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Bolt resistance(?) on Spanish Mauser

Tibbles

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Today I picked up a 1916 spanish mauser for $150. Upon getting home I discovered that when the gun is on fire and locked, when you begin the action of pulling it back it shoots the bolt to the back automatically, and upon closing it there is a lot of resistance to it as well in the last half an inch or so. When you put it on safe however there is no resistance at all, I don't know if that means anything or not. I understand that it is a C.O.C gun but it seems way harder than anybody else's that i've seen on youtube ect. One more thing to note is that at first the safety was completely locked up and would not budge, after fidgeting around with it I did eventually get it to work. You'll also have to forgive me if say anything stupid because i'm completely new to mausers and milsurps in general. Thank you.
 
I'm also rather new to Mausers, but am finding out they are a great design. I just picked up my second Mauser, and it is a 1916 Spanish. I got it for a good price because it wouldn't go on safe. Believe it or not, I fixed it by watching a Youtube video. Turns out the thing was put back together wrong. You have to have the safety on the safe (straight up) position for disassembly. After getting it apart (not easy) and putting it back together correctly, it works fine now. For all I know, it's been like that for the last 50 years in storage... Unfortunately, I can't offer any advice on how to get yours un-locked.
 
The Spanish 1916 is a cock-on-closing mechanism. So you have to fully compress the firing pin spring when closing. On the 98 series the spring is partially compressed on opening and partially compressed on closing. Hence, resistance to close the pre-98 actions is more than on the 98 series. The safety blocks the firing pin travel. There is no spring resistance to overcome and the bolt opens very easily. I don't think you have a problem unless there is some other physical obstruction.
 
^^^ This is correct. I read your post wrong, as if you were having problems opening it. Yeah, the resistance you feel when you close it is you pushing against the rather strong spring inside the bolt, cocking it. Once you pull the trigger, that spring drives the firing pin forward into the (what used to be) very hard primers of the era.
 

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