Remington 581 question?

[GaryO]

A friend of mine showed up at the range yesterday with a beat up Remington 581 bolt 22 rifle. It has a decent trigger. Problem is: the bolt comes all the way out of the receiver when you pull it back during the normal functioning of the gun. My friend showed me a small hole in the stock where his dad used to stick a small finishing nail to keep the bolt from being withdrawn too far.
My question is: does this seem like a bolt stop issue to you folks? Or what? What say you? Thanks...

[kcw]

A friend of mine showed up at the range yesterday with a beat up Remington 581 bolt 22 rifle. It has a metal 10 round magazine and a decent trigger. Problem is: the bolt comes all the way out of the receiver when you pull it back during the normal functioning of the gun. My friend showed me a small hole in the stock where his dad used to stick a small finishing nail to keep the bolt from being withdrawn too far.
My question is: does this seem like a bolt stop issue to you folks? Or what? What say you? Thanks...

The bolt in the 581 is retained in the receiver by a spring loaded "bolt stop" pin which comes up through the bottom of the receiver. To remove the bolt on a functioning rifle, you push the safe lever fully FORWARD and hold it there as the bolt is withdrawn from the receiver. Upon pushing the safe level fully forward you will feel resistance from the bolt stop spring. The bolt stop spring keeps the bolt stop pin pushed upward while the rifle is in normal usage, thus keeping the bolt from being withdrawn from the receiver. When the safe lever is pushed and held fully forward, against the pressure of the bolt stop spring, the bolt stop pin is lowered below the ID of the receiver, allowing the bolt to be withdrawn. My guess would be that either that the bolt stop pin has been sheared/worn off, thus allowing the bolt to be withdrawn, OR the coil type bolt stop SPRING is broken/collapsed and not holding the pin up in its proper place. I've never had reason to investigate this issue with my 581, but if the spring is faulty you'll probably feel little of no spring resistance against the safe when it's pushed forward as mentioned above I would think. If you go the schematic for the 581 at www.gunpartscorp.com you'll see the pin and spring as items # 8, 9 & 9, labeled as bolt stop, bolt stop release and bolt stop spring. As with many guns that have some time on them, it's not uncommon for coil springs to get solidly gunked up in their recesses and stop functioning. Removing the stock and blowing the trigger group assembly out with automotive brake cleaner might be a good 1st step to be certain that things simply aren't plugged up with hardened/compacted crud . FYI Looking into the back of my 581 receiver, it looks like the bolt stop pin sticks up about 3/16" into the receiver.