[westkraut]

Hi, I read this thread yesterday and did not reply as was still stumped on the problem I was having. I had recently replaced the firing pin on my M96 and had heatted and bent the bolt handles as I have done on several other Mausers in the past. Well, this time I was having issues with not being able to set the safety nor fire the action and it seemed that the bolt shroud was either too far forward or too far back and the problems described above were constant. I fiddled around for two days, even trying the old broken firing pin and last night after reading this thread just figured my M96 was headed for the parts heap. This morning, howver, I tried again, this time with the trigger removed from the frame and immediately could see that the half moon recess in the bolt into which the male counterpart on the trigger fits was about 1/32" off center.....meaning that the bolt was rotating to the right fully........taga! The inside of the bolt handle was hitting the right side of the receiver too early! Solution found and just reheated the bolt and bent it outwards slightly and all is resolved.....the safety works properly and the trigger function perfectly now......it is good news after expecting the worst and having raw fingers from all the assembling and dissassembling. I hope this helps and saves some frustration for other M96 users. It will now get fitted with a nrew laminate stock as well as a low-profile safety and Scope bases........best wishes to all and thanks to the above for triggering a second look at what should have been obvious!......karl