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I have a BSA no 4 T. I reload my own ammo and every now and then when the rifle is fired the hammer will not go all the way forward and the cocking handle has fallen only half way and the round fails to fire. It seems a final sqeeze on the trigger and it will fire Somestimes not.
The bolt is a replacement with the original bolt head on it.
Does this sound like a hammer or spring or trigger grouping problem?
You haven't givem me/us enough info to be able to trouble shoot your problem Mr Bungle. Is your cocking piece intact? Is your bolt closing fully? Replacement bolt fills me with dread too. Fitting a new or replacement bolt is a bit of a chore to get right.
Over to you!
the bolt seems to be fully closed. i am going to shoot it thursday and i am going to pay more attention to the bolt when firing. the cocking handle seems to be in place. as the hammer protrudes the same as my other enfield no 4's . no unusual wear on the hammer. the bolt head has a little indention from where the primer of the round would sit. the trigger is does the standard two stage pull....slightly light pull then stops then final pull of the trigger.
i never had this problem with factory ammo, but i reload my own 308 ammo too and never have this problem.
i cannot figure if it is the occasional bad primer or rifle problem.
Mr. B: Based on your initial description of the situation it has to be a problem inside the bolt or perhaps something external to the bolt interfering with the free movement of the cocking piece. Personally I'd strip that bolt down and give it a very careful going over before using it again. You have other functioning bolts to compare the parts with which helps. After going over it you can submit detailed comments/ photos and Capt. Laidler and others will be able to help you solve the problem. What you learn will also help other non-experts like myself.
Ridolpho
i will try to get some pics up today.
What do you mean by: "the cocking handle has fallen only half way" and, BTW, Lee-Enfields don't have hammers.
Mr Bungle, do you mean the cocking piece when you refer to the 'hammer'? Is it that the cocking piece is only moving forward into the half cock position when you fire the rifle, rather than travelling the full distance forwards? Just trying to get my head round what the problem is exactly.
ATB.
Make sure the safety assembly is installed properly too while your at it.
hammer=firing pin....my bad... got a tooth pulled yesterday so i am not up to my full faculties.
yes roger that is what i mean.
well i ran a couple of rounds throught it, just cycling the rounds through not firing. and on a round or two the bolt had trouble closing. i took a closer look at the reloads and found the neck base was slightly deformed from when the bullet was seated. it basically squashed the neck and causes the round not to sit properly in the chamber.
i dry fired the rifle , the safety works properly and everything looks fine.
here is a pic of the trouble round. the bottom of the neck looks smashed alittle.
https://www.milsurps.com/images/impo...20131455-1.jpg
now here is the weird thing. there are little dents in the rounds that gave me trouble but not on most of the rounds just the ones that did the half cock thing...
https://www.milsurps.com/images/impo...20131454-1.jpg