Light firing pin strikes, faliure to fire

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ozarki
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Light firing pin strikes, faliure to fire

Post by ozarki »

I think I have found the gremlin that causes light pin strikes. I have never owned nor fired a Marlin so I was hot familiar with the two piece firing pin. I have, however spent a lifetime with enertial firing pins. The RG pin is an enertial pin. Mine was so tight in the channel that I had to use a stick to push it back and forth. The gremlin is the spring that connects the two. It rubs the top of the pin channel and soaks up hammer energy to the point of FTF. If you straighten that little spring very carefully and very little with two pairs of pliers, One on each side of the bend that pushes the rear pin down, you can hear the forward pin move in the channel when you shake the bolt. The spring and gravity still push the rear pin down so you still have that safety feature. I tried to do pictures but cannot get them to up load.

Good Shooting, Wes
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Re: Light firing pin strikes, faliure to fire

Post by akuser47 »

Good work if it is the culprit. I would def. Think of getting one then. Also I am linking the how to for pics hope it helps thanks for share your fix. http://www.rossi-rifleman.com/viewtopic.php?t=486
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Re: Light firing pin strikes, faliure to fire

Post by Tuco Ramirez »

I thought that was it as well. I have a one piece firing pin now. When it was all said and done it was a main spring adjustment. My cross bolt safety was also slowing the hammer. It was a long journey for me but in the end it was the main spring. I still need to do a trigger job because when you increase the main spring it makes for a stronger trigger pull. I need the case hardener compound before I do the trigger job. Most parts are only surface hardened. Remove the top layer and you are into soft metal.
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Re: Light firing pin strikes, faliure to fire

Post by donhuff »

I was going to say the same thing as Tuco. "fixin" the firing pin on mine didn't change a thing.


one piece firing pin??? What's that about?
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Re: Light firing pin strikes, faliure to fire

Post by Centaur 1 »

I've been chasing the light strike gremlin for two years now. Every time I discover a problem and come up with a fix, the gun gets a little better. One of these days, one of us is going to stumble on a fix that'll cure all our Rossi's. My gun fires about 90% of the time when I pull the trigger, and it always fires on the second try. I've gotten pretty good at reaching up with my thumb and recocking the hammer. Sometimes after closing the lever, I'll manually push the firing pin forward with my finger so that it's already resting against the primer. This does seem to help so you might be on to something with the spring, I'll definitely try your bending technique and see what happens.

So far the fix that did the most for me was to not move the shoulder when resizing my brass. Even though the 30-30 headspaces on the rim, my rifle was cut to the maximum dimension for the rim, and the chamber was cut way too deep. If I full length resized my brass every time, my cases would split on the shoulder after just 2 or 3 reloads. I have two 30-30's and I keep the brass segregated, rounds made for the Rossi don't even come close to fitting the chamber of my 336.
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Re: Light firing pin strikes, faliure to fire

Post by Tuco Ramirez »

donhuff wrote:I was going to say the same thing as Tuco. "fixin" the firing pin on mine didn't change a thing.


one piece firing pin??? What's that about?

The flat spring got tossed and I welded the two pieces together. I wanted to make sure there was no resistance against the firing pin.
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Re: Light firing pin strikes, faliure to fire

Post by Tuco Ramirez »

Centaur 1 wrote:I've been chasing the light strike gremlin for two years now. Every time I discover a problem and come up with a fix, the gun gets a little better. One of these days, one of us is going to stumble on a fix that'll cure all our Rossi's. My gun fires about 90% of the time when I pull the trigger, and it always fires on the second try. I've gotten pretty good at reaching up with my thumb and recocking the hammer. Sometimes after closing the lever, I'll manually push the firing pin forward with my finger so that it's already resting against the primer. This does seem to help so you might be on to something with the spring, I'll definitely try your bending technique and see what happens.

So far the fix that did the most for me was to not move the shoulder when resizing my brass. Even though the 30-30 headspaces on the rim, my rifle was cut to the maximum dimension for the rim, and the chamber was cut way too deep. If I full length resized my brass every time, my cases would split on the shoulder after just 2 or 3 reloads. I have two 30-30's and I keep the brass segregated, rounds made for the Rossi don't even come close to fitting the chamber of my 336.
I have a couple of post detailing all the things I found slowing or reducing the hammer strike. I would bet you a cup of coffee if you adjusted your main spring just a bit stronger you would cure the FTF issues. Check your cross bolt safety when the hammer goes forward and see if the hammer is pushing your safety out as it passes it. Mine was really slowing my hammer down because there was contact between the two.

If you apply any upward pressure on the lever does the firing pin still travel forward with ease? or does it make pushing the firing pin forward very hard?
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Re: Light firing pin strikes, faliure to fire

Post by donhuff »

Sometimes I do like Centaur and push the firing pin forward. That makes it fire every time, but is aggravating to have to do and remember to do.

I bent the main spring adjuster to increase the spring pressure, and that has helped more than anything.


Have yall noticed how the bolt drops down when you close it that last little bit? And how the firing pin dent is almost never dead in the center?

I have used a small screwdriver to lift the front of the bolt, back up to where it is supposed to be before firing off a round. This will make the dent be centered in the primer, and they fire every time. But I cant figure out a way to make the thing center by itself, except for welding on that little bit of metal toward the front of the bolt, between the loading gate hole and the slot cut for the case to exit. I aint THAT good of a welder so I'm not gonna try it.
Seems to me if it were to hit dead center and not off to the side, it would have a better chance of pinching the primer mix between the anvil and the firing pin. Usually when I get a misfire, the dent is light AND over to one side. And I can see how the two together would totally miss pinching the primer mix.
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Re: Light firing pin strikes, faliure to fire

Post by Tuco Ramirez »

When the lever is closed can you move the bolt backward using your finger through the ejection port? I had to add metal to the tip of the lever to get a tight lockup. I have not case hardened that added metal yet but I will. I still believe the locking bolt face may need to be worked on as the lever itself pushes the bolt forward and the locking bolt should push it into the full locked position and keep it there. If you look at the tip of the lever itself the metal is thin and the locking bolt face is a wide strong area.

IMHO there are multiple problem areas with tolerance related problems, either to tight or to loose. My locking bolt looked like someone worked on it with a welders grinder. The tooling was not even close to a machined part. I still have some loose ends to finish on mine but the FTF problem is 100% gone. One of these days when I have time I should do up a document that list in detail what I did to mine.
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Re: Light firing pin strikes, faliure to fire

Post by Centaur 1 »

Tuco Ramirez wrote:I have a couple of post detailing all the things I found slowing or reducing the hammer strike. I would bet you a cup of coffee if you adjusted your main spring just a bit stronger you would cure the FTF issues. Check your cross bolt safety when the hammer goes forward and see if the hammer is pushing your safety out as it passes it. Mine was really slowing my hammer down because there was contact between the two.

If you apply any upward pressure on the lever does the firing pin still travel forward with ease? or does it make pushing the firing pin forward very hard?
Tuco, I remember that thread, we worked through a lot of issues on that one. My locking bolt was binding up so bad on the rear firing pin that it wasn't able to fully raise into the slot in the breech bolt. The front surface of the locking bolt is angled so that it moves the breech bolt fully forward, thereby setting the rifles head spacing. That binding between the rear firing pin and the locking bolt increased the head spacing so the chamber was out of specs. I ground that part of the locking bolt so that it is now able to raise fully into the slot in the breech bolt, which brought the head spacing back in tolerance. The locking bolt no longer binds the rear firing, I ground it to the point where both firing pins are now in alignment.

The only tension left is the flat spring that Ozarki wrote about in the original post. I'm sitting here with my breech bolt disassembled in front of me again, and I'm really starting to wonder if this spring is really needed. If the rifle is held upright gravity makes the rear firing drop, no spring assistance needed. Has anyone ever just left the spring out when reassembling the bolt?
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