10/22 firing pin too short?

Slamfyre

Slamfyre

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I have a 10/22 take down that has had a high rate of misfires from the very beginning right after I bought it brand new. Initially I thought it just needed a break-in period. But now it's been a couple of years and several thousand rounds and it still misfires too much and in an inconsistent manner. It can go through an entire 25 rnd mag with no problems and then on the following mag it'll be misfiring every 3 or 4 rounds. Misfired rounds will always go off on the second attempt.

I took apart the bolt completely and everything seems to be smooth enough and freely moving. All I can think of is that the firing pin is just a tad to short, with an inadequate protrusion and ends up causing these misfires. Here are some pictures with measurements on both the bolt and the firing pin. What do you guys think?

Bolt face depth is 0.042 in.

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Have you been accidentally dry firing it? I bet if you look at the chamber you'll see an indent where the firing pin impacted.

That's one of the major causes of shortened firing pin, the pin starts to mushroom and doesn't fully engage the rim. Easy/cheap replacement.
 
I looked into Dlask, Hical, Bits of Pieces (all local to my area) and all I can find are non Ruger after market firing pins that range from $27 to $50. Brownells and Midway USA have OEM for $4.99 and $3.99. Do you guys know of anything local-ish to Vancouver or at least in Canada where I can get an OEM firing pin? Funny thing the second product review on Midway USA says,
By Daryl from Mobile AL

easy to install stopped misfires works great

Bottom Line Yes, I would recommend this to a friend
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Maybe it's a sign that I should buy some firing pins from MidwayUSA and just cross the border to go pick them up.
 
Slamfyre said:
I looked into Dlask, Hical, Bits of Pieces (all local to my area) and all I can find are non Ruger after market firing pins that range from $27 to $50. Brownells and Midway USA have OEM for $4.99 and $3.99. Do you guys know of anything local-ish to Vancouver or at least in Canada where I can get an OEM firing pin? Funny thing the second product review on Midway USA says, Maybe it's a sign that I should buy some firing pins from MidwayUSA and just cross the border to go pick them up.
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Check with Milarms or Source For Sports in Bonnyville. They sell Volquartsen parts. That's what I ran until I installed a Kidd Bolt. They work fantastic!!!
 
I'm almost 100% sure that 0.0015" difference falls into the category of Negligible. A better guess would be that the pin is being prevented from traveling far enough forward or the tip geometry is off. The tip with should taper to 1/3-1/2 the width of the firing pin. Check your firing pin protrusion and examine the tip geometry.
 
bsand said:
Have you been accidentally dry firing it? I bet if you look at the chamber you'll see an indent where the firing pin impacted.

That's one of the major causes of shortened firing pin, the pin starts to mushroom and doesn't fully engage the rim. Easy/cheap replacement.
Click to expand...

You made me go look, Kam. But no, no indents on the chamber. I usually uncock my guns right after I'm done shooting. I'll pull the bolt about halfway back and then pull the trigger to ease the bolt softly in place with the hammer down. The lack of indents doesn't surprise me. This thing has been misfiring since I got it out of its brand new box.
 
Slamfyre said:
You made me go look, Kam. But no, no indents on the chamber. I usually uncock my guns right after I'm done shooting. I'll pull the bolt about halfway back and then pull the trigger to ease the bolt softly in place with the hammer down. The lack of indents doesn't surprise me. This thing has been misfiring since I got it out of its brand new box.
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I would dare say that your firing pin is either too short ( which it is compared to mine ) or your hammer spring is weak... Those would be the first things I looked at. As well as the actual hammer
 
does your firing pin move freely in the bolt? Could there be a bur on one of the edges that's causing a little friction?

Also which ammo are you using? I've found with some of my ammo like American Eagle or bulk Remington I do get a higher percentage of misfires. It's because the primer material may not be evenly distributed around the full circumference of the rim.
 
Blastattack said:
I'm almost 100% sure that 0.0015" difference falls into the category of Negligible. A better guess would be that the pin is being prevented from traveling far enough forward or the tip geometry is off. The tip with should taper to 1/3-1/2 the width of the firing pin. Check your firing pin protrusion and examine the tip geometry.
Click to expand...
You're probably right, but we don't know if wheeler's firing pin is near the shorter edge of allowed tolerances. It could also be that my bolt is on the longer edge if tolerances. In any case, it looks like everybody agrees that trying a new firing pin has a good likelihood of solving the problem. And in the vicinity of $3.99 a piece I'll just find a gun shop I can walk into south of the border and get a few just to try them out. Thanks for the insights, guys.
 
VanMan said:
does your firing pin move freely in the bolt? Could there be a bur on one of the edges that's causing a little friction?

Also which ammo are you using? I've found with some of my ammo like American Eagle or bulk Remington I do get a higher percentage of misfires. It's because the primer material may not be evenly distributed around the full circumference of the rim.
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It does move freely. I took the bolt completely apart looking for burs to polish. The little gun misbehaves equally with all sorts of ammo, CCI, Federal, American Eagle, Remington Thunderbolts, Aguila, Winchester, etc.
 
Are you getting light strikes on the ones that don't fire or nothing at all? If you are, my suspicion is that the firing pin is missing the shell's rim on the top side. A common problem, there are a number of fixes for this, from pinning the firing pin down, to hammering a bb above it to keep it there(tutorial on RFC). I usually weld a small amount on the bottom near the back of the firing pin (I have used jb weld successfully), and then remove very small amounts until it just slides front to back using the retaining pin. This will hold it down, assuring that it hits the rim of the round. I have not seen the pin itself cause this, buying a new pin will not cure this problem. Send me your bolt, I'll fix it for you.
 
10mark22 said:
Are you getting light strikes on the ones that don't fire or nothing at all? If you are, my suspicion is that the firing pin is missing the shell's rim on the top side. A common problem, there are a number of fixes for this, from pinning the firing pin down, to hammering a bb above it to keep it there(tutorial on RFC). I usually weld a small amount on the bottom near the back of the firing pin (I have used jb weld successfully), and then remove very small amounts until it just slides front to back using the retaining pin. This will hold it down, assuring that it hits the rim of the round. I have not seen the pin itself cause this, buying a new pin will not cure this problem. Send me your bolt, I'll fix it for you.
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They're light strikes.
 
More than likely the firing pin is missing the rim, or just touching the edge then slipping upwards. fixable. Did you understand where I meant to add material?
 
Slamfyre said:
They're light strikes.
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can you post a pic of a cartridge with a light strike? I had some light strike problems with one of my .22 handguns and fixed reprofiled my firing pin as well as put in a fresh hammer spring. I pulled the projectile from a .22 minimag to test. You can see the strike on the left is much deeper than the one on the right.

View attachment 47966
 
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They always fire on a second attempt. The second attempt is just done by partially pulling the bolt back enough to just recock the hammer, but not enough to eject the misfire. Thus the second imprint is done right on top of the first imprint. I don't keep any spent cases.
 
I can try flipping it around from what it currently is at right now. It was misfiring right out of the new box -- in the configuration that it was setup in the factory.
 
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