DIY "Spring-Loaded" Bolt Option?

[RSR]

I finally located a South African bolt courtesy of riderboy. (Thanks again Tom!)

Initial impressions upon looking at it -- and I haven't disassembled, etc -- is that it would be relatively straightforward to convert non-spring loaded IMI bolts to the spring loaded for use with the South African firing pin mechanism -- pin, ring, and buffer.

Everything else should be interchangeable. The only real mod would be lathing out a slightly wider rear portion of the non-spring loaded IMI bolts.

Again, this is just my initial "what if" impression, but I think with availability of spare South African firing pin parts and the availability of non-spring loaded IMI bolts, it'd make for a fairly ideal and effective compromise combo.

Anyone know of any reasons offhand why it wouldn't work?

 

[lcastillo]

RSR, you would need to watch out having to much of an opening at the rear of the bolt. This could cause fouling to get inside and cause your firing pin to stick. If the firing pin would happen to stick in the outward position you run the risk of "runaway fire" (full auto fire) condition. Although you plan to use a spring this is less likely to happen. One of the reasons CAI recalled the Golani was due to the free floating firing pins sticking. CAI's fix was to put a spring on the firing pin, but they added a larger strike area that keeps the fouling out. If you do any work on your bolt be sure to take pictures for us. Lou

 

[riderboy]

If it looks to be a bit nasty maybe Jeff could take a whack at it. In any event best of luck with your build!

 

[Dee]

Boring out the cavity for the spring and larger head of the fp will work. Just use a carbide (or possibly cobalt) tool. The bolts are quite hard.
As you say -do it in a lathe to make sure the cavity is concentric with the fp.

 

[RSR]

Thanks all.

I don't need to do it now that I have a bolt.

But with the Spring loaded IMI pins and bolts being so hard to find, the non-spring loaded bolts being available. And the SA firing pin parts being available, my thought was this would be a way to have spring loaded firing pins and avoid slam fires with non-spring loaded bolts/firing pins on soft primers.

Lou -- the concept is that the dimensions on the rear would match the SA bolt's firing pin channel exactly, so shouldn't be any fouling issues. Galil's aren't nearly as dirty as ARs in that respect regardless.

Again, this is just a concept and thought I'd throw out there in case it might help others and wanted to know if it should work, and it sounds like it at least might... Definitely not something I plan to attempt in the short term.

 

[mrf2]

RSR-

Once you take your bolt apart you will see that it is a very simple modification. However many shooters in South Africa remove the "spring" part of their rifles because with enough time, exposure to dirt and cleaning solvents the rubber tube can become sticky and either result in failures to fire or slam fires. I've got a few R series bolts and one of them came to me with a spring in just such a condition and it was quite a bit of work to get all of the bits out of the bolt so that it would work.

The modification was done to prevent slam fires on rounds of ammo that had been previously chambered and ejected multiple times (like conducting repeated patrols where no rounds were fired, you would eject your round in the chamber and clear your weapon prior to entering the base and then put that ejected round back in your magazine, over and over again). I have the R-series bolts on my rifles because they are part of the interesting series of modifications the South Africans made to the Galil but if I was building a Galil for serious social purposes I would probably go with a standard IMI bolt with no spring (just like it's AK forbearer) for reliably.

 

[Mr Folgers]

I asked Jeff about firing-pin interchangibility between the SA and IMI-spring loaded, and the SA with gasket WILL fit and function with an IMI bolt. The SA pins will also fit the Century-modified bolts (if I remember right) but that the chamber for the FP spring must be slightly elongated/enlarged.

The use of a rubber gasket versus a spring is interesting, but I can see the logic in sealing the firing pin head itself from the actual bolt body and simply replacing the gaskets after X number of rounds. I've got a few hundreds of those gaskets in original packaging, and this seems to be the case.

I should note that the spring-loaded bolt never became standard with all Galil manufacture; it seems they were made alongside the originals featuring the Circle-P mark.
The installation of a spring/gasket I also never found quite necessary; I've seen AKM bolts that have fired tens of thousands of rounds, but the flat firing pin used in them were virtually new (no rust or signs of wear/corrosion, very little debris in the bolt-body) despite the rest of the bolt being trashed.

 

[RSR]

I definitely see both sides of it.

But for non-wartime me, the consequences of negligent discharge/slam fire far outweight the reliability concerns that seem to be mitigated if not firing thousands of rounds and being meticulous about maintenance... And I have a half dozen of those buffers on hand courtesy of Mr. Folgers, so I'm good even if switching them out annually.

Also, there seems to be a much wider variety of primer hardness for .223/5.56 considering all the domestic and reloads out there (not just mil-spec) where for all intents most of the Russian ammo I shoot in 7.62x39 in my RPK and VZ58s (both have free float pins; sorry, no 7.62x39 AKs) is mil-spec with standardized primer hardness, etc, (I primarily shoot/stock Golden Tiger but have some Barnaul, Uly, and Klimovsk on hand as well).

Related, I've rejiggered my Galil plans and intend to now build two R4s (one black & one poo brown) over the coming years thanks to the awesome condition of parts available through Mr Folgers. Thanks again Seth.

 

[lcastillo]

I can't say that I have ever seen a spring-loaded Galil bolt aside from the Golani's spring-loaded bolt. I don't think I have even seen one up for sale. Can anyone that has a sample of a spring-loaded Galil bolt please post a picture of the bolt and it's internal parts?

Here is a picture of the three bolts being discussed on this thread. You can see the different size holes at the rear where the firing pin protrudes.

The bolt that came on my Golani was modified from a standard circle "E" Galil bolt. The first bolt on left shows what the circle "E" (Before) bolt looks like prior to modification. The middle bolt (After) shows what C.A.I. did to the standard circle "E" after drilling out bolt hole for the spring and larger strike surface on firing pin. I am not sure is anyone has run across any circle "P" stamped bolts in their Golani's? The far right side bolt is a South African R-Series oval "P" stamped bolt. I hope this view helps you see the difference between the bolts. Lou

 

[Mr Folgers]

Here Lou
Below, in order from top to bottom:
IMI P spring-loaded,
SA R4 Oval-P,
IMI Circle-P (free-floating)
IMI Circle-E
IMI Circle-E (Again)



Far left is an IMI P spring-loaded with a rubber SA gasket fitted, along with an SA R4, IMI Circle-P and IMI Circle-E.
Bottom is an IMI Circle-E 7.62nato Bolt


IMI P bolt disassembled.

 

[lcastillo]

Thanks Mr Folger for providing me with great pictures of the spring-loaded IMI firing pin. So in your best opinion where do you think the origin of the spring-loaded firing pin came from? I had a conversation with Adipose and he said that Action Arms (or Magnum Research, can't remember which) offered these as a replacement/repair when sent in for repairs on some of the U.S. pre-ban rifles. The coiled wire type firing pin spring is also pretty interesting. Great info! thank you Lou

 

[lcastillo]

RSR, Since I have a Golani bolt and a R4 bolt I took the liberty to disassemble my bolts to see if you can use the R4 firing pin in the Golani's spring-loaded bolt. It seems like the R-Series firing pin could work as a feasable replacement for the custom firing pin that Century Arms uses on the Golani rifle. I kind of ran out of time tonight, so I won't be able to load all the pictures I edited tonight. I will get the rest uploaded tomorrow.

Here is what I have so far,

This picture will show you the components of the disassembled bolts with firing pins.

 

[lcastillo]

Here is a picture of the IMI, Golani and R-Series firing pins and its components. The biggest thing that stands out is that all three firing pins are the same length and are secured by the pin in the same area (cut out toward the front of firing pin).

 

[lcastillo]

to be continued

 

[Ady]

Chatting to some guys in the past about the elastomer rubber vs the spring, told me that SA opted for the elastomer rubber over the spring because they found the spring would give problems and be unreliable under automatic fire, where the elastomer rubber didn't.

I don't know the mechanics behind it, but that is the explanation given to me from more than one source.

Alot of shooters have changed over to the spring in their LM (semi-auto) rifles without a problem. I have heard of a few shooters using a spring out of a Bic pencil with good results, but only as a temporary fix.

 

[riderboy]

I'm a bit confused. IMI bolts are all free floating except the Golanis, and the SA bolts have elastomer. Why didn't IMI use elastomer inserts?

 

[Ady]

I think SA started out with free floating firing pins as well, but then changed over to the elastomer rubber. My LM5 came with a free floating firing pin and it was fine until i started getting slam fires. I replaced the bolt with one that uses a elastomer rubber on the firing pin. That was the end of my slam fires.

I also found a firing pin that uses the elastomer rubber does not fit into the bolt housing that uses the free floating firing pin.

 

[adipose]

Don't forget; that when Magnum research was first importing Galil's into the USA (early 80's); they had free floating firing pins.

After a short amount of time; they sent out a notice to owners, explaining for them to send in their bolts to be modified in accepting springs (along with getting night sights; which were restricted at first during the importation; because it contained a minute amount of radiation).

Here are pictures of the rebuild kits I was selling a few years back (both .308 and 5.56); in which these sat in a warehouse for over 25 years. Notice the .308 firing pins have a black plastic bushing instead of a spring.
This is how all of the kits were that I sold.

 

[lcastillo]

Sorry guys I know I'm a day late:

To continue on and see if the South African R4 fire pin will work as a replacement for a broken Golani firing pin. I took a picture of the 2 firing pins side by side. As you can see the pins are exactly the same length.

 

[lcastillo]

I tried my best to capture a picture that shows the counter-sink hole drilled into each bolt. The hole drilled into Golani's bolt is not as deep as the R4's, but the Golani's hole is larger to allow the larger fire pin strike surface and spring.