Nice info. Say I'd buy another original chinese bolt, how do you avoid getting a lemon?
 
One thing to remember about manufacturing is that better steel is rarely used when it’s not required, if the original used low carbon steel I can’t imagine the Chinese deciding to put expensive alloys in its place. Is there any voids or a change in the structure at the break? If 8620 is case harderned for wear as it is in a bolt it can be hardened to much, or not hardened enough, did it break in half or in pieces?
 
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maltextract said:
One thing to remember about manufacturing is that better steel is rarely used when it’s not required, if the original used low carbon steel I can’t imagine the Chinese deciding to put expensive alloys in its place. Is there any voids or a change in the structure at the break? If 8620 is case harderned for wear as it is in a bolt it can be hardened to much, or not hardened enough, did it break in half or in pieces?
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The locking lug holding the roller broke clean at the base.
 
I think this is the third thread on this, best find a good usgi bolt and get it headspaced. I got mine done at m14 medic. John is amazing and very resonable $ wise.
 
The US GI Garand bolts were quite hard and I can't see the US GI M14 bolts deviating too much from this. I'm away from my books for a while, so I can't verify steel composition or hardness specs. Who knows about the Norinco stuff though.
 
maltextract said:
One thing to remember about manufacturing is that better steel is rarely used when it’s not required, if the original used low carbon steel I can’t imagine the Chinese deciding to put expensive alloys in its place. Is there any voids or a change in the structure at the break? If 8620 is case harderned for wear as it is in a bolt it can be hardened to much, or not hardened enough, did it break in half or in pieces?
Click to expand...

do you have any real knowledge and experience with the M14 platform ? if not , pipe down and let the rest of us who do , offer our thoughts.

we are seeing far too many broken bolts lately, a problem rarely seen when i had the shop open servicing these rifles. As someone who has handled 100's of the chinese M14S/M305 rifles, in nearly all configurations..... I can say that this brittle bolt situation is a new issue. The fact that since joining here in 2006, pretty much 80 to 90% of my posted content has been pertaining to this platform, I can say without a doubt, that these suspect bolts are either the rejects from previous years manufacture...... or somewhere in china , they are manufacturing new bolts. Who knows what goes on in China, maybe they never did stop making M14S/M305 parts.... maybe they just recently , in past few years, brought machinery out of storage and started up again.

Someone out there knows, but I don't. What I do know is that a fella that has wayyyyy more experienced in these things and has had business dealings with norinco/polytech for decades dropped some info on me back in 2010. I was told that the china was at the bottom of the barrel when it came to the parts manufactured for these rifles, including receivers, in the 90's, that brought us all those excellent rifles 98 to 09.
The proof is in the pudding..... something changed after 2009 ..... right around the time we started seeing other companies invest in the chinese firearms and doing thier own importing. I have not been comfortable buying a chinese m14 type rifle of any year after 2009... and I have never broken a chinese M14 bolt. I've also put 1000's of rounds down range in 100's of chinese m14 type rifles from stock to highly modified..... and never broken a bolt.

I'm not an expert...... I just play one on CGN
 
Smitsauce said:
Wouldn't this still be under warranty?? Did you contact the seller where you bought it?
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and this is my next question.
The rifle should be returned , it is faulty and could have seriously injured the shooter.
I am all for supporting John @ M14medic.ca and refer anyone contacting me for builds to his bench..... but at the same time, dealers need to be held accountable when they sell us faulty dangerous goods. I'm sure Norinco isn't going to issue a bolt recall but if the dealers and importers aren't held accountable..... you will still be finding faulty rifles on the shelves and in the EE , waiting for the next unsuspecting m14 enthusiast to have a bad experience.

I hope all the dealers of these rifles are reading this thread and my comments.
 
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