Third Party Press

G43 Bolt Carrier Restoration

hatrick

Senior Member
I picked up this bolt carrier a few years back from a fellow board member as I needed the hold open parts to restore another carrier. With the scarcity of parts lately I started thinking it may be worth restoring this carrier to use as a shooter. I know Frontline has reproduction handles and I know I've seen the hold open parts somewhere (just can't find them now) so it comes down to a bit of welding and touch up. I know Apfeltor isn't taking on work and I tried reaching out to another guy that had done restoration work like this but got no reply and his website is now gone. Does anyone know of someone that would be a good candidate for restoring this. The carrier itself looks really good and I don't think anything was modified for .30-06 even though that is stamped on it which was probably a Norwegian conversion in the day.

Thanks for any advice or assistance.
 

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As a tig welder, I would say this kind of job is difficult to do for people. The welding itself would not be too difficult, but the finishing would be tough. Making the welds disappear would entail replicating the rough forged surface over the weld, and then a complete re-heat treatment of the part in a metal working furnace. That is maybe 6 hours worth of work, not including finishing with phosphate, and then you have charged someone more than the part is going to be worth.

The welding is one thing, but the heat treating is the kicker. These were overly hard to begin with and were a weak spot in the whole action. You start welding on it it could make it seriously dangerous to shoot unless heat treated- which takes a long time to let it slowly come back to temp. I would not put my name on this part unless it has been properly heat treated and tested. Not worth the liability. For a $300 part.
 
It has potential. If you are good at welding you may be able to fill this holes in and not look too bad. It wouldn't be too difficult to drill and tap that bolt handle hole either. I think it is savable if you go slow on it and don't rush your work. As stated, you would need to heat treat it after welding. I would have someone that is an expert in that area to do it. Lets put it this way, you already have it and have absolutely nothing to lose by trying to restore it. I certainly wouldn't use it in its current form. The hold open parts I believe are available from aasniper in France. Keep us posted on your decision and or progress.
 
I was thinking of trying to carefully grind down the two pins holding the handle on to remove the handle but leave the pins flush so I wouldn’t have to heat treat the whole piece again. Function is more important than cosmetics since it is just going to be used when shooting.
 
I was thinking of trying to carefully grind down the two pins holding the handle on to remove the handle but leave the pins flush so I wouldn’t have to heat treat the whole piece again. Function is more important than cosmetics since it is just going to be used when shooting.
That's what I would do, the pins are not in a stressed area,after grinding them flush and a little dab of paint or cold blue they would hardly be visible.
The charging handle anyone with a lathe could make one.
 
So I was able to very carefully remove what was left of the original bolt handle without nicking or damaging anything which was really encouraging.
 

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The trouble I ran into was trying to remove the added bolt handle. I ground out the heads of both pins with an end mill and even went down about half way through the thickness of the handle. It was still super tight so I slowly wiggled it back and forth and it felt like it was moving but sadly it snapped off at the first pin which revealed some sort of brazing underneath. This was a fear but it didn’t look like there was any brazing or soldering to be seen. It was a super neat and clean job. I tried hitting it with some heat in hopes it wouldn’t take too much to pop it off but I decided to stop when I saw a bit of color change to the inside metal… that sort of shiney blue color when you heat metal. Hopefully I didn’t already screw up the hardening of the entire carrier. Anyone have any advice at this stage?
 

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The trouble I ran into was trying to remove the added bolt handle. I ground out the heads of both pins with an end mill and even went down about half way through the thickness of the handle. It was still super tight so I slowly wiggled it back and forth and it felt like it was moving but sadly it snapped off at the first pin which revealed some sort of brazing underneath. This was a fear but it didn’t look like there was any brazing or soldering to be seen. It was a super neat and clean job. I tried hitting it with some heat in hopes it wouldn’t take too much to pop it off but I decided to stop when I saw a bit of color change to the inside metal… that sort of shiney blue color when you heat metal. Hopefully I didn’t already screw up the hardening of the entire carrier. Anyone have any advice at this stage?
I think you are still OK with the hardening. I think you could use a small grinder and take small passes at it and eventually you can clean it up. When I say small passes, just enough to take off some metal but not enough to heat up the whole piece. A little patience and you will get it flush eventually. I think you are on to getting a good shooter carrier!
 
I can certainly go slow and try to grind away all the rest of the lever. I was kind of thinking that may be my next step. I was hoping there was a way to get the brazing to release but that may not be an option.

I wish there was some way to make sure I didn’t screw up the hardening when I tried heating it. I was hoping it was just silver soldered on but no such luck. The whole carrier was far too hot to touch when I heated it but I never got it cherry red or even starting to glow.

Cosmetically it will never be perfect but as long as it looks the part that’s good enough for a shooter carrier.
 
I am going to chime in again- to brass/bronze braze you need to get the metal cherry red with an oxy torch. That is how hot you need to get the metal to make the brass rod flow. So the hardening on this part is out of the window. It is toast and 100% needs to be completely re-heat treated to be safe to shoot or you chance getting a face full of shrapnel when the gas piston shatters this bolt carrier on firing. Worrying about grinding heat at this point is not important because the part has already been compromised. Its good and bad- good because you can proceed as needed and not worry, bad because this part needs re-heat treating to be safe to shoot.
 

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