Cleaning up a pitted bolt face

aric84

aric84

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Anyone have some good tips to clean up a pitted bolt face? I'm currently trying to sell a rifle but I am guessing that the pitting on the blot face is scaring people away more than the price. The picture makes it look a lot worse than it is, it doesn't affect bolt throw that I have noticed and the brass only ever has a slightest mark from it.

I am not wanting to put a pile of money in to this and was wondering if it is possible to maybe silver solder the face to fill in the pits and then clean up the face again on the mill/lathe? Just not sure if the solder would hold up, but it would certainly look a heck of a lot better!

Other ideas? Leave it the hell alone?

Here is the problem, and like I said, it looks a lot uglier in the photo than it really is!

 
Only way to clean it up would be to take a pass off it on a lathe.
That will increase headspace by as many thousandths of an inch as are removed.
It isn't not pretty, but if it doesn't affect shooting, leave it alone.
 
Well, I'm not setup to remove the barrel and set it back to fix the headspace so I'll just leave it I guess. It's a shame since the rest of the rifle is really is pretty good shape... Previous owner shot old surplus out of it(I have the boxes) and I guess a few primers let go or he just didn't clean it in time.

Shame...
 
It's a big job but the bolt face can be machined back 40 thou and a thin 'washer' soldered in place and then machined to the correct headspace, the firing pin hole drilled and the ejector clearance filed... the only portion of the bolt face that would not be cleaned up would be the lower portion outside of the 'washer'. Easier to replace the bolt...
 
It's probably not worth it. Apart from the remarks above, if not removing the pitting but simply to clean it up, have you tried using Flitz, Autosol or similar?

From the pic, it looks to be a Mauser variant, possibly a Parker-Hale/Santa Barbara based on machine marks and extractor shape. You might have luck finding a replacement bolt but likely, it's not really worth to do so. Post a pic of the rifle.
 
Winz said:
From the pic, it looks to be a Mauser variant, possibly a Parker-Hale/Santa Barbara based on machine marks and extractor shape. You might have luck finding a replacement bolt but likely, it's not really worth to do so. Post a pic of the rifle.
Click to expand...

The pits aren't going to polish out, they're about .010 to .015 deep at the worst point.

It's an FN98 I have listed in the EE right now. Probably not hard to find a bolt since they were sold under so many other brand names but again, if I am selling it, it's not really worth my time to fit a new bolt as the bolt would be almost half the value of the rifle.

Thanks for the help guys, here is a pic since it was asked for:

 
Weld it up, put the bolt in the mill and run a small cutter over the high spots of the welding. Or, sell the scope separate and sell the gun for a lower price to someone who want to take the gun as is.
 
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