[Comrade Antibiotika]

I've got what appears to be a hairline fracture in the face of my 59/66 SKS bolt. It's been through a good thousand or so rounds and it was used before getting to me: I wish it would have lasted longer, but the rest of it is still good. I'm afraid i have no photos as my camera cannot resolve that well. Looking at the bolt head straight on there is fracture line going out about 1/4 the width of the bolt face at about 3:00. It continues down the firing pin channel for a couple mm's. Should i keep shooting the thing until it breaks apart or get a replacement?

Just seeing how much of you i can drive insane before the real question. I'm not shooting something with obvious structural damage.

I'm going to be ordering a new stripped bolt from numrich (please tell me there is somewhere cheaper) but i'm going to need the extractor, firing pin and firing pin retaining pin from my old bolt. I can't seem to get the firing pin retaining pin out and that's the first step of the process. I've just managed to trash some pin punches. Anyone have some tips on getting it out? Or should i just save the aggravation and spring $25 extra for the complete bolt? I'm also going to have to get a field gauge for 7.62x39 to make sure it is safe to use: does anyone have experience with how good/bad these guns are with headspace? I don't know if it's like the enfield where headspace is essentially meaningless. The SKS is rimless, but it was also made to really loose tolerances. Thanks.

 

[TheKid]

Let me look thru my box of SKS parts and see what I have.
Maybe someone else will have what your looking for (Mike?).....

 

[Bucko]

If no one turns up with one you can try gunbroker or auction arms there is usually someone there selling off all kinds of sks parts.

 

[Tiledude]

Cracked SAKS Bolt

If the bolt face is cracked I would not shoot it until I replaced the bolt.

Your health is worth it.

Tiledude

 

[mriddick]

If you can wait I might be able to pick up at the MGS email if you want, I've had good luck getting parts for others that way.

 

[Tiledude]

SKS Bolt

Sorry - Meant SKS.

It might just be better to buy the complete bolt.

Tiledude

 

[micmacman]

http://www.sksboards.com/smf/index.php?topic=31831.msg358812;boardseen#new

 

[Comrade Antibiotika]

Mr. Riddick, i'd be happy to take up your offer (though i am having trouble parsing your grammar) if i get a price estimate.

Tiledude, of course i'm not going to shoot it! I think the surface crack may have been there for a while going unnoticed as one of the many tooling marks on the bolt, but i recently had the thing misfire a disproportionate amount of times on some golden tiger. It's not the brand- i've been using it for a while- but this caused me to inspect the firing pin channel. I usually keep it religiously clean so i never have the misfire/runaway issues that some sks shooters have. It was then i realized my "tooling mark" appeared to travel a good way down the channel and that the bolt face is likely cracked.

Come to think of it, if I'm starting to get misfires the firing pin may be getting screwed up too, so i likely should just get the whole new bolt.