Thread: Ultimate compact rifle & catrige - 6mmGT/22GT in howa mini action

Wow! thanks guys. For worrying about firearm safety. I appreciate that.
But, before you go on think I am going to blow up my gun with this carriage, have you actually had a look of the Mini bolt? Say put it side to side to a Tikka bolt. You might notice the bolt face wall thickness is about the same (if not thicker), the lug thickness is also about the same. They didn't make those important things "mini".
There are discussions about if bolt thrust is the only main safety factor for a bolt gun. As I understand it, for a bolt action rifle the majority force of the bolt thrust goes into its lugs, where it happen to be the strongest part of the action (for a reason). To cause failure of the lug you need very high forces. here is the force required to cause 4140 steel to fail.
ROCKWELL ‘C’ HARDNESS 4140 YIELD STRENGTH PSI
20 83,500
22 87,000
30 135,000
34 148,750
37 159,000
42 178,000
46 195,000
49 211,000
Now to reach this kind force, I will be worried more about other things first. like the case will be ruptured or at minimum the primer will be blown off, so the hot gas will flow through the bolt and heading towards shooter. Here is where howa bolt shines. It has 4 vents to direct hot gas away from shooter, while Tikka has none. If gas still reaches the shroud, the howa has metal shroud, while Tikka has piece of plastic (ok the later model has metal one now). On top of that the Mini has M16 style extractor which is consider safer than Tikka/Sako. So I will trust more in howa in such scenario.
I do own one gun that has lug setback due to the bolt thrust (only 1 thou so not an issue), and it is Remington titanium 700, never happened to my steel actioned rifle. Hence my suspicion about other material. I have never owned a Aluminum actioned rifle so happy to hear other opinions.
Happy discussion