The extractor was missing on the rifle when I got it. I ended up ordering one used off line and a used firing pin. What does flat face barrel mean? Are you referring to the flat part on the bottom side of the bolt? I did some research on that and found that the manufacturer thought it improved accuracy but did away with it after the Spanish mauser? Im learning so please bare with me. Besides the bolt and extractor all together shouldn't I be able to push a round in the chamber without using the bolt? I would think it would slide right into the chamber? After taking pictures it looks i need to clean the chamber before the headspace and the headspace chamber itself.
Thanks Boom Boom..!
7.57riffle,
Is this your first rifle?
If you look at a Mauser barrel taken out of the receiver, the barrel face at the breech end (toward the back of the barrel with the chamber) is flat. For feeding issues, that is why the U.S. military in its 1903 and 1917 rifles used coned breech ends to supposedly help with feeding. The flat face is fine for feeding as long as the extractor tension on the rim of the bullet is fine, as long as the mag spring is ok, etc. basically, it is a controlled feed rifle but the components of that controlled feed have to be up to snuff to reliably feed. This is from a 96 Mauser but yours is basically the same barrel design. It shows a proper headspace gage in the chamber.
Think of the extractor having to pinch the rim and having the right tension to hold it at a straight line throughout picking it up from the magazine through depositing it in the chamber and then removing the empty cartridge after firing. This is an animated view of the Mauser firing, it is a 98 action but as far as basic mechanical principles, it is simply a 93 action gussied up.
Do scrub the chamber and determine whether your chamber is pitted. That can make extraction difficult and brass life short. You will also need to have the headspace checked with a proper 7x57 gauge. Some of these though have been rebarrelled into 7.62 NATO so make sure that is not so with your rifle. It should be marked on the barrel but sometimes Bubba gets a little careless.
What you are referring to as the headspace chamber is technically the receiver lug recess area where the bolt lugs lock into the lug recesses of the receiver. To determine headspace, you need a proper gage and it is usually cheaper to have a gunsmith do it but these are troubled times. You can do it yourself but you must strip the bolt otherwise you can damage the gage. You attempt to close the bolt without the extractor, bolt spring, firing pin, safety, and gently try to close the bolt on the headspace gage with finger pressure only. Ideally, you use a no-go gage, some will use a field gage and any bolt that closes on a field gage is regarded as unsafe to fire. The risk is that the case head separates from the rest of the cartridge and dumps high pressure extremely hot gas into the chamber, back out the firing pin hole in the bolt, and hopefully through the gas release hole in the receiver. In a worst case scenario, it can blow up the gun.
There are videos around of how to check headspace with a proper gage (ignore the bubba techniques with tape, live cartridges, and other such suboptimal ways).