Firing pin marks on empty Tokerav brass

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msnacks

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I was firing my tokerav pistol for the first time the other day using the non corrosive s&b cartridges, and i noticed all my brass had a indent of the firing pin, and from what it looks like, it slid, from what i'm guessing this is because i have a weak recoil spring from it sitting in storage since the 40's, is it bad to fire the gun? should i replace the recoil spring? and if so, from where?

Thanks alot!


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This is common to all pistols of the Tokarev design, and it has been discussed in several threads before in the Pistol forum here:

Here's one.

Another.

The solution in this one, which is an up-dated hammer (unfortunately you can't just order one off the shelf).

(I point to these just so as not to re-post a bunch of pictures from those threads.)

Start by cleaning the pistol of all the Cosmoline used for storage, or any other gunk. In particular you should remove the firing pin and spring, clean those, and scrub out the pin channel with pipe cleaners. It is the last place Cosmo will hide, and as it slows down the return of the firing pin, it increases the wipe time. Need specific instructions on dealing with the retaining pin here?

Recoil and firing pin springs are available from Wolff [gunsprings dotcom], and if your springs are weak replacing them will help a bit. However, Wolff's ‘temporary situation’ of not shipping internationally has been going on two and a half months now.

The reason it happens at all is that the firing pin is designed to directly engage the primer when the hammer pushes it, rather than to poke forward under the inertia of the strike against the force of the spring. This means when the barrel un-locks from the slide and tilts down, the pin is still in the primer, and it will wipe across the edge of the impression. This was a design choice, trading long-term stress on the pin tip for reliably deep strikes every single time.

The up-dated hammer seems to have been introduced in the 1950s, and can sometimes be found in Soviet examples of any date which have been re-furbished, as well as some other nations' models when they took on production. I have called it a notched hammer, but the difference is actually a small hump on the hammer below the part that strikes the rear of the firing pin. This hump means that when the slide recoils back, it's not pushing on the striking face of the hammer, which keeps the pin protruding into the primer. Rather the slide pushes back on the hump, which jolts the hammer back off the pin and allows it to retract a thousandth of a second earlier.

I've fired a case of surplus and counting, across a bunch of models but mostly just two of them, plus a bunch of 9mm from several Toks in 9x19, and haven't broken anything yet.
 
mrbeil said:
Funny, my '45 izzy tokarev seems to have weak strikes half the time. Probably a firing pin issue
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Did you drive out the split retaining pin, remove the firing pin and spring and clean them, and blast some brake cleaner down the firing pin hole and scrub it out? If not, I'll bet there's still Cosmoline in there.

Are you actually having weak strikes; I mean how do the marks on the primer look? They should be deep. The firing pin on all Tokarev models should be long enough to protrude a good striking distance if the hammer is pushing fully on the rear of it. If you take off the barrel and put the slide back on, with the hammer down as you push the slide to rest position, the pin will poke out. If it doesn't, the pin tip has broken off.

(This is why there is a half-#### safety on the TT, because with the hammer down you can set off a chambered round if you smack it.)

In the end, it's probably an ammunition issue. The 1950s Czech surplus around here now has some hard primers, coupled with possibly some bad or old batch issues, and gummed up firing pins, many people report dud rounds. They almost always go bang if you pull the hammer back for a second go.
 
Oh ok, its probably just the ammo then because when I first got my tok from p&s I soaked the indivdual parts in varsol and cleaned them thoroughly with brake cleaner and oiled it
 
I soaked the indivdual parts in varsol and cleaned them thoroughly with brake cleaner and oiled it
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Many people think a dis-assembly and soak is enough, but if you didn't scrub the firing pin channel with some kind of brush that'll fit through there (pipe cleaner is good), there's probably still some Cosmo in the thing.

Also, it probably doesn't help that I don't have a firing pin spring
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Did it fly out when you took it apart, and now you can't find it? How many rounds have you fired in this state? I'm not sure that a missing spring would cause light strikes, unless the pin is loose in the channel because of it. Or maybe the tip has broken off because it doesn't want to retract at all after firing. Test the pin protrusion like I outlined (or measure the pin and I'll get some numbers to you).

As I said, Wolff [gunsprings dotcom] has them in their Tokarev service pack, but they temporarily for nearly the last three months aren't shipping out of the U.S.A.

It would appear not to be traveling straight for whatever reason?? bent? dirty? Firing pin is certainly not hitting light.
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They're all like this; the deep, positive strikes are part of the design. The firing pin shouldn't be the problem: when the slide is recoiling back, it pushes up against the hammer, which therefore pushes on the base of the firing pin. Because the pin is not an inertial design, this keeps the pin in the primer just for a skinch of a second while the barrel tilts before ejection.
 
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