Thread: Help - stuck bolt

Originally Posted by Marty Henry

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

Surprising how many you still see with the small pins. Mate had one recently that had not been upgraded.