Mismatched Numbers

[TRGunner06]

Looking at some curio & relic rifles on the various websites and I have a general question:
How critical is the bolt having a matching number to the receiver if I'm only interested in the gun as a shooter? I enjoy shooting the old military rifles but am not really a collector.

Information

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[HOOKED ON HISTORY]

Personally I never fire a purchased militaty surplus rifle without having the headspace checked by my gunsmith. But I have been known to be a bit on the "saftey first" side.

[Patrick Chadwick]

I enjoy shooting the old military rifles but am not really a collector.

I am delighted to hear that. Number fetishism can become a bore. And just think of all those millions of US rifles, like the M1917s, that never had numbered bolts. Are they therefore suspect? I think not. What matters, regardless of any number, is the metallurgical condition of the bolt (wear, possible setback of the locking lugs, sharp cocking piece ledge, check for safety-off fire and slam fire).

And I consider it to be AKWOTAM to have the headspace checked by a gunsmith. Evaluating a rifle by popping gauges made to modern SAAMI standards (commercial standards, please note) into an ancient military rifle that was most probably never built to such standards is a proven way to get a perfectly good rifle rejected. A famous type for this is the Swedish Mauser.

Apart from obvious damage and extreme wear, the 3 major items to be checked before you even dream of firing a cartridge in a newly acquired rifle are:

1) Safety-off fire
2) Slam-fire
3) Head clearance, i.e the end play when you insert a real cartridge (not a gauge) into the real chamber of that rifle.

It has just turned midnight here, so I will be brief. If you search the forums for the 3 key expressions listed above, especially the gunsmithing, reloading, restoration and BP forums, you will find a wealth of opinions, tips and knowhow on these 3 topics - and you will learn that you can check them all yourself without expensive tooling. And you will pick up a lot of associated information that will help you to understand what is going on in the chamber when you fire a cartridge.

But to answer your original question: a number on the bolt that matches the rifle is nice, but no guarantee that the rifle will function properly a century or more after that number was originally stamped!


Patrick

[TDH]

I'll say thank you as well Patrick.

Does it matter if it has a matching bolt? If you have one you can probably put your kid through college. All original rifles are a fantasy unless you get one that was put togeather with parts that were on hand between Korea and the closing of the Springfield Armory in the late 60's and then they were put in imediate storage. It wouldn't have all matching numbers but it would be original.
All US military rifles were made to the same specs so parts from S.A., Winchester, IH, or HRA would interchange with any other. The same with all the different makers of the carbine, or Thompson's or even .45's.
In most cases rifles were issed still in the cosmolene and after a group through cleaning they were never original again.
As stated have the head spaced checked as it might need a different bolt but most should pass a field guage.

[samnev]

If you are just a shooter and not interested in collector value then follow the advise given on checking head space and safety features on the gun. A non matching bolt on mil surplus rifles (and some pistols ie: Luger's P 38's etc, etc can devalue a weapon as much as 50% to a collector. Many collectors will not even look at a mismatched weapon unless it is an extremely rare specimen.