Obscure questiot: Will the Steyr M95 bolt fit an 1888

GatorFarmer

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I have a strange sporterized old rifle laying about. I believe that it is supposed to be a Steyr 1888 or 1890. It is missing the bolt. Can I just get a bolt meant for a later M95 and use that?
 
To the best of my knowledge you cannot swap out an 1888 commission rifle for a steyr M95 bolt. The 1888 is a regular turnbolt just like on a mauser.The M95 is a different operating system altogether. The M95 is a mannlicher straight pull bolt the bolt handle on the M95 just pushes the bolt backwards to open the action and ezect the empty cartridge and when pushed forward strips off a round from the clip and feeds it into the chamber.Frank
 
The Mannlicher M1886, M1888 and M1890 Austro-Hungarian rifles were straight pull bolt actions that locked with a tilting or dropping block on the underside of their bolts. The much stronger M1895 was also a straight pull but locked with dual opposed lugs on its rotating bolt head. Obviously their bolts will not interchange.

The Swiss military used a model 1893 straight pull carbine that had a rotating bolt head similar to the M1895 Mannlicher. I vaguely remember the Swiss borrowed most of the design from Mannlicher’s early rotating bolt head straight pulls which preceeded the M1895 but I’d have to look that up.

Gator Farmer needs to find out what model he’s interested in buying or post pictures of it.

In any event, bolts do not interchange between identical rifles. You’d be very lucky if the correct model bolt slipped into a random rifle produced acceptable head space. You could buy a bolt then try to find a gunsmith with the head space gauges but it would not be reasonable to ask a gunsmith to buy the gauges just to measure one junker. If you were successful locating a bolt and head space gauges, then what would you do if the head space is off? Firing factory cartridges could be dangerous. Excess head space is corrected by setting the barrel back then recutting with a chamber reamer. Too little head space only requires the chamber reamer. It's not likely you'll find a gunsmith that has or is willing to buy the chamber reamer. A reloader can fire form or resize brass to fit a rife with out of specification head space but you'd have to find the odd ball reloading dies. If you are not familiar with this stuff I suggest avoiding odd old rifles that do not have their original bolt.
 
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