BOLT HANDLE WELDING ©H.J. (Jack) Belk 2016
One of the major jobs in converting any military bolt action rifle to sporter use with a scope is altering the bolt handle to clear the scope. At first, scoped rifles had a simple 'bent' handle and the scope was mounted WAY up in the air to clear the bolt. This is seen in even the finest of sporting rifles up until WW-II and a little after.
The first real low bolt handles were the butter knife style of the Bavarians. They are very thin at the root and thin enough in the handle portion to cut the unwary. The root of the handle extends .450 and then the thin paddle handle hangs pretty much straight down.
FN was the first to shape a new style bolt handle for the M98 in 1949. The root is shorter (bolt body to outside of handle stub is .350) and the handle itself is concave to miss the eye piece of the scope. FN was following the Remington pattern. The Winchester M70 has a very low-set handle with no 'root' sticking straight out as a Model 98 does so they naturally can take a VERY low scope.
Welding on a new bolt knob, instead of forging the old handle downward, makes the knob long enough to look and operate very well. Closely look at a rifle that REALLY look good and you'll see the bolt knob is even with or slightly below the stock line and light sporters have the handle 'leaned' back so that the knob is even or just behind the end of the bolt. You'll usually see the hang down portion of the knob between the trigger and the front of the trigger guard.
I was taught to oxy-actelene weld old Badger bolt knobs in the Len Brownell style you still see in the Ruger M77. By the mid '70s, when I went to teach at the gunsmith school, Len was casting handles from 8620 and offering them for sale to the trade, but they were 'bent' like a dog leg and cast with a hole in the bottom. They were the best to be had, but NOT what classic stock makers were suddenly wanting. Every body wanted 'Orbendorf style but for a low scope'. That's a very tough order...or was at that time. The first really good one I saw was done by Jasper Rayborn in Denver and then one by David Miller in Tuscon and I was sold. It was a natural pain in the butt to free hand turn a pear shaped 'Orbendorf' handle from cold rolled bar stock but that's what we did until Dave Talley digitized them and started turning them on a CNC lathe. Ted Blackburn was the first to TIG weld on M98 handles, I think. It was another ten years of gas welding for me before I made the jump to TIG.
The process for welding on a M98 handle is made MUCH easier by the simple jig sold by Brownell's (Different Brownell from Len Brownell the custom rifle designer and builder and Ruger's head stock maker in Wyoming.) Its a simple piece of bent heavy wire with two aluminum blocks on it. One that holds the bolt body and one that holds the handle. Believe it or not, handles and bolts were held on wads of fire clay for the first 25 years I welded them. Dave Talley, Herman Waldron, David Miller and others had their own jigs so every handle came out the same and the set-up was quicker and more certain.
Most M98s are heat-treated about .030 deep in the bolt handle root area. It as a super deep case hardening in some and hard all the way through on others. They can be hacksawed off but it's a hassle that will tear up a blade. A friction saw is best. Cut it off at the end of the square section at an angle. The bottom should be about 1/8 and the top about 3/8 out from the bolt body.
The new handle is cut at an angle as shown and set up so there is a big gap to weld on the outer side.
It's (very) important to get a 100% penetration weld between the root of the bolt and the handle. It takes some skill and some experience to get that 100%. Gas welding and TIG welding both have the capability to alter heat and makes welding small parts to big ones possible. It's common to vary amperage by 125 amps in one weld so a foot control is almost mandantory. (It can be done with pulse.)
The filler rod can be any mild steel, de-oxidizing filler. I use a specialty rod I used to sell call Rockmount Research Tartan-TIG in 1/16 size. It blues, it color case hardens and matches just about every gun steel known (but Winchester).
It takes maybe three minutes to weld on the handle. It's very easy to weld on the handle and pick up the bolt by the lugs with a bare hand. That's no problem at all but the heat IS going that way, so I finish welding and then hang the lug end in a can of water and let the handle end cool WITHOUT quenching. You want it soft for filing, believe me.
I stressed as a stockmaking instructor to use the right tools and same time. Don't start making a table out of an oak tree with sandpaper. Get a saw....a big saw. The same goes for bolt handle shaping.
My first tool is an 18 inch (!!) half round bastard file that has enough weight to cut like a shaping machine but you better have a good grip or it'll plow more new ground than you can afford. The teeth are bigger than the checkering. A 14 inch square bastard is just as bad. It cuts the front and rear of the root. The big half round takes the face where there's always a lot of extra weld (on mine). The body of the bolt is held in the vice jaws whenever possible in a low position so a missed file stroke will miss the bolt body too. That delicate patch of fine metal checkering is depending on YOU to miss it!!
By far the handiest roughing file is a common 12 or 14 inch half round in second cut or about a #2 in Swiss cut. The combination of thin edges and one flat side with a convex on the other does about 98% of what needs doing on a bolt handle job. I have my favorites that I end up with every time, but I have an extra dozen or so that usually got tried at one time or other. I hate a dull file and seem to have nothing else. A good, sharp #4 half round 12 inch will file a bolt handle fine enough to finish with 180 grit strip abrasive.
The small, tight, hard to get to area under the bolt handle needs needle files to clean up and its tedious work. On this handle, I found a flaw when finishing the under side. There was an area of non penetration of the weld....right where its really hard to get to in a re-weld. That big gap in the initial set up was left to assure of this NOT happening, but it did. I increased the stick-out of the TIG tungsten and adjusted it so I could rest the TIG cup on the bolt body and weld up a slot cut with a file in the area needing repair. It worked out well and shaped out well with needle files.
Polishing with Norton aluminum oxide 180 grit strip is first shoe-shined to round out the file marks and then 'stripped' by hand to polish length ways the handle. “Stripping” is a body sacrifice until your thumb gets a callous like a horse hoof. Hold the strip of abrasive to the part and then pull it out from under your thumb. Notice the finger edge overhanging the sharp corner I DONT want to round off. Part of the finger will smoke when the strip comes but the sharp edge will be preserved. By curling fingers and offering different parts of skin to be flayed, the checkering can be protected too. The point is to polish a perfect radius or part of a radius WITHOUT using a rotary tool of ANY kind. (I've never had a Dremel tool in my shop....but I do have an air grinder for places its needed). You can strip paper just like you do the cloth but it tears easier. Watch out for paper cuts when stripping using wet or dry paper!
For places that need to be flat, I use stones after the file and then use die polishing stones to maintain the flat with sharp edges. The top of the root and both front and back faces are kept flat. Everything else should be a straight line or true segment of a circle, but the parabolas are what gives grace and 'flow'. That's why the pear handle of Orbendorf made Mausers are so much better looking that the round military.
There are two places that must be heat-treated: The cocking cam and the extractor cam. Both are medium carbon or medium alloy steel that have enough carbon to harden but not so much it needs tempering. 'As quenched' is just right but the heat has to be just right to quench. An oxy-acetelene torch with a small tip, neutral flame just a little 'louder' than welding heat (breeze in the pines) is just right.