In my observation, there’s really no solid understanding of metallurgy in this context, in this thread from anyone giving you suggestions.
I’d just leave the dang thing alone, you might just ruin it in the process and wish you’d have just left it. I’d pick a different rifle to play Betty Crocker Bubba on if I was you. It is a legitimate bolt mismatch after all.
Last edited by Herk1994; 01-17-2021 at 07:08 PM.
It looks like you want to push out the trigger guard a bit. If that so here is what I would do. Get a bolt that just fits inside the tg and nut with a tube that the bolt fits in. Screw the nut all the way in, put the tube on, set it in the tg and slowly back out the nut pushing the tube and bolt head apart. Just might work. Good luck
I’ve been doing the “bolt and nut” procedure and got a lot if the dent out but it is hard to apply pressure in the right place because I am dealing with one curved surface and the flat part of the guard means that the bolt is at an angle and tries to slide away.
A wooden wedge might work but I’d pretty much have to start with a solid peace of hard wood pretty much filling the whole loop and then inserting a smaller wedge where the loop needs to be pushed out and hammering from one side, then the other.
In the field the armorer would toss the old part and install a new one - a five minute (or less) repair job!