The rifle shown was bought cheap and appeared to be someones half-baked desporterizing attempt using a Model 1917 stock. It required a lot of work to bed the Eddystone action properly and my plan was to use it as a range gun with a PH sight. Had it to the range a few days ago to see if it has any accuracy potential (bore is only fair) and after running some Remington 174 grn FMJ through it I attempted to chamber a Prvi round and found it very difficult. Got it home and found that my "Go" gauge (approx 0.0645") does go (with very slight resistance) but found strong resistance with my next size gauge (approx 0.0665"). The Rem case heads measure out at 0.0605" and smaller while the Prvi seems to be around 0.0645" with some even slightly thicker. Went back to the range and shot some (for me) excellent 5 shot groups with handloads using the Remington brass. In one of the two groups shown 4 are within 0.90".

The rifle has its original barrel and the bolt handle does have the matching number stamped on the underside in pretty near matching font. The barrel index marks are bang on. So, my question is twofold: is this tight headspace a common occurrence in P14's and should I be concerned about it? Further, is it acceptable to simply stone the bolt lugs to increase headspace if that is suggested? I've done this while fitting a few Lee Enfield bolts but they only required very minor reduction in the order of 0.002 or 0.003 inch.

With the groups I'm getting, and given that most of my brass is Remington, I'd like to leave it the way it is. Just strikes me as a bit weird that a gun of this age would have survived this long with such tight headspace. Any thoughts or suggestions?

Ridolpho
Information
Warning: This is a relatively older thread
This discussion is older than 360 days. Some information contained in it may no longer be current.