mauser bolts

[tahunua001]

hello all. I posed this question over at the bolt and lever gun forums and haven't gotten much help so I figured I'd repost in the C&R forum.
I have been invited to a friends house to do a little playing around in their basement. her husband used to own a gun store but now the only remnants are a room full of ammo and a huge stack of milsurp rifle parts. I know for a fact that there is a number of mosin nagant parts and my little brother managed to fully assemble a long branch enfield no4 from the scratch and has been using it to hunt with for the last year so I am hoping to gather enough parts to make as many working rifles as possible, however I do have one major concern.

my brother claims that he saw a few mauser bolts laying around and vaguely remembers a reciever in a corner somewhere so I'm hoping that I can assemble a full K98 but one thing I've noticed is that the bolts from k98s also look similar to those from 1903s, 1917s and P14s so my major question is how do I tell the difference between these 4 similar, yet majorly different bolts when they are lying in a huge stack of mixed parts?

 

[James K]

First off, the Model 1917 and P-14 bolts have "dog leg" handles, so they are obvious. To tell the difference, look at the extractor. If the hook is as wide as the body of the extractor, it is an M1917 bolt; if the hook is narrower than the rest of the extractor, it is a Pattern 1914 bolt.

The Springfield bolt has a safety lug and the handle is bent down in a sraight manner; the safety reads "SAFE" and "READY". The Mauser bolt handle will either be straight (sticks out straight from the side of the rifle) or be bent down in an curve (a K.98k bolt handle is bent down; most other Mauser bolts are straight).

The above is pretty basic, and there is a lot more, but hope this helps.

Jim