Place to purchase bolt for M48 mauser?

[GunnySkox]

Hi, everybody.

My dad (who is a king among men. I have always said this about him.) purchased me an M48 rifle for Christmas, and we've spent the last couple of days getting it all cleaned up and lubed and oiled and everything else (got all the cosmo out of the stock, refinished with linseed oil, etc.), but I've spent most of today fondling it and moving the bolt and dry-firing and all that jazz, and I've discovered that my M48 and my more southerly paw are not the most compatible in the world.

That is, I'm left-handed, and this rifle, with its curved-down bolt handle, were clearly not intended for the wrong of hand. The bolt and the receiver/barrel serials match, and the rifle is a fine one, so I don't wanna to chopping on the bolt handle or any such madness, but I'd like to know if anyone can tell me a place where I might be able to acquire a straight-handled bolt for this thing, and what other considerations there'd be in putting a new bolt in the rifle.

I already checked Numrich: all they sell are curved-handled bolts, and the one other place I found had no more bolts in stock.

~GnSx
P.S.~ Yes, I'll take and post pics, soon.

 

[yesterdaysyouth]

this is what gunsmith specials are for....

try aim, sog, and centerfire....

 

[Stiletto Null]

I dunno, doesn't give me any trouble trying to work it left-handed. *shrug*

</useless post>

 

[GunnySkox]

Well, it's not that I can't work the curved-handle bolt by just dropping the gun a little and reaching across, it'd just be vastly easier to do so if the little grabby nubbin were up higher, straight out from the side of the bolt (or even, Mauser Forbid, bent up for the sake of a lefty ).

~GnSx

 

[mustanger98]

Bad news, bad news... </bad imitation of Roscoe P. Coltrane> *clearing throat* ...the only Yugo Mauser that used a straight bolt handle is the 24/47. Trouble is, every other Balkan Mauser I know of used the same length receiver/bolt as the K98k. I know this because I took the bolts out of a Yugo M48 and a Czech VZ-24 and compared and test fitted. It didn't work. Besides, if you replace a bolt, you gotta be sure you got a bolt that headspaces with the barrel in that reciever. You got a Yugo M48, you're stuck with the Yugo M48 bolt. I suggest keeping it as is but that's just me.