Bolt Action Rifles. Wayne Zwoll
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bolt body. The heavy hook extractor is mortised into the right side of the head, held in place and tensioned by a flat spring mortised in place behind it.
The extractor has a very wide hook and is made so it cannot be pulled out from the front. It has ample movement so the hook can easily slip over the rim of a cartridge placed in the chamber ahead of the bolt. I believe this is even a better extractor than in the commercial Mannlicher-Schoenauer action. The ejector, almost an exact copy of the Mannlicher-Schoenauer ejector, is held in place by a small screw. The bottom corner of the extractor and ejector are rounded off so that, when the bolt pushes a cartridge from the magazine to the chamber, the rim of the cartridge slips under the extractor. This prevents double loading if the bolt is not fully locked before it is drawn back again. This is a good feature. The extractor is also made so that it holds the bolt head in place in the bolt, and on removing the bolt from the rifle, the bolt head cannot accidentally fall out and be lost.
The bolt body has an integral guide rib along most of its length. The bent bolt handle is an integral part of this rib. This rib functions to guide and prevent the bolt from binding as it is operated. It also serves as the safety locking lug since it engages forward of the right receiver bridge wall when the bolt is closed. Its front end moves over an inclined surface on the rear of the receiver ring and provides the initial extractor camming power when the bolt is opened. The grasping ball on the bolt handle is flattened underneath, and this flat surface is checkered.
The bolt body is drilled from the front to accept the coil mainspring and the one-piece firing pin. One side of the rear end of the firing pin is flattened to match a similar hole in the cocking piece through which the rear end of the firing pin extends. This prevents the pin from turning. The firing pin nut threads onto the rear of the firing pin and holds the assembly together. The heavy cocking piece has a heavy rib which moves in a slot in the receiver bridge preventing it from turning when the bolt handle is raised and lowered. There is a small cam on the cocking piece which fits a matching shallow cam and notch in the rear of the bolt body. All this cam and notch do is hold the cocking piece and firing pin back unless the bolt handle is fully down and the action locked, thus preventing accidental firing unless the action is fully locked. When the bolt is open, the cocking cam resting in the shallow notch prevents the cocking piece from turning.
The stem of the wing safety fits in a hole drilled lengthwise in the cocking piece rib. A coil spring over the stem holds the safety back against a notch in the firing pin nut and prevents the nut from turning. When the action is closed and cocked, swinging the safety to the right rotates the flattened end of the safety stem into a notch in the bolt. This locks both the bolt and cocking piece. The safety can also be swung to the right when the cocking piece is forward; this draws the firing pin tip within the face of the bolt and locks it back, as well as locking the bolt.
There is a thumb-piece on the firing pin nut by which the action can be manually cocked with the thumb, or the action can be uncocked (the firing pin lowered) by reversing the procedure. This provides a means to recock the action in case of a misfire. I do not know why the safety was made to lock the cocking piece and bolt when the action is uncocked. This feature is of doubtful value.
The 98/40 bolt-stop is nearly identical to the one on the Greek Mannlicher-Schoenauer action. It is fitted on a stud on the left side of the receiver bridge, and is pivoted on a pin and tensioned by a coil spring. It projects through a hole into the left locking lug raceway and stops the bolt on contacting the ejector, which fits over the locking lug. Like the M-S action, there is a ridge-and-groove arrangement on the bolt-stop and left locking lug, so that unless the ejector and/or bolt head are not assembled on the bolt, the bolt cannot be inserted into the receiver unless the bolt-stop is depressed, but with the bolt head and ejector in place, the bolt can be inserted without depressing the bolt-stop. Since this rifle could actually be fired without the bolt head, which would be very dangerous, the fact that the bolt cannot be inserted into the receiver without first depressing the bolt-stop is a safety feature which reminds the shooter that the bolt is not fully assembled.
The trigger and sear mechanism is similar to that in the M-S rifle. The sear is pivoted on the bottom of the receiver on a pin. The trigger is pivoted on the rear end of the sear on a pin and has two humps which provide the double-stage pull. A projection in the rear of the sear extends through a hole in the cocking piece raceway in the receiver tang to contact the sear on the cocking piece, and holds it back when the action is closed. This action is cocked on the forward or closing motion of the bolt.
The sear and trigger are tensioned by a coil spring. A head pin inside this spring, with its head resting on the front of the sear, projects into a hole in the receiver. There is a hole drilled into the rear edge of the bolt body, and when the bolt is fully closed and locked, this hole is aligned over the end of the sear safety pin so that, unless the bolt is fully locked, the rifle cannot be fired. This arrangement is similar to that used in the M93 Mauser, Japanese Arisaka and 1917 Enfield. This extra safety device is of no value since the cocking piece will not let the firing pin protrude from the face of the bolt head unless the bolt handle is turned down completely. There is also a narrow groove in the bottom of the bolt which aligns with the sear safety pin when the bolt is forward, but with the bolt handle raised. This allows the trigger to be pulled to release the sear from the cocking piece so that it can follow the bolt forward. However, to lower the bolt handle afterward, the cocking piece has to be pulled back slightly.
Well constructed of sheet metal, the magazine box is held in place under the receiver by the trigger guard plate, with the plate attached to the action by a guard screw through each end and threading into the receiver. A latch in the front of the larger trigger guard bow holds the magazine floorplate in place. Depressing this latch allows the floorplate to be removed. One end of the W-shaped follower spring in mortised into the floorplate, while its other narrower end fits into the bottom of the milled steel follower. The rear end of the follower is square, and when the magazine is empty, it prevents the bolt from being closed, indicating to the shooter that the magazine is empty. This prevents blind loading. The magazine box, trigger guard plate and latch are not too unlike those of the Japanese 38 Arisaka action.
Model 98/40 bolt head showing: (A) dual locking lugs, (B) extractor, (C) bolt head, (D) ejector and (E) gas vent hole in the bolt body.
The method used to stock this rifle is quite different from any other stocking method used on military rifles known to me. It is most like that used on the British Lee-Enfield rifles; that is, with a two-piece stock; a separate buttstock and forend with the buttstock attached to the action by a through bolt. From this point on, however, the Lee-Enfield and the G 98/40 stocking methods differ.
On the Lee-Enfield, the part of the action to which the buttstock is attached is an integral part of the receiver and called the butt socket. On the 98/40 action, the part which I will also call the butt socket is a separate part fitted between the rear end of the trigger guard and the receiver tang. The rear guard screw passes through this part to hold it in place. In addition, the top and bottom of this butt socket are milled out to fit closely over the tang end of the trigger guard to prevent it from pivoting. Hooks at the top and bottom of this part also engage in grooves in the tang and trigger guard, and secure it to the action. In fact, it is so well attached to the action that it is almost an integral part. Two long oblong holes are milled through the inside of the butt socket so that tenons can be made on the forend and buttstock where they fit against it.
A heavy bolt threaded into a tenon on the butt socket is used to fasten the buttstock securely to the action. The forend, with tenons which extend halfway into the butt socket, is also held securely in place on the action by the trigger guard plate, magazine box, recoil lug and the front trigger guard screw. Even without the two barrel bands, the forend is secure.
While the buttstock attachment is no better than on the Lee-Enfield, the forend attachment method on the 98/40 is much superior to that of the Lee-Enfield. As I mentioned in the chapter on the Lee-Enfields, the British had a problem with the forends of their rifles, and I believe a lot of this could have been eliminated and the bedding problems easily corrected had the rear end of the forend been tenoned into the butt socket. The designers of the 1935 Hungarian rifle,