.303 Enfield pitted bolt face

[Topload]

My .303 Enfield has a badly pitted bolt face and I was wondering if this hinders accuracy or is a safety concern? For the most part, I reload all my own .303 ammo and have been going rather light on the loads but thought I'd check and see what the collective thoughts were of the forum.

Thanks for your insight.

 

[Howard31]

Bolt face

Looks like pitting from years of shooting corrosive primed ammo . I pesonally would not worry about it and would continue to shoot it for ever. If you are worried about it simply replace the bolt body.

 

[Dfariswheel]

With the Lee-Enfield, you don't replace the bolt body, you only have to replace the bolt head.
Lee-Enfield bolt heads are numbered so that if a rifle developed excess head space a longer bolt head could be installed.

Simply determine what model rifle you have and check the number on the bolt head. Then buy a new one with the same number.
Yours looks like a #4 rifle.

 

[Topload]

Thanks - it is a No. 4 rifle. As long as it isn't a safety concern, I'll keep shooting. Its a fun rifle to shoot - not all that accurate but its good shooting a piece of history.

 

[Kiwi Hunter]

Thats nowhere NEAR a badly pitted enfield boltface Ignore - shoot - enjoy

 

[Jerry45]

I know the is an old post but I think I may now have the answer. I've been shooting new Remington Brass in my Remington 06. The old brass, from the 70's I've had no problems with even after 8 to 10 reloads. However after about 8 relabellings some of the new (purchased last year) brass started blowing holes at the edge of the primer pocket. I threw everything away that was loaded 5 or more times and broke out a new batch. I prepped 30 new cases. Annealed, full length sized and chamfered inside and outside of the neck. 2 of the brand new casings blew holes. Now I've been using the same load for years. There's never been a sign of overpressure and the old brass has held up just fine with no holes blown in the primer pocket edge.

My bolt face shows the same piting as those pictured. Seems someone else had problems with holes being blown in the primer pockets.

Strange thing! I just received a custom 308. I loaded 20 rounds of once fired Winchester brass. Peeped it and loaded Lyman's starting load (43.0 gr. IMR 4064) for brake-in purposes. 2 out of 20 blew holes n the primer pocket edge. I've shot 50 new, prepped Nosler cases for latter testing five of which were max load (48.0 gr. 4064) with no problem. I now have two pits in my brand new bolt face.

Anyway that's what the pits pictured look like to me.