I posted earlier that I needed a new firing pin on my Mauser. Well, that was before I took the bolt apart. The firing pin looks fine. What's happening is the pin never makes contact with the primer. I even put a piece of scotch tape over the firing pin channel to see if the pin was even moving that far. It doesn't even make a dent in the tape. Does anyone know what the problem could be? I know how to take the bolt down into two pieces (internals and external cover), but I can't figure out how to take the internal pieces down to look for problems. Is there a good website that shows how to take a bolt apart? This gun is fairly new to me. I've put about 12 rounds through it in my first outing, and the next time I went out it wouldn't fire anymore. Of course, it is 102 years old, so I guess some parts are worn out. Please HELP!
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Swedish Mauser problem
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I would suggest going to a smith and have them show you...works better than words IMO.
Some guesses as to the problem:
Do you have safety in proper postion? Remember it is a 3 position safety. The lever should be all the way to the left. If you leaving it in the up postion [where it needs to be to take bolt apart] it is on safe but bolt can move and you can pull trigger and nothing will happen. Or if you have safety all the way to the right it is on safe and locks the bolt but you can still the trigger only nothing happens.
Otherwise I would guess something wrong with the spring.
Some guesses as to the problem:
Do you have safety in proper postion? Remember it is a 3 position safety. The lever should be all the way to the left. If you leaving it in the up postion [where it needs to be to take bolt apart] it is on safe but bolt can move and you can pull trigger and nothing will happen. Or if you have safety all the way to the right it is on safe and locks the bolt but you can still the trigger only nothing happens.
Otherwise I would guess something wrong with the spring.
On a 1899 Swedish Mauser, the firing pin should be numbered to the rifle if it is truely all original. Check this.
Getting the bolt stripped down is simple: just press the pin into a piece of wood until you can twist the cocking piece on the rear half way around and off. Keep the safety in the straight up position during all of this, or it won't work.
Make sure the bolt body is not full of old grease.
Don't over oil the inards of the bolt when you put it back together, or it will "spit" oil when you fire it, harmless but annoying.
That's about all I can think of right now.
Good luck.
Getting the bolt stripped down is simple: just press the pin into a piece of wood until you can twist the cocking piece on the rear half way around and off. Keep the safety in the straight up position during all of this, or it won't work.
Make sure the bolt body is not full of old grease.
Don't over oil the inards of the bolt when you put it back together, or it will "spit" oil when you fire it, harmless but annoying.
That's about all I can think of right now.
Good luck.
Harley Nolden
Staff In Memoriam
BRO
I have sent, by separate email, some disassem instructions W/photos, for the Mauser bolt. I hope this will help you in your quest.
Compliments:
Harley Nolden's Institute of Firearms Research on TFL
Kindly advise as to clairity of photo and text
HJN
I have sent, by separate email, some disassem instructions W/photos, for the Mauser bolt. I hope this will help you in your quest.
Compliments:
Harley Nolden's Institute of Firearms Research on TFL
Kindly advise as to clairity of photo and text
HJN
OK, the bolt sleeve is screwed all the way down. Even if it could go farther, it couldn't make a full revolution, which means the bolt would not be able to close.
The safety is not turned on. I can pull the trigger, and the guns goes "click" just not "bang." I don't know the terminology, but if it was a handgun, I would see the hammer drop (back of bolt snaps forward when trigger is pulled). The spring that wraps around the striker appears to be fine. It still has a lot of tension in it. Tomorrow I will attempt to use the pictures that Harley sent me to take the rest of the bolt apart. Thanks for all replies!
The safety is not turned on. I can pull the trigger, and the guns goes "click" just not "bang." I don't know the terminology, but if it was a handgun, I would see the hammer drop (back of bolt snaps forward when trigger is pulled). The spring that wraps around the striker appears to be fine. It still has a lot of tension in it. Tomorrow I will attempt to use the pictures that Harley sent me to take the rest of the bolt apart. Thanks for all replies!
Having cleaned the inards of your bolt and checked to see if the firing pin is numbered to your rifle, reassemble the bolt.
Put it back into the rifle, cock it and set the safety to the staight up positon.
Take the bolt back out.
Now turn the safefty to the left (fire) position. Pull back a little on the cocking peice to do this, twist and let the whole shroud and cocking peice slide down the the rear cammed surface of the bolt body into the fired position.
The whole object of the above procedure is to get the bolt to the fired positon so that the firing pin is now protruding from the bolt face, as if the rifle had just been fired.
The firing pin should now be protruding from the bolt face by a distance between .055 and .065 inches.
If the protrusion is much less than .055 inch, ignition will start to become eratic, and as the condition worsens, finally cease altogether.
Now you must get the bolt back into the cocked postion to put it back in the rifle. To do this, you need a little block of very hard wood with sharp 90 degree edges on it. You use this little peice of wood to push back on the sear face of the cocking peice and just force it back until you can turn the bolt shrould back onto the flat rear surface of the bolt. You can then pu the bolt back into the rifle. If the wood is to soft, like pine, it will just crush. If you use metal, you will ruin the face of your sear and create a terrible trigger pull on your rifle.
If you think about this, a specified tolerance of .055 to .065 inch is not a whole lot. Masuer rifle parts were mass produced, but the final fitting in all the German and Swede made rifles was always done by hand fitting to very close tolerances. That's why I would always place a very high premium on a rifle that is in very good or better condition and all matching, all original.
A lot of guys mix and match parts on these rifles with not a tought in their heads about what they might be doing to rifles that were originally carefully fitted together by hand to very tight tolerances. Well, the Germans and Swedes were actually trying to be as standardized as they could be under the circumstances that turn of the last century technology allowed, but they were crafty enough to know that real interchangqablity to fine tolerance is not really possible and took the extra care on these well made rifles to make sure they really worked to near perfection. Most of the time mixing of parts will in fact work O.K., but not always.
If your firing pin matches the rifle, I doubt that this is the problem. If it does not match the rifle and this truely is the problem, you can blame some careless bubba that did not have the sense or the skill to switch parts and still keep things within tolerance. There a quite a few of these self schooled "smiths" running around today.
Put it back into the rifle, cock it and set the safety to the staight up positon.
Take the bolt back out.
Now turn the safefty to the left (fire) position. Pull back a little on the cocking peice to do this, twist and let the whole shroud and cocking peice slide down the the rear cammed surface of the bolt body into the fired position.
The whole object of the above procedure is to get the bolt to the fired positon so that the firing pin is now protruding from the bolt face, as if the rifle had just been fired.
The firing pin should now be protruding from the bolt face by a distance between .055 and .065 inches.
If the protrusion is much less than .055 inch, ignition will start to become eratic, and as the condition worsens, finally cease altogether.
Now you must get the bolt back into the cocked postion to put it back in the rifle. To do this, you need a little block of very hard wood with sharp 90 degree edges on it. You use this little peice of wood to push back on the sear face of the cocking peice and just force it back until you can turn the bolt shrould back onto the flat rear surface of the bolt. You can then pu the bolt back into the rifle. If the wood is to soft, like pine, it will just crush. If you use metal, you will ruin the face of your sear and create a terrible trigger pull on your rifle.
If you think about this, a specified tolerance of .055 to .065 inch is not a whole lot. Masuer rifle parts were mass produced, but the final fitting in all the German and Swede made rifles was always done by hand fitting to very close tolerances. That's why I would always place a very high premium on a rifle that is in very good or better condition and all matching, all original.
A lot of guys mix and match parts on these rifles with not a tought in their heads about what they might be doing to rifles that were originally carefully fitted together by hand to very tight tolerances. Well, the Germans and Swedes were actually trying to be as standardized as they could be under the circumstances that turn of the last century technology allowed, but they were crafty enough to know that real interchangqablity to fine tolerance is not really possible and took the extra care on these well made rifles to make sure they really worked to near perfection. Most of the time mixing of parts will in fact work O.K., but not always.
If your firing pin matches the rifle, I doubt that this is the problem. If it does not match the rifle and this truely is the problem, you can blame some careless bubba that did not have the sense or the skill to switch parts and still keep things within tolerance. There a quite a few of these self schooled "smiths" running around today.
Dfariswheel
New member
Back in the good old days when I was collecting mausers, a friend of mine showed me a mauser with the same problem: Assembled OK, snapped OK, no BANG. The guy he bought it from finally came clean. He was attempting to dissasemble it, and instead of putting the firing pin into a peice of wood, he put it into a vise, and snapped the pin off.
SOOOO....instead of replacing it, this doofus chucked it into a drill press, AND CUT ANOTHER PIN HEAD. Naturally it didn't work, but if you weren't an expert, or didn't look too close, it looked OK.
SOOOO....instead of replacing it, this doofus chucked it into a drill press, AND CUT ANOTHER PIN HEAD. Naturally it didn't work, but if you weren't an expert, or didn't look too close, it looked OK.