Self-inflicted Mauser K98k injury

I have made a very silly mistake in attempting to disassemble the bolt of my newly acquired CMC Mauser K98k. When the rifle arrived this morning, I set about stripping, cleaning and lubricating it, using Smootik's wonderfully clear guide (thanks, Smootik : ) As a result, the rifle is now bright clean and lightly oiled and the wood furniture is glowing with two coats of linseed oil.

But - there had to be one! - the last operation was disassembling and cleaning the bolt. Here I followed (meant to follow ) Smootik's advice, the guide on surplusrifles.com, and the Mitchell's Mausers manual. With the bolt cocked, the afety vertical and the bolt withdrawn from the rifle, I pressed the locking plunger with my thumb, grasping the bolt body firmly and twisted the rear assembly... the wrong way! The rear assembly completed half a turn and stuck fast. I have not been able to move in either direction. It is lodged "upside down" with the plunger wedged against the bolt handle. Nothing seemed to break: it's just stuck.

Can anyone advise me on how to get this silly mistake sorted? I've been playing with guns, real and model, for well over 40 years, and have never done anything so daft, but if I hid my shame I'd be stuck with a banjaxed £500 rifle.

In the event, the bolt head turned out to be just torque-bound. On the avice opf Kevin at Modelguncollector.co.uk, I pu the bot, cocked, safety vertical, in a rubber jawed vice and, using a 1lb hammer, I tapped the rear assembly back the way it had come. I interposed a hardwood block between the hammer and the bolt, to save marking the bolt. I was then able to disassemble the bolt, clean and lubricate it, and reassemble it with no further trouble. Mea culpa!

I am glad you solved it without damage to the model!
Happy that my guide helped, using it is the best "thank you" for writing it all down :-)

Thanks, Smootik and Cerwyn, for your comments. If I may trespass further on your good offices, I have what appears to be a potential future problem on which you or other Mauser owners may be able to advise.

I am very well aware of the corrosive nature of PFC caps and the necessity for prompt and thoruogh cleaning of model guns after firing. In the case of the K98k, but two problems occur to me.

1. On my rifle, the chamber is a very tight fit indeed in the barreled receiver. It took a lot of prying to separate them and a rubber mallet to get them back together. This cannot be a good thing to do to model gun components! Nevertheless, tt seems to be inevitable, if the chamber and det pin are to properly cleaned. Has anyone else had this problem, and did you find a solution?

2. Combustion gases pass down the barrel, though little smoke is likely emerge at the muzzle and this, I inagine, will cause corrosion within the barrel. Given the problem which arose when Smootik separated barrel and receiver, I'm at a loss as to how to clean the barrel. The barrel narrows to a narrtow slot near the muzzle, so it can't done from that end. Has anyone found a solution to this problem? The barrel could easily be scalded out using warm water and a cleaning rod and patches, from the rear end but in light of Smootik's experience, I'm naturally reluctant to separate barrel and receiver, but can see no other solution.

The rifle is an excellent representation of the real thing, and it cost a lot of money. It is quite a thing of beauty and deserves the best of care, so I'm reluctant to try risky experiments. Any ideas, lads? I have not shot it yet, because of this problem. It feeds and dry fires beautfully, but oh, those combustion gasses!

One or two modelguns in my collection are particularly awkward or laborious to strip down after firing so I seldom fire them to be honest. If I do, one good cleaning tip I was given a long time ago is to run warm / hot water through the chamber and barrel as soon as possible after firing. This method does work quite well especially if you can get a cleaning brush or rod and patches through as well.

The main thing is to drain the water out thoroughly dry the parts afterwards. Hairdryers are ideal.

Barrels of models fired regularly can clog up with dirt if not cleaned regularly. Engine Degreaser sprayed down the barrel / chamber then left to get to work before flushing with hot water can be a very effective cleaning method too.

Thanks Cerwyn.
Generally, black powder cleaning techniques work well with model guns, My problem is getting at the parts which need to be cleaned! Smootik has warned, from his own experience, against separatin barrel from receiver, and I'm not comfortable with walloping model gun parts with a mallet, reassembling chamber to receiver! I was hoping someone would have found a way of cleaning the Mauser without risk of damaging it. The alternative is, of course, not to fire it, but that would be a pity, as it is an excellent model which just begs to be fired!

Many thanks indeed, Cerwyn.

Not specially good news, but in line with what I suspected. The cartridge is buried so deep in the gun that I didn't expect much of a bang for the buck! It would be nice to fire it, though... I guess that when I do, I'll flush out with water, black powder fashion, dry with a hair dryer, and hope that I get rid of the nasties. I won't fire it often, and I'll leave the barrel and chamber in place and cross my fingers!

When I stripped the gun, I cleaned everything except the barrel, very thorouhly. leaving it "bright, clean and lightly oiled", as my instructors taught me, back in the day, so it won't come to much harm and I reckon that spraying oil down the barrel after washing out the barrel is as much as I can do. I'll try and find some inert 8mm Mauser ammo and push back the bullets as you have done.

Many thanks for your help.