Excessive bolt face wear?

-raqh-

-raqh-

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Just received a used rifle in 308.

This is how the bolt face looks, with obvious gas leakage wear.

WuM9D0.jpg


Am I too picky/worried for nothing? Or is this bad/potential danger? Rifle was sold to me as a used, but good shooter. This wasn't pointed out, but I didn't ask for specific pictures either so kind of an half and half responsibility I guess...

Is it excessive? Should the seller of pointed it out or is it usual on well used target rifles? (This is my first one).

I get mixed opinions and never saw one that used up.
 
Yikes, somebody wasn’t taking the hints that their primers were giving them. That’s too bad.

I don’t believe that it’s any danger to operation, but it looks nasty.

If you wanted to repair it one option would be to have a bolt face bushing installed and machined, which is often done to correct sloppy fit of the firing pin to the hole in the bolt face. This may not actually be an issue in your rifle but it has the benefit of cleaning up all those nasty divots in your bolt face.

I considered buying a PGW Coyote that had photos of an equally abused bolt face and checked with my gunsmith if he could repair it via a bushing.

That said it may not create a danger, but if it were mine my OCD would drive me to have it repaired.
 
A damaged face as that makes it easier for a primer to blow out and cause more damage... so keep your loads reasonable. Shame on the seller of that rifle.

I would have a gunsmith machine the bolt face and insert a spacer to keep the headspace and initial extraction correct. It should look like new when finished.
 
What action is that? Rem 783 or Savage?
I would:
a) if the seller did not disclose the condition, demand a refund.
b) if you want to keep it, get a smith to fix it like guntech said, or replace the bolt head if possible.
 
Looks like they were using that bad lot of winchester LRP that many people ran into a few years back. I had 2 that leaked on me. Gunsmith machines out that section and installed a bushing. Cheap fix and couldnt even see the bushing. Our small town local gunsmith said he has fixed a number of bolt faces due to those primers.

If I was you I would demand my money back from the seller or send him the bill. There is no way the seller could have missed that issue. Absolutely no excuse for ripping a member of our community off, especially during these times.
Good luck and keep us posted
 
Alpheus said:
Ah, so its a Mossberg MVP. You should be able to source a replacement bolt head from somewhere.
Click to expand...
Indeed, but from what I can find, only an official service center is gonna have em, and won't sell em as they want the complete rifle to check headspace (necessary for straight up replacement? I don't know... but surely safer)

Doing some inquiries at this point so I know approx, how much cash I'm looking at...
 
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