Cooey bolt handle

The handle is either dovetailed and brazed or set in a shallow cut and induction brazed.
Red heat is going to ruin either.
 
If you can use something to prevent the 'red' from going down the handle to the bolt body and very quickly apply the 'red' to the area you want bent and then cool the bolt body quickly - you may get away with it. Propane will not do it. Acetylene is required.
 
Al Bear said:
Pardon me for taking this post a bit sideways but I want to put more of a bend on the bolt handle of my own Cooey in order for the gun to fit better in the case. After removing the internals from the bolt ( assuming I’m capable), will getting it red hot ruin anything? I’m not sure how the bolt handle is attached to the bolt.
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Some years ago I partially sawed through a bolt handle of a Mauser 98 - then heated to red hot - then bent to about 90 degrees - then partially sawed through a second time in a different place and bent the knob out and back - filled all those open "knees" with wire-fed arc weld. From instructions I read, I got the various stuff from Brownell's. I had screwed in a "heat sink" in place of the bolt shroud, set the thing into "forging blocks" in a bench vice, and slathered "heat stop paste" all over - apparently any one of those three things would have been enough - the heat colours did not get all the way to the bolt root - the front locking lugs did not even get warm - the internal threads at the inside rear of that bolt showed no change and the hardened cocking cam would still skip a file. But that was the one and only time that I tried to do that.

I think the 1950's gunsmithing book by Roy Dunlap (?) describes a similar process by continuously dribbling water onto / over something - a rag (?), asbestos cloth (?) wrapped around that bolt body to keep it "cool-ish", while he gas welded a new bolt handle to the old bolt stub on the bolt body.
 
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guntech said:
The total Cooey line of .22's should be left to die... there are much better rifles out there...
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Of course there are. I personally use a BRNO No.5 for rabbit hunting, I retired a Cooey 75 I got at the age of 14 when I found the BRNO. However, when a young hunter comes to my shop which his grampa's Cooey and wants me to resuscitate it so he can feel pride in shooting with his ancestor's rifle, I’m more than happy to oblige. That kind of customer is more than happy to pay for the work and doesn't bicker about the cost of repairs like the original owner of the rifle did.
 
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