I'm curious...it seems your 1898 receiver has been placed in a 1896 stock?

Is that correct or do you actually have an 1896 receiver?

Hard to tell from my little phone.

butlersrangers wrote on Sep 27^th, 2019 at 12:28am:


We are grasping at straws here, Butlersrangers's thoughts mirror mine. Make sure there is no debris in the receiver recess and no serious dings on the inside of the locking lug. A photo of the inside of the lug of both bolts could be helpful.
On the sporter I built a couple of years ago I wanted a minimum headspace gun, I did this by checking a box of unfired cases with a special set up to measure the rim thickness (the bevel on the back of the rim makes using a regular mike problematic).  Anyway in going through several hundred cases I found a couple that were .063, the SAAMI max is .064. Most of the new unfired Remington cases were .060 to .062.

The long and short of this as BR alluded to the new bolt may work fine as most cases will not be that near max.

If no discernible fix is found I could trade you for one of my measured NOS bolts. This may or may not fix things but it would give us more insight on Krags in general and more info on your particular circumstance.

I seem to agree with FredC in that we're maybe grasping at straws.

Just checked my NOS bolt with the my set of Clymer headspace gauges and guess what...it wouldn't close using gentle pressure on the "GO" gauge.  To get it to close I had to exert a little more force.

The "NO-GO" gauge worked perfectly!

I cycled 20 rounds using the NOS bolt and experienced no feed or extraction issues.

Bullets used were Winchester Super-X 180 gr. Power Points and Remington 180 gr. Core-Lokts.

BTW: The NOS bolt replaced a bolt that had a large "S" on the bolt handle.  The old bolt would close on both Go and No Go gauges.

You are correct BR...forgot to mention that.

The gauges are a tight fit and stick in the replacement NOS bolt and not with the older bolt.

Seating issues perhaps?

#1 Have you tried the gauges in the bolt head? Looking for diameter here.
#2 do all the gauges  have bevels on the back that resemble most Krag ammo? If so they will give a better indication of headspace but be harder to measure with a mike or calipers.  See the gauge arrangement in my last post. I used it to check Remington cases which have a generous bevel and can not be measured correctly with a regular mike. A universal mike with anvil set back could be used.

My computer is threatening to shut off to load an update.

#3 Did any of the gauges get stuck in the chamber and have to be pushed out? If so the chamber is tight in the inside or the gauges or oversize on the cylindrical portion.

#4 Did the inside of the bolt lug show excessive wear or possibly abrasive marks indicating it may have been lapped? It is against my religion to lap a bolt lug any more than to check contact area. The case hardening it the thickest on the bolt lug and that is where it is needed to resist wear. Any use of lapping compound for me has to be done when the barrel is off the receiver and the bolt and receiver must be THOROUGHLY cleaned before use. If someone lapped these in the past they would have increased the headspace immediately, and if not thoroughly the head space would keep increasing with use.

#5 Does the bolt guide touch the inside of the receiver? On a new rifle the gap would have been about .010. How about with the new bolt?

The other thing that I can think of that would drastically increase head space is headspace is the rifle was fired with an plugged barrel or bad reload.

#6 With the stripped NOS bolt with the field gauge installed does the bolt have for and aft play? This would be an indication of how much larger the rim space is over the field gauge.

Right now we do not know if you have a funky field gauge or a real problem. If it just barely closes on the field gauge it could be safe to use for a while. Go back to Parashooter's last post.

For a sanity check, measure the maximum rim diameters of your gauges. I suspect you may find the Clymer gauges are larger there than the Forster. If that's the case, it's likely the Clymers are running into something on the breech face that the Forster isn't. Could be crud or corrosion, or maybe someone reamed the face a bit, leaving a "step" that's keeping the gauges from giving a true reading.

If you can find an aluminum beverage can and cut a few shims that fit easily in the bolt face, you can learn how much end-play there actually is with a normal cartridge.  Most common drink cans go about .004". You should find one such shim allows the bolt to close easily on the cartridge. Two shims (.008") is still acceptable. Three (.012") isn't great, but unlikely to cause problems. Four shims (.016") indicates a moderately serious problem, though little danger of separation unless you repeatedly FL resize cases when handloading.

(This is likely more practical information than you're getting from the gauges - since it shows how much cartridge stretch you'll encounter when firing your ammunition.)

Interesting problem. I haven't followed this 100% and do not have gauges myself to play with but one question comes to my inexperienced mind.

Has the barrel been changed and was it installed properly? Maybe it was screwed in a turn too far. I don't know if this would fit the problem but just thought I'd ask.