MKIII Rifle All Matching vs Non-Matching Good OR Bad??

[krinko]

Barred out and renumbered BSA bolt in my 1936/40 Lithgow----BNP stamp on the bottom of the knob matches others on barrel, bolthead and receiver.
Whatever Fringe-of-Empire had this rifle post WW2, I am grateful to them for the bolt as it is---the Aussies would have switched it out for a proper Lithgow.
-----krinko

Attachment 14797

[Peter Laidler]

On the re-numbering bolts front, one of the old Armourers (yep, even older than me......) has just told me that they'd wait until they had a batch of twenty or so, hardness test the lugs to sift out the worn out rubbish, then mount them in the lathe with the handle end outwards of course and skim off sufficient metal to clear the old number. Then they'd go through the system and come out like new ready to be fitted to another rifle when needed. You could do this a couple of times until the width went to below a certain (unknown as yet) thickness. The 'GAUGE, testing, bolt' was the criteria and it was this less .035" or thereabouts

The rear of the bolt was never subject to any independant hardening beyond the toughness of the steel

He says that the BIG workshops could reproof rifle, Bren bolts, bolt heads because proof ammo was in the system but I have NEVER heard of reproofing bolts and bolt heads and 40 Base at Singapore was a MONSTER workshops! I say this because when some civilians wanted to use our Vickers guns, someone on -high suggested that they be reproofed to civilian spec. I declined, most loudly.