Bolt action slickening

[Doing my part]

Afternoon all, I recently picked up a howa bravo which had been cerkoted to look nice for a show, including the bolt.

It runs OK but not as nice as I would like, my two issues are that the cocking stroke feels heavier than I would like, and occasionally the bolt will jam up at the rearmost part of travel. It feels like it's sloppy (you can wiggle it up and down), so you can push the bolt off-parallel to the centreline and then it won't go forward until the pressure is relieved.

Now I realise that if I learn better movement patterns this is a non issue, and it's a non-critical issue as I only shoot target for fun but I'm a lazy, watch making perfectionist and shit not working right bothers me.

Is this something I can tune out please? I was thinking about getting the running surfaces of the bolt ti-nitrided - if I leave the bolt face bare I'm not gonna jack up the headspacing, right? Any other issues I should be aware of?

Thanks for the knowledges!

 

[spife7980]

Cycle it a few hundred times. It’ll break in a bit.
Polish the cocking ramp if you are comfortable with it. I’m sure you can swap the spring to lessen the bolt lift but the spring is also what guarantees reliably firing.

 

[Doing my part]

Cycle it a few hundred times. It’ll break in a bit.
Polish the cocking ramp if you are comfortable with it. I’m sure you can swap the spring but the spring is always what guarantees reliably firing.

On it! I have a bunch of lapping compounds. Is half micron fine enough? I tried some moly disulfide on a few spots and it seemed to help so I think there's some mileage in surface prep.

I'm not dicking with the spring, way above my pay grade and I'd rather have a gun which is heavy to cycle but still goes bang!

 

[Texasflyer]

Just put on a good gun movie, and cock it while ya watch, end of the movie it should be good to go. Young guns and sa/ or lever action is a good pair, bolt guns... the way of the gun would be a good choice imho.

 

[Steel head]

Clean it really good
Spray bolt and inside of action with one shot gun lube
Grease cocking ramp and lugs
Shoot it a lot.

 

[Packfan]

I am also in the process of break in and mine is definelty getting better with use. As recommended above, I have lightly greased the bolt lugs and used One Shot on the remaining bolt. Everytime I pick it up, I run the bolt 50 times or so.

 

[Vodoun daVinci]

Another vote from me for the "lube it with yer choice of good lubes and run the bolt a lot/dry fire until it's slick as a whistle" routine. Run the shit out of the bolt.

VooDoo

 

[supercorndogs]

It depends on where there resistance is coming from. Sometimes its a rough cocking ramp, sometimes its the firing pin spring dragging on the inside of the bolt. Some stuff will smooth out with use, but the firing pin spring dragging in the bolt body will not. The first thing I would do is remove the ring pin assembly, and polish the cocking the ramp on the bolt with some 600 grit. When you remove the assembly you will be able to observe if the spring drags when removing it. If it does reaming the inside of the bolt body can really help with bolt lift. If you had a Remington I could tell you what size reamer to use, with a Howa, I don't know what size.

 

[Bigdude]

I had a very rough bolt on my remington 700. First I had the bolt coated in DLC. This did not provide any improvement.

Finally, I had the bolt and inside the action coated in Cerakote Elite. Now it is smooth as butter. I cannot recommend Cerakote Elite or ArmorLube enough for increased lubricity.