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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
Looking at that brass, there is definately something wrong with your rifle - big time!
any idea of what's going on??
i really think it is a crushed neck on the round and it does not fit in the chamber properly causing the miss fire.
Where those dents caused during firing or reloading?
Its difficult to see from the photo of the reloaded round if the dents are there.
Its quite common for dents like that to be caused by applying too much resizing lube to the case if full length resizing.
Another thing to check - how many times have you reloaded the brass?
After repeated resizing the cases stretch and need trimming - any good reloading manual will give you a 'trim to' length.
If you have replaced the bolt, but used the same bolt head have you checked the headspace?
the dents were cause when fired. only those round not the other 20 i shot from the same batch. i think i crimped the neck of those rounds when i seated the bullets.
i do use alot of lube when resizing.
the bolt is the one that came with the rifle. the numbers do not match the receiver but it has the M/47 stamp on the bolt head and the little ? mark on the head.
no i have not checked the headspace. i do not have the gauges to measure it.
You may want to read Peter's article on fitting a bolt as well.
Thoroughly check that the chamber is CLEAN.
With the bolt removed hold the barrel up to the light can you see if there is any embedded debris in the neck area of the chamber.
If all of the checks listed above fail to give any clues it might be worth checking the setting of your bullet seating die. If you are trying to apply too much crimp you could be deforming the neck of the case making the round difficult to chamber.
The chamber is clean. I think it goes back to me resizing the entire casing instead of just the neck. Then one that are deformed are the problem rounds.
got it figured out.
i was resizing the whole casing and distorting the casing shoulder and it was not fitting in the chamber right. plus garbage in the chamber, got it cleaned out thoroughly and inspected the rifle and the bolt. the rifle preformed great yesterday after redoing the loads.
Ah........ so it wasn't a BOLT fitting problem but a reloading problem! The answer from now on is that when/if there's a loading problem - as in loading a round into the chamber, then ALWAYS check with a drill or Armourers dummy round first