I need some Tokarev help!

Gillen1 said:
I am trying to drive it out from the side you mentioned, no movement whatsoever. I wish I could put some pictures up, but the camera packed away as I am moving this weekend! Cell phone can't get the details I need.

I will check out your thread and see if I can find answers. But one thing I now notice is that the extractor towards the claw end is not flush with the side of the slide and tapers in a bit, is that normal?
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Show me a picture and I will tell you.

How the extractor looks on the outside shouldn't matter much. More important is how it fits and functions on the inside.

It sounds to me that your problem is different from the one I had but if there is excessive gap between the extractor claw and the breech face tightening that up a bit will help. I still think your barrel is getting hot and melting the surplus lacquer. Shooting non surplus ammo would eliminate this of course. If you want to shoot the surplus I would polish the chamber and clean the ammo like others have mentioned. Proper grip can also affect the guns ability to extract.
 
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Well,

I would like to see both sides of the split pin that holds in the firing pin assembly. Also a picture from inside like the one above, so I can see the clearance between the breech face and the extractor.
 
After reading your post, I do believe we have different problems and that my main issue is going to be coming from the melting of the laqure of surplus ammo. I have cleaned up 40 rounds and will try them out next time I'm shooting. I really appreciate your help, you sure know a lot about the tokarevs!

I looked at my extractor and had an empty round in it and everything there looked pretty good, cycled and extracted the round well.

I guess for the future, once the Tokarev gets hot, I just need to shoot other things for a while until it cools down!
 
Thank you for the compliment but I am really just an amateur who happens to be pretty handy.

I want to help but it is difficult when I can't see the problem for myself.

This first picture is of one of my spent 7.62X25 Tokarev cases. As you can see the strike is a bit odd looking but both of my Russian TT33's make strikes like this and I have never had a problem with the firing pin so I haven't worried about it.
762tok2.jpg


This second picture is of the breech faces and extractors of my two Russian TT33's for comparison. The top one is the 1943 war production one that I had trouble with at first. The bottom is my 1951 post war gun that has never had any problems.

If you look closely you can see that the extractor is a few thousandths further from the breech face on the early gun. This is what I had to tighten up to solve the problem as outlined in the thread I mentioned above. It used to be much worse. If I place a spent case in the breech face on each, held by the extractor it is a bit floppy on the early gun but the later one holds it much tighter. I would check this area and see how far the extractor fits on yours since this would affect the guns ability to pull the spent case from the chamber and discard it.

tt33extractor2.jpg


One other possibility is grip. When I bought my first TT33 I found my hand would get sore with the original grips after about 50 or so rounds. I wasn't as able to grip the gun tightly with a sore hand and this may have exacerbated my extraction problems since a weak grip can compromise extraction. I bought the Marschalgrips with the palm swell and the sore hand problem was solved.

You seem to be having some difficulty with the pins so I dug up this article which describes the proper method: http://www.alpharubicon.com/leo/tokarev213.htm

This is what the punch for the split pin should look like so it squeezes the two halves together:
tokarev213236.jpg


There is also a youtube video describing this here:

He uses a slotted screwdriver perpendicular to the slot but I don't think this is the best method. It will probably work on some pins but if yours is particularly tight it may not work. Also, it will likely leave a mark on the pin which is not desireable. The tool above is much better in my opinion.

For general knowledge on retaining pins there is a fairly comprehensive article here: Working with pins and punches.
 
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Clotho, I've read that the strange firing pin "swipe" pattern on the case is caused by a weak 60 YO recoil spring
which may result in a broken firing pin. The suggested remedy is the Wolff Springs TT33 kit. Any thoughts?
 
machman said:
Clotho, I've read that the strange firing pin "swipe" pattern on the case is caused by a weak 60 YO recoil spring
which may result in a broken firing pin. The suggested remedy is the Wolff Springs TT33 kit. Any thoughts?
Click to expand...

I replaced the recoil spring, mag springs and extractor spring in the 1943 TT33 with Wolf springs and it still does it. Over 2000 rounds have been fired in either gun without any firing pin problems. The 1943 TT33 still stovepipes once every few hundred rounds or so but as you can see above, the extractor could still stand to be a bit closer to the breech on that one. The 1951 gun has never had a hiccup in its 2000+ rounds. It still has the 62 year old springs in it as well.
 
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So here are three pictures of the Tokarev from last night. http://imgur.com/a/jq4nm

My casing also looks like the one you had in your picture, so I'm glad that the strike mark is normal and I will not worry about that.

In the picture you will see that the fp retaining pin is not like the others, and yes, has a little damage from me and a screwdriver on the edges, but it looked largely like that when I got it. I for the life of me can not move the thing, and when the new pin comes in, I will probably drill the old one out.

I really should consider that maybe I am the problem and really make sure I have a solid grip on it. I recently bought a slip on rubber grip and will put it on the Tokarev and see if it helps with my grip.

I also recently bought off the EE a 1948 frame for the Tokarev, and when it shows up I will try putting my slide on it and see if things are any smoother. Since the slide is a post war, it may work better on a post war frame?
 
Hi Gillen,

It looks to me that you are trying to drive out the fp retaining pin from the wrong side. Any chance of getting a picture from the other side? I have no idea how you managed to raise some burs when you were trying to remove the extractor pin. More than likely you will have to remove those before you reassemble as they may bind. What are you using for a punch on these?
 
I am using a metal punch, not sure of the exact size but it fit in the hole fine. I don't think I can drive it out the other side to be honest, but I will try to get more pics up soon. I had reassembled and nothing seemed to be different, but I will remove the burr. I'm sure it must of happened once when I was trying to drive it out and the slide moved a bit and the side of the punch must of hit the frame in that spot.


Clotho said:
Hi Gillen,

It looks to me that you are trying to drive out the fp retaining pin from the wrong side. Any chance of getting a picture from the other side? I have no idea how you managed to raise some burs when you were trying to remove the extractor pin. More than likely you will have to remove those before you reassemble as they may bind. What are you using for a punch on these?
Click to expand...
 
Ok, well, heck. I don't know what to suggest. If you are using the proper tools the pin should come out. I have never had this much difficulty with a pin.
 
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