Remington Model 14 & 141 / Bolts

Topics related to Post - 1898 Remington Rifles
Post Reply
nambujim
Posts: 597
Joined: Sat Jan 14, 2006 3:16 pm
Location: Charlotte, NC

Remington Model 14 & 141 / Bolts

Post by nambujim »

Starting this off wishing I was about half as smart as portrayed on my forum posts and being under the influence of a "migraine" thought I would just throw out a bunch of information I've acquired over the years pertaining to 14/141 bolts. For short, lets call this posting "Bolt Chat"!!

There are some older collectors of these rifles that even today think there are two basic bolt styles for the Model 14, those without the hook/lever safety system, and those with the hook/lever system. Its a starting point but the short version is there are two variations of the early style and three of the later style so there are at least five versions of the Model 14 bolt not including the TNS version. The really late Model 14 bolt which came into play around serial 115,000-120,000 is pretty much the one used on the Model 141.

Changes to the bolts range from modification of the bolt face to numerous part re-design of the internals, most obvious change you might pick up on is the "sear lock" which has a rounded bottom on early bolts but flat on the later ones. Keep in mind the bolt is made up of 20 parts and every one of those was modified/changed at least once. The most basic parts of the bolt like the firing pin spring (mainspring if you will) were changed so many times its hard to find two identical ones.

Adding to our confusion is that Remington did NOT make all these guns by serial number, we have (Thanks to the data base assembled by Tom Hemphill) numerous examples of 25,000-35,000 serial guns with all of the 100,000 serial range improvements on them.

Bottom line which I have stated time and again on other posts is that "your" rifle is made up of a "specific" set of parts with the key part being the bolt mated to a trigger, stop, and action bar/carrier by the man assembling the rifle. I have made mention of this before but in my possession are two .30 Caliber, consecutive serial, Model 14's in the 60,000 serial range that have thirteen (13) different part variations. The feature I found most interesting is that the lower serial bolt will work in both guns, the higher serial bolt won't interchange. Go figure!!

Please don't ever think you can buy a "bolt body" from anyone, try to fit your parts to it, and have it work! I wouldn't say its "never" going to happen because "never" is a very long time. I must add here that fitting an extractor into one of these bolts is my least favorite thing! So beware when buying a replacement bolt and try to find one that comes from a rifle close to your serial.

This dialog could go on forever but lets just touch on Model 141 bolts because they too have a story. That story comes in two parts in that very late Model 14 bolts can be used with many Model 141's. The problem with the 141's which I have clearly stated in the past is that around Serial 42,000 the quality went downhill and by Serial 60,000 there were very heavy machine marks on the bolt along with the inside of the upper/lower frame with metal to metal fit being quite poor. My history with repairs to the later serial guns is that "usually" a low Serial bolt (under 35,000) will fit in the higher serial rifles but not the other way around but there is always the exception. Fully half the rifles with Serial Numbers over 65,000 need to be separated with a dead blow hammer after removing the stock. This problem comes from really poor milling on the lower receiver where there is an obvious bump on the left front portion of it, it takes about 30 minutes with a Dremel Tool to mill this down.........bummer but worth it.

The migraine is winning, going to try and proof-read this, and will try to address the "nightmare" which by another name is "cartridge stop"!

Jim Peterson
Charlotte, NC
Jim Peterson
Post Reply