Stripping bolt on an Origin to find seating depth

[memilanuk]

So... for most of my bolt guns I use the so-called 'Wheeler' method for finding the lands. I had to modify it a little for use with Savage actions, as the toggle bolt / cross pin tends to fall out without the wave washer to keep tension on it, so I leave the firing pin in and remove the cocking piece shroud so there is zero spring tension bearing on anything. Unfortunately... that doesn't quite work with the Origin. There doesn't appear to be a good way to keep the cross pin in place without the wave washer to keep it tensioned.

Another alternative with Savage actions was to just put some scotch tape across the bolt body to keep the pin from falling out when the bolt closed. Unfortunately there isn't any extra room around the bolt on the Origin, so that does't work either.

Fortunately I still have my old Stoney Point OAL tool, so I can work with that for now. It is a bit cruder than the Wheeler method, though.

Anyone here figure out the trick to getting rid of all the spring tension in an Origin bolt, without having it disassemble itself?

TIA.

 

[jda2631]

The Origin uses the same bayonet style firing pin assembly as the TL3, right? So you just twist the back of the firing pin assembly in the back of the bolt, take out the whole firing pin assembly and then there is no spring pressure anywhere. I have never used an Origin, but I'm pretty sure it's the exact same as TL3, it takes about 5 seconds to take out the whole FPA and another 5 seconds to put it back in.

 

[memilanuk]

There's still tension from the wave washer between the bolt head and body.

And yes, you can feel it keeping the bolt handle from dropping freely as shown in the video linked above.

 

[Pete B]

Put a liberal amount of grease on the bolt head cross pin. Helps it from falling free during the process.
Gets pretty frustrating otherwise, been there!
Regards
Pete

 

[spife7980]

Put a liberal amount of grease on the bolt head cross pin. Helps it from falling free during the process.
Gets pretty frustrating otherwise, been there!
Regards
Pete

Beat me to it, grease is goopy enough to keep it in place. Just don’t put so much it squeezes into the firing pin channel, a quick rub with your finger tips should suffice.

 

[Mordamer]

Just leave the washer on there to keep tension you can still easily feel when the bullet starts to touch the lands. My bolt handles on my TL3's will drop freely downwards even with the wave washer installed. There may be slightly more friction, but not enough to keep me from having great results. You could also look up Brian Alan's cleaning rod method. It is easy and quite accurate as well.

 

[memilanuk]

Put a liberal amount of grease on the bolt head cross pin. Helps it from falling free during the process.

Cool, thanks!

Pretty sure that one would *not* have occurred to me

I had been contemplating putting a pin or wire down the bolt body to hold the cross pin in place, but worried that I'd forget the dang thing and go to stuff the firing pin assembly back in place and get things 'proper' stuck...

 

[MakeSawdust]

If you don't mind taking off the barrel you can also use Mark Gordon's method. Very similar to the Wheeler method, but requires barrel removal.

 

[FCrifles]

scotch tape over the pin ends. Last one I did had plenty clearance.