TargetTalk

Is it common for this bolt to be difficult to close on a brand new gun when Closing the bolt w/Ammo in the Chamber to fire?

Tried 2 different kinds of Ammo - same issue

Ejection is fine, and very smooth as is the closing of the action when no round is in the chamber.

Anyone with a new gun experience the same thing?

I also shoot a 1907 and don't remember having that problem when I first purchased the rifle. I did recently have it rebarreled though and ran into the same problem. The bolt closed smoothly and fine without ammo but was a little harder with ammo. After shooting with it for a couple of weeks the problem went away on its own. My suggest would be to just go ahead and shoot it. You could also take the bolt apart and make sure that it is properly greased and oiled, but have someone experienced show you how to do it. I do this on a regular basis every couple of months to make sure the bolt is operating smoothly.

Brian

Have you cleaned the the barrel/action. or have you already shot the rifle. sometimes they are coated with a protective oil/grease to stop corrosion when stored. I know it's stating the obvious but ?. Colin

Yes, we cleaned the barrel, but maybe not the bolt or Chamber area as close as we needed to or thought we needed to - I knew about the corrosion coating inside the barrel, and we got that taken care of but I didnt think it would have been on the bolt face etc - Thats a good idea and I'll check it out.

i had this problem with a couple brands of ammo. the cheaper federal (when i shot that) had trouble, but the more expensive was find. eley is what i use now and have never had a problem.

Could be that the head space is too tight for the ammo you wish to use!!!

I agree with the last post, it could be a head space issue. It may well also be that as its a new rifle, the extractor claws havent yet worn in and could be struggling to spread open around the rim of the case as they enter the extractor slots in the barrel when closing the bolt on the chambered round.

The only time that I've experienced difficulty closing an Anschutz bolt, was with a batch of ammo that had been poorly finished in the factory, and seemed to have missed out the final machining stage. The driving bands around the bullet had not been finished properly, so the round was over sized.

Yeah, when I shoot Eley Sport or Club for standing, the bolt is sometimes stiff to close. Eley Match poses no such problem. Guess it's a headspace thing, or the finish of the ammo.

You say ejection is fine. I presume that is extraction of the fired case? What about extraction of an unfired round? If extraction is difficult, the chamber is likely to be tight on the case. Target rifle chambers are tight, but not that tight.

What does an extracted unfired bullet look like? Is there any evidence that it's been rammed into the rifling, or does it appear polished or deformed any other way? If so, the chamber is too short for the ammo, but, more likely, the ammo is too long.

Pull the bullet out of a cartridge and chamber the empty case (remember the primer is still able to go bang!). If it slides into the chamber easily, but the bolt is still hard to close, the headspace is too small for the ammo.

There is some considerable variation in dimensions between types of ammo. If your rifle misbehaves with Eley, it's a rifle problem. If it's OK, use Eley!

She has Eley to try out now, talked to a Coach who also suggested head spacing - so next time to the range, guess we'll have to shoot the good stuff. The ammo that was tried was CCI standard and CCI green label. Guess I'll run that low grade stuff through my guns.

if we have more issues -i'll be sure to post them here

My shooter had the same issue with his Ans. 2013.
We had been using CCI and when he started shooting the Anschutz we continued to use the CCI.
He complained about his hand hurting from closing the bolt.
We were donated a few boxes of ELEY Tenex and found the problem went away.
We are now using WOLF Target with excellant results.

UPDATE

Thought I would let you all know - ELEY, SK, Wolf, Lapua all work well - the problem was Ammo related

Thanks for all the input!