1903 bolt sleeve "unlocks"

H

haveblue

Inactive
I have a sporterized 1903 and the bolt sleeve will unlock after a few cycles. The sleeve will unlock and rotate so that the bolt will not close, it has to be removed, charging handle cocked, and rotated back into position. I have cleaned the bolt,and inspected the lock and bolt locking notch. This gun is not worn out, but has sat for many years. I have soaked the sleeve in solvent for a week, and it seems to lock better..The lock lug protrudes more, but doesn't seem to go far enough forward into the bolt notch. Have any of you had this problem?
 
I think you are on the right track with the solvent, keep soaking and working the lock in and out. That is a small hole and if it is full of cosmoline or old oil or dirt, the lock just won't work. If the lock is worn (rounded off) it and the spring should be replaced. Check www.gunpartscorp.com ; they had them for a few dollars.

Jim
 
I have a sporterized 1903 and the bolt sleeve will unlock after a few cycles.
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I have at least 5 03 Springfield rifles that have been sporterised; all of the bolt sleeves have detents. To rotate the sleeve the bolt must be removed from the receiver. I do not believe your bolt is assembled correctly.

F. Guffey
 
When you close the bolt, does the safety lug on the right sit down on the rail or is it up a little? If up, the bolt may not be closing all the way and the lock not engaging or jumping. This is often caused by the notch in the stock not quite deep enough for the bolt to close all the way. Another common issue is the space between the bolt handle root and the body isn't sufficient to clear the receiver. Many carve that area out a little like the 1903A4 sniper until the bolt lays down all the way.
Just some suggestions. Maybe just a worn lock.
 
Check when the bolt is in the closed position. Locking lugs may be hanging up in the channel. Brownells has a cleaning system that cleans the channel ,looks like a rectangular shaped cotton pad. Have you checked headspace. Is the chamber longer then normal.
 
There is a bit of misunderstanding here also. The bolt sleeve lock is not really intended to keep the sleeve from rotating with the safety in the READY (off) position as it would be while firing the rifle. It is to keep the sleeve from rotating if the bolt is opened with the safety in the dismount (straight up) position. If that happens in the 1893 Mauser (the "ancestor" of the Model 1903), the rifle is inoperable until the bolt sleeve is set straight and the bolt closed. Mauser corrected the problem with its own bolt sleeve lock in the Model 1898, but the Springfield designers never saw a 98 Mauser and so used their own system.

Jim
 
I have at least 5 03 Springfield rifles that have been sporterised; all of the bolt sleeves have detents. To rotate the sleeve the bolt must be removed from the receiver. I do not believe your bolt is assembled correctly.
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There is a bit of misunderstanding here also
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Then there is a problem with reading comprehension/

F. Guffey
 
And then there should be some type of bolt stop, all of my 03 and 03A3 bolt stops have 3 positions; one is up, another is down and then there is the middle position or sticking out.

F. Guffey
 
What you seem to be describing is the magazine cut-off, which has no connection with either the safety lock or the bolt sleeve lock.

I agree that reading comprehension is a problem when folks invent their own parts nomenclature. The cut-off is not called the bolt stop; the bolt stop in an M1903 (there is none in the M1903A3) is a small pin, powered by a flat spring, that keeps an open bolt from sliding forward during a manual of arms. It has nothing at all to do with the OP's question about the bolt sleeve lock.

Jim
 
Uh, right, ok, got it...I think, maybe, sort of.........not really..

James, I haven't seen a bolt stop since I had a Mark 1. Most were removed at one point or another either during rebuild or when they failed. Not many know about those. Remington 03's eliminated them early in production, March 1942. And your right, A3's never had em.
 
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The '03 bolt stop was a carryover from the Krag, which got the same result by the little pin in the extractor fitting into the notch in the receiver. Both it and the cutoff were really unnecessary refinements, though the latter makes more sense. Contrary to much nonsense, the cutoff was not to prevent waste of ammunition but to keep the full magazine in reserve for something like a cavalry charge.

Jim
 
0413162158.jpg My terminology may have been a bit off, so I blame myself for some of the confusion...the bolt, and magazine cutoff seem to work fine, but the bolt sleeve will rotate to "unlock" after several, or just a few cycles. after opening the bolt.as illustrated by the poor picture.
 
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You can see how the sleeve lock has disengaged from the detent on the bolt...maybe I need to just disassemble it, and clean it really well. I really don't see any wear...my father just handed me down this rifle, we did not shoot it much at all...but it has set in a gun cabinet untouched for maybe 20 years. Yeah, I gave him hell for that! :p
 
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I guess I should add that the sleeve seems to lock well..but will 'fly' easily to the unlocked position.. like there is too much spring tension on it ,forcing it to release. I haven't seen this in videos I have researched..but am not familiar with the 1903 action.
 
Looking at your picture I would have to say that the notch in the bolt looks suspect. It would appear that one side of that notch is worn or filed at an angle. It maybe the picture, but I would check that. This should be a square notch. The lock piece looks decent, not worn out. You do realize that at some point someone took a GI bolt, cut the handle off and re-welded it back on at a different angle and then ground the heck out of the weld to smooth it all back out. They also removed the original GI safety and installed that Beuhler safety which allows one to safe and unsafe from the right side and not hit the scope. This entails reworking the firing pin/cocking piece notches to work.
I will say, I have run into more of those safeties that were problematic in various ways that I simply remove them and restore the GI one. This probably has nothing to do with your issue but thought I would mention that as well.
Without having other examples of a sporterized bolt to play with and figure it out, you might have to take it to a gunsmith and hope they are familiar with these and let them have a crack at it.
 
What I don't really understand is that the bolt sleeve lock really doesn't keep the bolt sleeve from turning in normal use. In the bolt body itself, just to the left (clockwise) from the cocking cam is a detent in which the cocking piece rides when the bolt is open. That is what keeps the bolt sleeve from rotating when the bolt is operated normally, and its action does not depend on or affect the bolt sleeve lock. (With the bolt open, try pressing the bolt sleeve lock in; there should still be resistance to turning the bolt sleeve.)

So it seems to me that we have two problems here; the detent is not working and the bolt sleeve lock is not working. I can only think that that rifle is either extremely badly worn, or was worked over by someone who really messed things up.

Jim
 
Jim, I think what is happening is when he "works" the bolt, open and closed while loading rounds, the bolt sleeve is turning beyond the sleeve lock notch when Open The sleeve certainly can't turn on the bolt in the closed position but if that notch is worn or the sleeve lock itself is worn it can fail to lock into the notch when opened.
Now, it's not a common thing to run into but, this bolt has been sporterized and the safety changed. I mentioned this in my earlier reply as unless you know what you need to do to make that Beuhler safety work smoothly, you have to file an angle to the safety notches on the firing pin itself. (note, the striker is the part that actually hits the primer). I have seen where do it yourselfers have filed on just about everything trying to get that safety to work right, including filing the sleeve lock.
If it's the notch in the bolt body, about all you can do is deepen it with a file and hope it's enough to grab the lock enough. He would need a good file.

I have at least 10 of these 03's in various examples of sported and original plus 10 extra bolts of the same. It's interesting what you run into with these as so many of them were sportered back in the day, some well done, some kind of iffy.
 
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Technically, the part with the safety notches is the cocking piece. While most parts diagrams call the part "firing pin" or "firing pin rod", the firing pin rod is the straight part. It is screwed and then swaged into the cocking piece to form a permanent assembly.

But yes, there is something wrong if the bolt sleeve can turn easily with the bolt open. I only have a couple of spare bolts that I got at $5 apiece, but I have M1903's and M1903A3's, and none of them will do what the OP's bolt does. Even if I push in the lock, the sleeve still won't turn without a degree of force.

Jim
 
"Technically, the part with the safety notches is the cocking piece. While most parts diagrams call the part "firing pin" or "firing pin rod", the firing pin rod is the straight part. It is screwed and then swaged into the cocking piece to form a permanent assembly."

Correct, they also once mated up, hammered the end in and then ground it off. You will not ever unscrew those....lol.

I have had one sleeve that would easily be displaced similar to his. In that case it was clearly the sleeve pin that had been worn or filed at an angle. Replace the sleeve, or the pin and it's corrected. In his case, and again, looking at the poor picture, I think the notch in the bolt body is suspect.

I can't begin to list all the problems caused and their results with amateur sporterized bolts.
 
Many amateur "gunsmiths", and some pros, have the idea that every part has to be ground, filed, stoned, polished, and rounded off in order to look good and work "smoothly." Nope.

Jim
 
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