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Dreyse 1907 bolt head

3K views 11 replies 5 participants last post by  bonehead 
#1 ·
Yeah, I messed up the caption - should be 1907.


I recently bought a 1907 Dreyse .32. I'm waiting for new Wolff springs to arrive, though I was able to shoot it (cast bullets). The gun is in great shape.
I have a question about the removeable bolt head. Was it designed to simplify take down, or as a way to not need to replace the entire bolt when the head wore down? It looks like the bolt head takes a beating. The one on my gun is a little dinged but it works fine.
Numrich and Jack First sell them, but they're out of stock. Any other suppliers out there?
 
#2 ·
I know a gent who makes them, I'll try to get in touch with him and see if he still has any/is making any more. He said he sells a lot of them as they break a lot!
 
#5 ·
A separate bolt head makes machining the bolt much easier in production; that is the likely reason it is separate.

Having a spare bolt head is "nice", but they really don't fail routinely; I can't imagine firing a Dreyse enough to warrant having a spare in stock. JMHO.
 
#6 ·
Don, there seems to be more failing bolt heads coming to the surface with these 1907s. I'm not entirely sure why as I am not well versed in metallurgy or anything of the sort, but I have heard and witnessed more than enough accounts to know that it is valid.

Unfortunately, I have been unable to get in touch with who used to make them. I'm considering getting a group buy together to try to find someone to make more.
 
#7 ·
Define "more", I know of a half dozen; maybe ?
Dreyse pistols are much more collectible now than in the past, if pricing is any indication; so maybe more broken bolt heads are being discovered that have been that way for years.
Of course these pistols get older every day 110+ years and counting . ;)

I've seen one broken bolt head and sold one spare in 50 years; but of the 12 or 15 1907's I have, I've really only shot my first one and that not all that much.
It is the first one I owned and I've had it for 60 years, it may have been fired 50 times in all that time- so maybe not a great test. :)

They would not be "easy" to make, would $100 each be of interest to anyone? I'm not sure you could get them made for that- unless it was just as a hobby of a pretty
good machinist with time on his hands. JMHO.

My advice is to scour the online auctions for parts, parts pistols, or rough pistols and buy them- even when you don't need them. They do turn up occasionally.

Unfortunately the most likely and realistic option is to retire a pistol with a breech face problem-- until and if a replacement can be found. :(
 
#12 ·
Define "more", I know of a half dozen; maybe ?
Dreyse pistols are much more collectible now than in the past, if pricing is any indication; so maybe more broken bolt heads are being discovered that have been that way for years.
Of course these pistols get older every day 110+ years and counting . ;)

I've seen one broken bolt head and sold one spare in 50 years; but of the 12 or 15 1907's I have, I've really only shot my first one and that not all that much.
It is the first one I owned and I've had it for 60 years, it may have been fired 50 times in all that time- so maybe not a great test. :)

They would not be "easy" to make, would $100 each be of interest to anyone? I'm not sure you could get them made for that- unless it was just as a hobby of a pretty
good machinist with time on his hands. JMHO.

My advice is to scour the online auctions for parts, parts pistols, or rough pistols and buy them- even when you don't need them. They do turn up occasionally.

Unfortunately the most likely and realistic option is to retire a pistol with a breech face problem-- until and if a replacement can be found. :(
I may be interested in a bolt head for around $100 bills. Let me know if the Ofer still stands. I’m currently working on some leads, but let’s see.
 
#8 ·
Don, I have heard of over two dozen. Personally, I think a large part of this is due to the uptick in interest in the 1907s leading to more being purchased and fired combined with access to the internet resulting in more reports. I would not be so surprised if it was a common and non-critical wear part, but the bolt head is a critical part, I would have thought that more care would've gone into the manufacturing process to prevent such failures. Given the large use of 1907s by police and military organizations, one would have thought this would have been diagnosed long ago. Perhaps it is due more to metal fatigue caused by the passage of time? The gentleman who made them in the past sold them for about $50 IIRC. This wasn't too long ago, perhaps only 3-5 years, so manufacturing couldn't have been too difficult. I could see about 50 being sold rather quickly if someone were to make them again.
 
#9 ·
All true.
But during period use, they were really/likely not fired much at all. JMHO.

We "collectors" have probably fired them in one range outing more than their entire career in Germany.
I'm not convinced that the failures we see, whether 50 or 200 out of the couple hundred thousand produced, is a significant failure rate- especially after 100 years.

I have a milling machine, some experience making parts, and have a rough idea of how many hours it would take to make the 1907 bolt head, if one had a cnc machine and someone to write the software to drive it, perhaps you could get them made for $50, for a run of some hundreds, but not for 50.
The guy that made them was doing it for "fun" not profit, or maybe a labor of love. :) JMHO.

There would be two versions of bolt heads, one for the narrow and another for the wide extractor - ?
 
#10 ·
Don, you make an excellent point. As far as the two versions of the bolt head, one could make only the narrow version. Any competent gunsmith should be able to widen the extractor grove to fit the wide extractor. The other option would be to only make the wide version, as very few (relatively) 1907s had the narrow version.
 
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