Parts breakage. Bummer.
Written on August 10, 2013 By Tony in General Gun Stuff
Anyone who has been around guns for a while has most likely had something break on them. It’s not surprising, guns deal with pressures that can be measured by the ton per square inch, things moving at thousands of feet per second, and reciprocating parts and springs. Really, when I think about it, I’m impressed that my guns don’t suffer more breakage.
On Monday, Kevin and I went out and tried a new range that opened recently fairly close to my home. We shot several .32 revolvers, a few auto pistols, a .45 revolver, and the new Reising model 50 that I’ve talked about elsewhere. The Reising was having some hiccups, and jamming more than normal, so I set it aside after one of the jams.
We shot the revolvers some more, and then I decided we should shoot through the rest of the loaded mags for the Reising before we headed out. Kevin pushed a mag home and racked the action and when he pulled the trigger, the only sound was the unhappy “clack” of the hammer striking the back of the bolt. He racked it again, and “clack”. Kevin cleared the gun, and I checked. sure enough, the firing pin was broken.
Reisings are known to break an odd firing pin from time to time, so I wasn’t entirely surprised by it, but I was certainly unhappy about it. Within minutes of getting home I ordered a new replacement firing pin that’s of a stronger design, along with a full set of springs and a few other little things I needed for the gun.
To my delight, the package arrived just 2 days after ordering, and I was able to swap the various parts out before the weekend. While I was at it, I swapped out a few of my original parts for later pieces that had come from a parts lot. I figured I might as well keep my original pieces nice and let the wear and tear take it’s toll on the replacement parts.
In about 3 hours, I’m headed back to the range to see if the hard work will result in a more reliable gun. I’d sure like to think that it will, what with the new springs and such. I’m hoping that the new springs will give the hammer the oomph to ignite the hard Tula primers that I’ve still thousands of, so that I don’t have to start buying the more expensive federal primers just to make the gun run properly.