Build a Remington 700 bolt disassembly tool

If you own a Remington 700 and want to work on it, you’ll need a way to remove the firing pin assembly from the bolt. One method is to use a coin in the slot on the firing pin (demonstrated here), the other is to use a bolt disassembly tool. You can either buy a tool or make one. If you want to buy one, the Kleinendorst tool, available from Brownells works well. In this post, I’ll be building one.

TM 05539-IN, the Technical Manual for the USMC M40A3 and M40A5, (you can find a copy of it here) has a set of drawings for a Remington 700 bolt disassembly tool included in it. I’ll be using those drawings to build mine. During the course of this post, I’ll mention some dimensions, but the rest can be obtained from this manual.

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The following tools were ordered from Brownells:

All lathe work is conducted on a Grizzly 4003G gunsmith’s lathe.

The bolt disassembly tool consists of three pieces; a body, arm and handle. The body is made out of a piece of 1″ diameter aluminum, 2.5″ long. The handle and arm are both cut from 1/8″x5/8″ steel. The tool is held together by two 1/8″ roll pins; 1.0″ and .375″ long.

Building the bolt disassembly tool body

I start with a scrap of aluminum cut a little longer than the finished (2.5″) length I’ll need.

The body is secured in a three jaw chuck (a set tru Gator) and the ends are faced. A slight chamfer is added to both ends of the body.

One end of the body is center drilled.

A 3/4″ Silver and Demming drill is secured in a truck. The dial indicator on the tail stock is used to determine the depth of cut.

The 3/4″ diameter hole is drilled .781″ deep.

Next, a .453″ (29/64″) hole is drilled 1.187″ deep.

This is what the end of the body looks like. The bolt plug is held in this recess.

The body is secured in the mill with a v-block.

A .312″ wide, .920″ deep groove is cut in the end of the body. A 2 flute, 3/16 end mill was used to make this cut in multiple passes.

The body is repositioned in the vise. A .190″ groove, .340″ deep is cut down the center of one side.

The body is rotated 90 degrees and a spotting drill is used to located the pin hole.

A 1/8″ drill bit is used to finish the hole. Once the burrs are removed and the sharp edges are broken, the body is complete.

Fabricating the handle

The handle stock is secured in the mill vise with a set of parallels. An end mill is used to square and locate the end of the handle.

Both holes are spotted.

Two .136″ (#29 drill) holes are drilled.
The end of the handle is rounded on a belt grinder. The handle is complete.

Fabricating the bolt disassembly tool arm

The arm is squared in the mill. It has one 1/8″ hole in it. The hole is spotted and drilled.

The bar stock is coated in Dykem and layout lines scribed.

The arm is secured in the milling machine vise. An end mill is used to remove shape the arm.

The square edges on the arm need to be rounded at the belt grinder.

The arm is ready.

Putting it all together

A .375″ long 1/8″ roll pin (ground one down from a 5/8″ long pin) connects the arm to the handle. The arm and handle are connected to the body with a 1/8″ roll pin that is 1″ long. The pin is driven with a roll pin holder (top left) and driven flush with a roll pin punch (bottom left).