Straighten a bent bolt?

YES-A friend of mine had a Mauser that had the same problem-the stretched numbers and pucker marks on the underside.My friend-Randy-was good with metal and just about anything mechanical-We carefully heated it up dull red and slowly bent it back on a vise with wooden jaws.Then after it cooled in the air he polished the bolt back to orginal brightness.I later tried this my self with a Mosin Nagant bolt and didnt have as good a results.Randy said"Metal has memory,if we are carefull we can bend it back" and he did!but I by my self was not able to recreate the results.