Quote Originally Posted by Bubba-7 View Post
Nothing, I would expect.
0.070" should be the size of the hole.
The piston does not have to fall with a tilt. But should(most of the time) with a tilt and tap on the side of the housing.
When I got home from work today I was happier than a puppy with two peters. My new/old M2 stock was sitting on the porch and right next to it was my Criterion barrel.
That barrel sure is purty!

The stock looks good too. I've already dropped the carbine in it's new wood. The tension seems pretty good as-is. It's kinda funny not seeing the almost-tacticool stock on the gun. The GI stock lends a little more credibility to the package.

Anyway, back to my issue.

I did some digging into the problem and I believe there should be no adverse effects to my butchery. Since the orifice is still the stock size it doesn't matter that there are two holes feeding it. Considering that one of them is half plugged it should help.
I got all worried about it without thinking it through.

Just to hedge our bets, I'll build some lightweight Trail Boss loads and see how the response of the action compares to the unmolested carbine. I'm fairly certain what will happen but I want to start off with low pressure and a control. I'll walk the pressure up to normal levels in a couple steps to see how it goes. If the two carbines start to feel different under recoil (op rod and bolt battering) then I'll shut it down and make immediate plans to rebarrel. If not, we'll have a little fun with it.
It will be interesting to see if this fixes the feeding issues. If the FTE problem is gone but it still fails to feed I'll have to find a cheap GI action to put my purty new barrel on.

Off to the loading bench I go...