death of a rod bayonet...

[chuckindenver]

picked this up in trade this morning, with the idea of parting it out..barrel was installed by less then skilled hands,
while taking the neet bits off to sell on Fleabay.i find this.. sad..likely done when wanna be gunsmith screwed in the 8-42 RA barrel with a pair of water pump pliers. {channel locks}

[John Beard]

Actually it's not a rod bayonet receiver. But the breakage is still unfortunate.

Thanks for the pictures.

J.B.

[chuckindenver]

that was just the hook JB...made ya look lol
looks to have been cracked a while..and the guy i got it from was shooting this rifle..he is not the one who did the work or damage, i sent him the pics...havnt heard back yet..
a note..
the RA barrel was still a bit short chambered, so rather then ream it, they ground the bolt face nicely..or polished it..didnt take up enough to make any difference in the chamber, bolt headspaced up fine in another 03 safely.
there is vise jaw markes on the flat behind the recoild lug, so they had to put some pressure on the ring as well, ill look for cracks there as well.
i had planned on making a .22 mag fake out rod bayonet out of this action...guess thats not going to happen...lol

[the_1st_sgt]

I have a 1909 RIA receiver that's cracked in the same place. Wonder if the same guy worked on mine. The receiver was given to me many years ago.

[Weasel]

Put the JB Weld to it, it'll be alright. JB Weld will fix anything, so they tell me.

[chuckindenver]

another thing that could have damaged that..
the sharp edge were the crack is, was a common area to break..look at some of the later 1903s...likely has a more rounded inside edge.
but after looking at the rest of the work..id say, it was cracked when the old barrel was removed by twisting at the rear bridge..
what i may do...
is notch and weld that area, since the rifle i was going to build, will never be a high pressure round...it would be ok..iv welded worse.

[Don W]

Please: Show us some of those "neet bits."

[Marine A5 Sniper Rifle]

It's weldable. I usually cut mine further back, but enough heat shield or water immersion will do the trick. I made a 22 K-Hornet and it worked great (cut 1/2" out of receiver). Fun round to shoot and easily reloaded on the cheap. Keep us posted. Shortening receivers was pretty common back in the day. Saw a guy cut a Model 70 one time - I almost cried.

jt

[jgaynor]

Just out of curiosity was there any clearance between the bolt safety lug and the bottom of the receiver bridge? Understand it look like the primary cause was probably due to clampin the receiver in a machinists vise - but it also sounds like a lot of work was done to the bolt. Just wondered why?