SMLE bolt roughness

fat tony

fat tony

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I have a bubba #1 MK III * with the metal work not too bad of a shape, and it's a good shooter, the bolt is mismatched, I would like it to be a lot smoother during the manipulation, especially when camming into and out of the lugs, is there anyway to get it smoother or should I send it to a smith to get this done properly? :confused:
 
bolt roughness

fat tony said:
I have a bubba #1 MK III * with the metal work not too bad of a shape, and it's a good shooter, the bolt is mismatched, I would like it to be a lot smoother during the manipulation, especially when camming into and out of the lugs, is there anyway to get it smoother or should I send it to a smith to get this done properly? :confused:
Click to expand...

especially when camming into and out of the lugs ? ? ?

Be carefull with this one! If you are having trouble with closing the bolt, someone may have fired some super heavy loads in your rifle, and the recoil has set the bolt lugs and locking area of the receiver back a bit.

I would take it to a gunsmith first, and tell him about it, and see what he says.
.
 
I had a Bubba'd No 4 that did that. It turned out that someone had taken the safety lever off and re-installed it indexed in the wrong position. So the lever was in the fire position but the other half of the safety that interupts the bolts function; was partialy engaged.
It was noticably reluctant to lift or lower the bolt.
But the bolt would slide back-n-forth ok.
But it was an easy fix thank god
 
fat tony said:
...snip during the manipulation, especially when camming into and out of the lugs, is there anyway to get it smoother or should I send it to a smith to get this done properly? :confused:
Click to expand...
DO NOT LAP A SMLE BOLT. Especially if you don't know exactly what you are doing.

Add oil and manipulate bolt. To check for a worn out receiver: remove magazine, put upward pressure on the bolt bottom as it is pushed forward to lock, cam closed. Of it binds on the top of the receiver ring, the problem is your action is worn.

Lapping it will only make the wear problem worse in a worn gun, and accellerate wear in a good one.
 
As a test, borrow a bolt assembley from another rifle and see what the difference is in feel. If an improvement is felt, then you need to look carefully at your bolt. Usualy, bolt locking lugs and grooves wear in to be smoother, not rougher, and up to a point, some wear means a slicker action.

I admit to having used Brasso on a bolt and worked the action to smooth things out, but only a very limited amount. It does work. Not good to remove metal from the face of locking lugs or grooves as it can create other problems.

At the moment of opening or closing the bolt handle, the bolt is taken out of, or put into into battery. Simultaneously, there is a knubby on the cocking piece that rides up or down the face of a cam groove in the end of the bolt body. On opening of the bolt, the knubby pushes the cocking piece back about 1/16 inch against spring tension and retracts the striker pin. If the knubby, track, firing fin or spring assembley is chewed or corroded, then roughness will be felt in the bolt handle. Sometimes the 'pointy bit' on the track between the two groves gets worn or munched and the knubby is hard to cam. Not an easy fix if buggered other than replacing parts, but an area worth looking at.
 
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Tokguy may have hit on the reason. Remove bolt, then check to see if the safety lug withdraws completely from the reciever wall in the fire position. There are many ways to assembly the safety, BUT only ONE is correct.
Bubba could have taken the rifle to bits when he sportyized it, and put the safety back together incorrectly.
 
Englishman, do you have any pics? My impression of 'knubby' does not really bring anything to mind if you know what I mean. I examined the safety, it appears to be functioning correctly, when I flip the lever it retracts all the way to fire. It's not nearly as smooth as my bolt on my #5 MKI which flies back and forth like greased lightning. And finally I stated at the beginning of the thread that the metal work is just fine, considering the age of the gun (1918 GR).
 
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