Thread: Help - stuck bolt

Hey guys. My Mossberg ATR bolt won’t slide back. Bolt lifts, needs a bit of a thump to open all the way, but it gets stuck there.

I had a round in the chamber so I fired that to make the rifle safe.

Any suggestions - or is it a gunsmith job?

Knock it down with a bit of wood. Give a few taps. It will come down. Then have a think about what you did wrong.

Squirt a few drops of oil down the muzzle leave upright for an hour then tap with a piece of wood or plastic headed hammer. Or tap a cleaning rod down the barrel. Good luck.

What Muzza said.

Yep; don’t beat the bolt handle and taking it to a gunsmith is sensible.

As it seems the bolt will lift, and if you want to have a go yourself, things I’d try are (1) remove the trigger and bolt stop, just in case something is binding there; and (2) put a squirt of WD-40, CRC, Kroil etc down the barrel and then drop a steel cleaning rod repeatedly from about 1 foot in height (cut an old brush down to just the stub of you are worried about protecting the thread on the rod).

I’ve got every stuck case I’ve had (which is not many!) out this way without issue. Ditto a broken pull through once.

If they use a bolt design similar to savage or the omark with a floating bolt head it could be possible the cross pin has bent or snappedwhich would be more difficult to rectify.

Originally Posted by Marty Henry

If they use a bolt design similar to savage or the omark with a floating bolt head it could be possible the cross pin has bent or snappedwhich would be more difficult to rectify.

Can u explain more on this as my Savage has been doing this the last few rounds on factory ammo

give up and put in the pay it forward thread............

i have no seriously helpful input so i thought i would suggest something ridiculous.

Originally Posted by Padox

Can u explain more on this as my Savage has been doing this the last few rounds on factory ammo

I don't own a savage but friends do and they are excellent rifles. The floating bolt head design is supposed to ensure better locking by permitting the locking head to "wobble" slightly and therefore align itself properly in the recesses. There is an added bonus that headspace is easy to ajust with different size bolt heads same as in the Lee enfield.
The bolt head is attached to the bolt body with a cross bolt pin with a hole in the middle to allow the firing pin to pass through which holds the parts together..
In theory this cross pin can bend or snap rendering the gun unusable.
The omark version had some early failures resulting in destroyed guns (the so called small pin version) so named because the far side of the pin going into the bolt body was only about 3mm in diameter and could snap under the load of closing or opening the bolt.
The answer was to double the size of that part to 6mm.
The photos are of an omark bolt complete and with the bolt head removed showing the firing pin and cross pin.
Hopefugly that's helpful

Originally Posted by Padox

Can u explain more on this as my Savage has been doing this the last few rounds on factory ammo

@Padox, I feel that in the interests of personal safety you should cease using the rifle immediately and to help you out, I will come down to Tarras with the 2506AI and shoot the Fallow bucks for you to keep you from harm

Don't know that there will be any this year as I'm normally scouting over the next month but the next 10 days will be isolated due to my daughters surgery to take the tumor out

Originally Posted by Padox

Don't know that there will be any this year as I'm normally scouting over the next month but the next 10 days will be isolated due to my daughters surgery to take the tumor out

Gee thats not something I would like to be facing, at least treatment for young people has made spectacular gains in the last three decades. Good wishes to you

Treatments have come a long way if I can reduce the amount of medication she has to take we on a win

Thanks all for the sage advice. Being an impatient bugger and prone to ingoring those much wiser than myself, I gave it a gentle tap with a rubber mallet. Out it came.

The spent cartridge had a shiny ring of abrasion around the base, so I’m thinking I should have FL sized them. I usually just give a little shoulder bump, but there’s a chance these came from someone else (memory is terrible these days). Checked another round and the same thing.

Bummer… anyone got a bullet puller I can borrow?!

Oh, and yup - it’s got the weird cross pin bolt design. Thanks for the explanation, I wondered why it was like that as it seemed pretty easy to wiggle loose