The bolt on my Carcano does not lock easily even when the bolt and receiver are completely stripped. I have assembled the bolt in the following order: (1) firing pin into the firing spring, (2) Safety catch, (3) cocking piece assembly, (4) cocking piece nut retainer. When I completely assemble it, the cocking piece assembly is on the bottom of the bolt when I guide it in the receiver. It binds on the tail end of the receiver after the bolt after the trigger is depressed to allow the bolt locks to slip pass it. How about your next assembly and disassembly on the 1891 Carcano rifle? Every thing else appears to be in working order. Thanks.
Disassembly / reassembly huh? That is a good idea. I will see if anyone around here has one and will pass on the idea to the high and mighty of the company. So the bolt doesn’t close easily when it and the receiver are stripped? This indicates that (as long as the extractor is not rubbing where it shouldn’t) either the bolt or the receiver are bent, or crushed. Examine the bolt closely and see if there are any rough or heavy wear marks. See if you can tell where it is binding in the receiver. You can use some Dykem or a Magic marker to color the bolt, you can see where it is wearing that way too. It sounds as though the bolt is assembled correctly; I would leave it stripped until we find out where and why it is binding with the receiver.
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This is not my area of expertise but I know that sometimes imported guns are mass assembled from parts. I had a Mauser that acted just as described and came to find out that it had parts of non-matching serial numbers. Ultimately, I had to re-chamber the barrel so the cartridge would head-space and the problem was cleared up. Hope this helps with the mental anguish.
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I don’t know the Carcano inside and out but I do know that they have enough slop in manufacturing that a different bolt should still go in especially when stripped. If it doesn’t as is the case we need to find out why, but you are correct and often mismatched parts don’t work together. Then people want to know why they can’t take the parts from one gun and “drop” them in another and have it work “perfectly”.
