Interesting thread! By coincidence, just the other day, I stripped the bolt on my un-pinned MarkIII and learned how to assemble it incorrectly. First thing I learned was how to do it correctly for which the instructions in the old Canadianicon government manual (1913) are far and away the clearest. That manual doesn't even mention that 1/8 of a turn backwards when the "plain cylinder just enters the sleeve" allows the bolt to be incorrectly configured- but why should it? It's so obviously wrong that they must have figured no one tasked with stripping a bolt could conceivably be dumb enough to insert it in the rifle like that (time proved them wrong, I guess). But my question pertains to an unstripped bolt- has anyone been able to cause the bolt to enter the sleeve incorrectly without stripping? With mine, the extractor won't allow the bolt head to rotate far enough to enter the sleeve incorrectly. If it could that might explain how an infantryman might get into trouble just cleaning the assembly.

Ridolpho