Steel to make firing pin?

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Spokerider

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I have a Bayard Model 3 Boys Rifle in .22LR. It's a neat old single shot but has little real value.

The firing pin is broken on it....about 50% is missing.....the front half that strikes the case rim has broken off, and no, I don't have that piece.
It is less than .125 thick steel and roughly 2" long. It slides in a groove cut in the bolt, that is about the same length that the firing pin is long.
I have not mic'ed the actual dimensions yet. The rear part of the pin is sort of squared off with more depth / mass, and has a groove / notch in the end of it that contacts the bolt and transfers the energy to the pin.

Thinking I could try making one with a dremel tool, grinder, various files, emery paper, etc. Or just making the front piece that broke off and silver soldering back on. Would that work? Where it would be soldered, it would be less than .125 x .125 squared contact area.

What type of steel would make a good .22 firing pin? An old flat file annealed? Chisel steel? Saw blade.....dunno if I have one 1.20 or so thick tho. Other steel?

What shape and size to make the very tip that hits the cartridge rim?

Thanks for your thoughts.
 
saw blade. remove all hardening from finished roughed out piece. once final dimensions are done, harden only the very tip, then anneal as per usual.


can you modify a ruger mkii firing pin, or cz, or anschutz? might be worth pursuing
 
I've read about drill rod or old twist drills being used to make firing pins as in this video:

As for silver-soldering the front piece, I've had a couple of firing pin tips fixed by drilling into the firing pin body and pressing in a new tip that is then silver soldered. That's a much stronger repair than just surface soldering, which I think you would find would fail in use.
 
Go online and look for a schematic reference. Numrich (Gun Parts) is a good place to start. At the very least you will get a drawing of what the part looks like and have a reference.

If the part is truly flat, a piece of hard stainless steel will do the job well. It is however HARD depending on which type you get. One thing about it though, it won't break again. Usually you will require a power tool to work this stuff.

If it is indeed round, which I suspect stickhunter is showing you the ideal method. but when push comes to shove and you don't have a lathe or drill press, a pretty good alternative is a hand drill mounted in a vice and some good files with a lot of TLC thrown in. Drill rod is an excellent material and readily available from most machine shops and commercial suppliers for industry.
 
For round firing pins I use tempered spring steel. If you go to a wrecker/dump, most of the 70's vintage cars used two springs in the trunk (to open it) they are roughly 3 1/2' long each. I robbed mine from an old Nova for years, and with 7' of material expect to never run out. I find it superior to any other material I've tried.

*I should mention this was originally suggested to me by a most excellent south of the border gunsmith.
 
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Type O1 (oil hardening) steel is the best to use for firing pins... so if you are dicking around with unknown steel heat a piece cherry red and quench it in motor oil... if it turns so hard a file slides on it, you probably have type O1. Draw it to a blue-purple and a file should bite into it...
 
I gather that the pin is flat in which case 4130 chrome moly might work. I've used it successfully to make a pin as well as other odds and ends.

It's used extensively in aircraft so a home builder might spare you some.
 
I often use grade 5 and 8 bolts to make fire pins and none ever failed. You can quench the tip if you like, too, but most of the times they don't even need it.
 
Thank you for all of your replies. Good info.

I ended up making a new firing pin from some stainless flat bar that I had on hand. I dunno what kind of stainless steel it is, but decided to use because; it was only .005 thinner than the original pin thickness, saving me much work with only hand tools......and because I wanted to see if I could actually pull it off. And I did.

It works well, after much fine tuning. I had to "guess" at the profile of the tip section.....because I didn't have the broken-off piece, and I had to guess at how far it stuck out past the end of the bolt face.......but figured it out with fine tuning until it went "bang". I'll post some pics.


Have a few more questions guys please......
The extractor only works to extract the spent case if I use my thumb and push down on the tip of the extractor [ so the claw grabs and holds the case rim ] as I pull back on the bolt handle. Then it works. If I don't hold it down, it does not grab. In the pics, you can see how the rear of the extractor claw-thingy, is bent up. There is no spring under it, it just has the fulcrum pin holding it into the bolt, that resides about 1/2 way back on it.......allowing the extractor to pivot up / down a few degrees. Now, is the rear tip of the extractor supposed to be bent up? Or, was it caught on the action upon pulling back on the bolt, once upon a time, thus bending it?

Should I straighten it out? If so, with heat or no heat? If I try to straighten it out, will it work-harden the metal and break? Prolly a one of a kind part no doubt.....

About the firing pin......if this one breaks or wears, I'll make another from better steel. Does anyone have any examples of O1 steel? Hand plane blade? or? Working with a part that is already flat is much easier than trying to make a flat pin from a round stock, for me.

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Your extractor looks to be self sprung and should not stand above the bolt. Cold bending is not a good plan here, I would hot work it and then re heat treat it. There are many threads here on how to spring temper.
O-1 is available from Fastenal as precision ground stock. Check their website for sizes, I think min lengths are 18".
 
Waba said:
Your extractor looks to be self sprung and should not stand above the bolt. Cold bending is not a good plan here, I would hot work it and then re heat treat it. There are many threads here on how to spring temper.
O-1 is available from Fastenal as precision ground stock. Check their website for sizes, I think min lengths are 18".
Click to expand...

Ok Waba, thanks for the info. It helps.
About the extractor being self-sprung......what does that mean? If I were to flatten the bend at the rear I had mentioned about earlier, it would then just lay flat in the bolt groove with zero tension / compression on either end. It would still pivot at the fulcrum / pin however. Is this how it is supposed to work?

When the bolt is being closed with a cartridge in the chamber, the extractor will pivot, lifting the tip up and over the cartridge rim due to pushing the bolt closed, with the claw now holding the rim during firing and during the ejection / pulling the bolt back?

As it is now, with the bent up rear tip, when pulling back on the bolt, the extractor begins to slide under the action, and as it slips under the action, downward pressure is applied to the bent tip. This has the effect of lifting the forward tip of the extractor, lifting the claw off the rim case.
 
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If you hot work the extractor you will have to heat treat the whole thing over again. Just saying.

A lot of the replies here are using some proper terms for heat treating in the wrong ways. The folks clearly know what they want you to do but are saying it the wrong way.

First off the terms so we're all on the same page. Annealing is where you heat the part up well past the tempering temperatures and slowly cool it so the metal is returned to a soft state. Hardening is where you take the metal up past the critical temperature then quench it in oil or water. Once fully hard the metal is very brittle and a file won't cut into it. (note that you are ruining the file when you run it over the hard metal so don't go nutz on this testing. Just a short stroke using the teeth right at the end). Tempering is what you do to the freshly hardened part to draw out some of the hardness and introduce some give to the steel so it is tougher. Firing pins should be tempered back to where they are an electric blue or at least a very dark brown to violet color. You "read" these colors on parts which you polish back to shiny metal following the hardening.

Note that you must work on the whole part when heat treating other than for tempering different areas to different colors. If you try to re-harden just one end of a part you will be able to do so for the portion that was made very hot. But the metal near that portion that was over the critical temperature that did harden will have a section beside it which is now fully annealed and soft. So this is a REALLY bad idea. That soft portion will be liable to bend and deform from repeated impacts.

"Self Sprung means that the tail of the extractor is its own spring. For what you're doing here simply sitting in one spot and only acting like a spring to snap over the rim is all you need. If you pull the pin out and find that there is no spring under the tail of your extractor then the bent tail, once repaired, will be the spring for the claw.
 
I have not worked on one of these, so just suggestions, the length of the firing pin should extend out of the bolt when fires about the width of the case head, ie , not bit the end of the barrel( chamber)
a lot of old 22's have way too much head space, so you have to check that, but if it works you should be O.k. and if too long your material you used will not be hard on the barrel, end may just peen over.

Pull the pin out of the extactor, it is bent, and look to see if there is a place for a spring, could be a flat spring?
As BC said take file to it and see how hard it is, if you try to bend it use a small hammer and a go slow, this is a case where a bigger hammer is not better, that is for Chinese and Russian stuff.
 
Thank you BCRider and Marshall for chiming in.

The pin [ tip ] I made does not contact the barrel at all. It only sticks out past the bolt face enough to put a good dimple in the cartridge case rim. The knob that sticks up on the firing pin is actually the underside of the pin. The knob rides in a slot in the action and when the trigger is pulled, the pin can only move forward so far, as that knob hits the end of the notch in the floor of the action, thus stopping it. I have no idea what the headspace is on this old gun....it goes bang without anything nasty happening. Being stainless steel, [ dunno what kind ] I don't think I should heat temper / quench, correct?

Ok, back to the extractor problem.
I understand, the extractor itself is also the "spring" that bends up a little to glide over the rim edge and secure it, correct? And if this bend were straightened, it would [ or should ] work as designed?

I highly doubt that there is a spring that is supposed to be under the rear end of the extractor. The extractor is only 28mm in length and 4mm wide, at a quick tape measurement. However, I will drift the pin out and remove the extractor for a look, and attempt to straighten it if no spring hole is present in the bolt body.

So, I need to 1st anneal it, straighten it, then re-heat it and quench in oil? Is a propane torch hot enough to do this? I have a small mapp bottle if not.

Thanks guys.
 
Ok, back to the extractor problem.
I understand, the extractor itself is also the "spring" that bends up a little to glide over the rim edge and secure it, correct? And if this bend were straightened, it would [ or should ] work as designed?


So, I need to 1st anneal it, straighten it, then re-heat it and quench in oil? Is a propane torch hot enough to do this? I have a small mapp bottle if not.

It is the tail end of the extractor that does all the spring work, but essentially you have the right idea.
Do not cold work to flatten. Use your propane torch and get the part to cherry red, use light taps to flatten it. You will see at this point if you have enough heat with your torch to do the hardening. As BCRider said, you need to do the whole part.
Trial fitting will show you where you are at. I would get a slight amount of preload into the spring, say, getting the pin hole to sit high by 1/64" or so.
Temper as soon as the piece is cold to the touch after the quench. The lead pot is best for this.

I am assuming that the steel used was simple hi carbon and that there are no stress cracks present. Don't go past cherry red colour in working it , you want to avoid grain growth.

If you lived next door to me we could do the whole job in 15 minutes.
 
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