Problem with 1893 Spanish Mauser Safety

[SgtStiletto]

Hello,
Hope someone can give me a few ideas on a problem I have with a 1893 spanish mauser I have. I can't get the safety off of fire unless I pull back the bolt somewhat. Sear looks good. Nothing looks bent. Looks like the right bolt for an 1893. Believe it or not I bought a 1903 springfield and it has the same problem!
But I digress. Can anyone give me a few ideas on what to try?
Thanks!

[sean46953]

Well, I had a Turk 98 action that did the same thing to me and I know it's not the same action, but they're really pretty close. My problem was caused by the firing pin some how. What you can try is disassemble the bolt after pulling the cocking piece out a bit and putting the bolt on half safety. Once you've unscrewed the rear section of the bolt (the part that contains the firing pin, spring, bolt handle, gas shield, and safety switch) from the bolt body, take a look at the firing pin. There is two "flats" to it. One on bottom and one on top. Before pulling this all apart, try to look through the spring at the two flats on the firing pin. Look for sone sort of stampings like numbers, letters, symbols, ext. If you fimd more than one, just pick one and don't ever forget it with this rifle. Now, if there isn't any sort of markings on the flats, then try to mark one with a wax pencil, or even put a light scratch into one that is just good enough to see. Now, using what ever mark you have chosen or made, look to see if it's on top or bottom using the safety tab as reference. Now, take this section of the bolt apart. When you reassemble this section of the bolt make sure the pin is put back in opisite of it's last assembly, meaning, if your mark was on top before you just disassembled this all, reassemble it with the mark on bottom, or if it was on the bottom before disassembly, reassemble it with the mark on top. Once you've done this, finish assembling the bolt, put it back in the rifle and turn the safety to fire. Now, try to rotate the safety through it's positions. Hopefully that does it and if so, always remember what mark you're using and if it goes on top or bottom in reference to the safety tab. I'll post some pictures in effort to better show this procedure soon. Best of luck, hope this helps!

[Asphalt Cowboy]

That's an interesting situation and solution Sean, one I've never encountered.

On disassembly Sgt, you should also inspect the pick-up ramp of the safety body as well as the engagement face at the front of the cocking piece. What you will be looking for is galling, burrs or abnormal wear pattern. If you find any of these the most economical option would be to replace the part. In the case of a numbers matching rifle I would suggest retaining the original part/s somewhere where they/it won't be misplaced.

[sean46953]

Trust me, it took me a while to figure out that it eas the firing pin was the culprit to the issue I had, which from the sounds of it, is ther very same as the issue he's having. Now, I haven't quite figured out what about the firng pin being one way or another actually causes the problem, I just know it can and does. I'll take a long look at the old Turk that has this problem to see if I can't figure out the "science" of the problem, then I'll post my findings. One other thing, does anyone else have the problem that I have with my Mauser, too?