#4 Mark 1 Loading problem

Was out shooting my No. 4 today, and each time I was pushing the bolt forward, the bullet would not strip from the mag, and chamber. It would take some coaxing to get it to load, if I was doing slow controlled loading. If I I did it in a fast moting, it seemed to load it 90% of the time with no issue. I was only loading 5 rounds at a time to the magazine,so I am not sure if that had anything to do with it.

Anyone else have this problem? Is it the mag spring not having enough tension to push the rounds up?

Any help is appreciated.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by tower06

Was out shooting my No. 4 today, and each time I was pushing the bolt forward, the bullet would not strip from the mag, and chamber. It would take some coaxing to get it to load, if I was doing slow controlled loading. If I I did it in a fast moting, it seemed to load it 90% of the time with no issue. I was only loading 5 rounds at a time to the magazine,so I am not sure if that had anything to do with it.

Anyone else have this problem? Is it the mag spring not having enough tension to push the rounds up?

Any help is appreciated.

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I've had the following problems:

Weak spring that would not load when 3 or less rounds were in the magazine.

Slightly squished magazine that would trap the follower.

Feed lips closed too much...cartridge low in magazine at the front leading to jams.

Feed lips opened up too much...rear of cartridge sitting too low for the bolt to strip the round.

Also have had situations where followers and springs would simply not work with one magazine, but would with another.

Remove the magazine and check the front feed lips.

They are thin and easily bent out of shape.

https://www.milsurps.com/images/impo...of_the_S-1.jpg

ANy pics of what properly bent feed lips look like to use as a point of reference?

I'm not able to take pictures right now.

I found a picture of the breech area of a No. 1 rifle. You can see one of the front magazine tabs sticking out in front of the hump on the magazine follower.

The other pic just shows a side view of a magazine.

Smead had a lot of good suggestions.

I would take a close look at the front tabs.
If one is higher than the other, I would try to gently bend it down so the tabs look the same on both sides.
https://www.milsurps.com/images/impo...LEAction-1.jpg
https://www.milsurps.com/images/impo...3/195690-1.jpg

Hi,

I had the same problem, played around with the tabs front and rear on the mag for ages. Eventually gave up got a new mag and everything cam fine !

Try a different mag is my recommendation.

Andy

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Originally Posted by AndyGC123

Hi,

I had the same problem, played around with the tabs front and rear on the mag for ages. Eventually gave up got a new mag and everything cam fine !

Try a different mag is my recommendation.

Andy

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Any sources for original No4 mk1 mags?

Collector's Source based in Canada

FirearmSales - Home based in Australia

Not sure in the US sorry.

Andy

I had the same problem with my No.4 at one time. The only problem was a tight magazine fit. A sharp rap on the bottom of the magazine fully seated it and ended the problem. I know this sounds simplistic, but give it a try before attempting any next steps, you never know, it might be as simepl as that.

Mags are cheap and readilly available, so unless you are trying to keep the rifle as 'all original', then buy one and maybe use that as a template for bending the lips into place.

Last night I fixed a mag that had been giving me fits for some time. It had the same problem as the mag of the original poster: that of failing to strip a round.

The correct diagnosis, came from looking at the gun from a different angle. I set the gun on its butt, vertical, and while pushing the bolt home, straight up, I noticed that the bolt face would pass over the left-hand round. If the bolt was tilted down a bit while being closed, the bolt face would catch the round (so much for the failure percentages, as the original poster talked of. Slow feed may mean a straight closure with no round picked up, while faster manipulation may lead to running the bolt "downhill" and picking up the round.)

This bad mag was compared closely with a good mag, both loaded and unloaded. Feed lips, spring length, etc., all looked real similar. With the unloaded mag in the rifle, it finally became apparent that the left rear feed lip was making contact with the corresponding rounded surface inside the receiver ( body.) I took off a few thousands from this mag lip, radiused the cut, and retried it. That small amount of work got the mag to seat noticeably higher in the receiver, and got it to present the round in such a way that the bolt head cannot miss picking it up.

That may or may not be the OP's problem. Just thought I'd throw out another possible fix not mentioned yet.