Updates on the Eureka Stockade and Australian manufacturing

[Wapiti]

I took a look at one of these things yesterday and I'll offer a suggestion to anyone who buys one.
There's a setscrew on the rear of the bolt, easily visible from the rear of the ejection port. It holds in the spring that tries to keep the cocking handle in the bolt. When the bolt stops at the rear of its travel, it has a very hard time because the bolt mechanically stops, but the cocking handle wants to keep going. A tiny spring is supposed to have enough energy to prevent this, whilst still allowing the serrated disassembly tab to be slid back so the handle comes off for cleaning.

Well I noticed that this grubscrew, looks to be maybe 3mm diameter, I assume it's metric, was sticking out of the bolt. Maybe by 3, 3.5mm. The bolt handle was moving backwards against the spring, which felt really weak. I thought it was wierd that a grubscrew would be designed to hang out that far for no reason.
I stuck my finger in the slot to feel the grubscrew, and it flew out onto the counter. The spring was hanging out of the hole, luckily still there.
Turned out the screw was only in the hole maybe half a turn, not screwed in flush like you'd imagine most designs would be. It either came loose on the trip from Turkanistan, or wasn't assembled/QA'd properly. Either way, despite the videos saying all these weak links were being loctited in, there was no loctite there.

So I'd suggest making sure all of these screws are firm over this gun, but they are small so do not overtighten them.

It came with two tiny bottles of a "loctite" knock-off, one is a thread locker, the other is a retaining compound/assembly adhesive. If you mix them up on little grubscrews, you will be in a world of s**t. That's if it's anything like Loctite 680.

Other than that, the machining quality was quite good, the price was $1599, but the overwhelming thing when picking it up is how front heavy it is, strangely so because the barrel is a pencil, and fluted to boot. There must be some serious metal to the gas piston system and spring.