Sorry it took so long to get back to you guys.
I took out the platform and all five bolts. This was the platform, a set-up with just about every possible piece of "bling" on it, just because I know how much you guys love the overmodified 10/22.
2008 Receiver, polished out
Tiger Striped Maple FingerGroove in Kandy Green
17" GM SS Heavy Taper
Kid Trigger at 3/6
Kid Trigger pin Kit
Kid Buffer
RT Adj. V-Block
Pillar bedded
I will say this though, it is a proven set-up, and on a good day will shoot some pretty nice (and very consistant) groups in the .100"~.130" range at 25 yds with Wolf MT ammo. On a very good day it can shoot an occasional .0xx group if the nut behind the trigger is in the right spot. I also took some feeler gauges to get an idea of what sort of face depths were producing what kind of groups. The rifle was running good at about 23in./lbs, and it was a great day to shoot, almost no breeze, a light cloud cover and about 95 degrees. I shot all targets using an AVG. method of four five shot groups, with four measuring holes to get average bullet diameter for CTC measuring.
The modded bolt was already in the rifle, so I figured I may as well go ahead and see what it would do. It gave me a nice set of groups, averaging in at about .126" CTC. Face Depth (FD) on this bolt is just what is advertised by the guy I had do it, .0425.
Did a tear down, and put my oldest bolt, a 1988 in. Re-assembled, and shot another page of targets. Hmm. Shot a .129" Avg. with the unmodded bolt. Did however have one FTF. FD was .0429. More on the FTF later.
Went ahead and tore it down again, put in my newest bolt, a 2008 unit off of my latest build. Shot a pretty dismall .326" group!! What the heck!?!? Shot four pages of targets with it and my best page average was a .265" four groups average of five shots each. FD was .0510. Need-less to say, this one has already been packed up and shipped out for a tuning.
I went ahead and put in bolt number four. It is out of a '97 WWS. Group AVG. was .174" and the bolt had a FD of .0433. Not bad performance.
Bolt #5 got taken for the ride to the range, but not used. I ran out of Wolf, and wanted the test to be 100% comparitive, so didn't bother.
Re-cap:
Place------Year---FD---Group Size---Modifications
1--------???----.0425----.126"------Pinned Firing Pin, Radiused, Milled, VQ Extractor, Re-profiled Firing Pin, Engine Turned
2-------1988---.0429----.129"------Radiused, VQ extractor
3-------1997---.0433----.174"------Radiused
4-------2008---.0510----.265"------Bone Stock (but not for long)
It looks like the "worked over" bolt is indeed a slight bit better than my next best bolt. Another very interesting thing that I noted was that the newer that the bolts got that I was using, the more "slop" they had in them, and the worse they shot.
On the FTF, I hit it three times, as it wouldn't extract either due to the "Bentz" chamber on this barrel. After it fired on number three, (off target) I checked the casing, and noticed that it had strike marks all over the place. The first was too high and just "nicked" the rim, the second barely got the edge of the rim again (but a little bit over), and the third was a nice 90% on the casing strike. Many people laugh about pining the firing pin on a rimfire, but now I am getting some new bits to pin the others that I am not going to be sending out to be re-worked.
Was the re-worked bolt however "worth" the extra money? I'm going to say yes, not because of the accuracy though. I like the way it looks, the cycling is so buttery (even in this new receiver), and the pinned and re-profiled firing pin all for $55 round trip is such a deal to me that I am already sending another one out to have it done (#4 from above). Is it necessary? Probably not, I am thinking that the biggest fault in the 10/22 is still the chamber.
FWIW
JJ