Bent Luxemburg FN49 receiver, who can help?

[waw44]

I just picked up a Luxemburg barreled action and upon closer inspection saw that the back of the receiver is bent down. Is there anyone who could assess if it is repairable, and perhaps repair it with the goal of it being shootable again?

[MAC702]

Can you post a picture?

[waw44]

Don't know how this happened, but when i got this, it was out of the stock, and a trigger group form an Egyptian FN49 was bolted. It's almost as if someone really tightened the rear bolt and thus pulled the back of the receiver down, but that just seems unlikely . So maybe a malfunction, or something that caused the damage?

[deadwood83]

Can you get pics of the back of the bolt and the locking surfaces? It looks a lot like when somebody uses reloads that are way too hot in an SVT40 and the rear of the receiver gets bent from battering.

ETA: Could also be an out of battery detonation sending the bolt rearward. Typically seen on the Egyptian 49s but any seem to be susceptible. THe location of the bend would seem to suggest it took a real beating on the rear of the receiver face.

In your photo it looks like the steel is almost creased about 1/4 of the way below the rear cover tabs.

Also, my FN49 does not have multiple angles along the back. I would not trust it personally, because even if it is pressed back into form the steel would have some significant working fatigue. It might be more cost effective to buy another rifle if the lines superimposed accurately reflect the receiver condition.

[browningautorifle]

Typically seen on the Egyptian 49s

Really...never heard of it. Now another thing to look for when examining a possible purchase.

The material will be stretched regardless so trying to "Press" it back to true or straight will result in an excess of material and as described, a weak spot.

[Lee Enfield]

I just picked up a Luxemburg barreled action and upon closer inspection saw that the back of the receiver is bent down. Is there anyone who could assess if it is repairable, and perhaps repair it with the goal of it being shootable again?

I've seen an FN49 which was fired without the recoil springs, it broke the back of the receiver off. It was re welded and has not been a problem since.

[deadwood83]

Really...never heard of it. Now another thing to look for when examining a possible purchase.

The material will be stretched regardless so trying to "Press" it back to true or straight will result in an excess of material and as described, a weak spot.

It was new to me too. I went looking for more of the same as described by waw44, found SVT40 slamfires which mentioned FN49s and out of battery discharges, and that lead me to... fn49 out of battery - Google Search


Apparently not that uncommon. The extent of checks I did on my FN49 prior to firing the first time was "gas not closed all the way, everything moves freely, no missing parts, no corrosion, presence of oil on the rails, looks sweet" then I put in some PPU 8mm and ripped a mag (meaning fired all w/o incident). I expect that is most people's experience but now I think I need to give mine a much closer look.


@Lee Enfield:

With very careful setup it wouldn't be too hard to TIG but I'm not familiar with the method of manufacture. If the entire receiver was heat treated or hardened then with the weld you've created a big weak spot unless the owner you saw had access to an industrial furnace (or one of those new fancy $1-4k home furnaces as found on This Old Tony @ YT.) Also a TIG would require a total refinish. TIG without surgical prep (especially bluing and oil removal) nearly always results in weld porosity, and then you have a ticking time bomb.

Prior to any attempt at repair, the most important part will be knowing why this happened and addressing that. Without RCA and addressing the problem, waw44 may find himself right back at the same spot. It will be harder to see if the action had an OOB or slamfire. But if a previous owner had used heavy reloads trying to push the envelope, or perhaps put a magnum primer in a reload then I think we should be able to tell by the locking surfaces. It could be as simple as just buying some hot hunting loads with soft primers and beating the poor thing to death. The first Luxembourg rifles were delivered around 51 and the most widely available .30-06 at that point in time is likely M2 ball...

Either way, bright spots and mild smearing on the locking surfaces should show if it is an ammo issue. Since the Lux rifles were '06 it is less likely to be OOB since the '06 rifles had the FP stop. However waw44 mentioned an egyptian trigger group, so for all we know it may also have an egyptian bolt without FP block.

[waw44]

Thanks for the replies . The Egyptian trigger group is probably a red herring. I picked a box of parts few days ago and it had two full fn49 actions in there , out of stocks, one Lux and one Egyptian. The Egyptian trigger group was mated loosely to the Lux action, but I don’t think it was fired that way. The box also had an extra trigger group ,few extra bolt carriers , receiver covers , etc . The Egyptian looks good , but thei Lux has the issue . I’ll upload more pics shortly .

[waw44]

pics

[browningautorifle]

I wonder if it was battered because the recoil springs are out of spec, mushy?