Dad had our old 1917 .30-06 converted to "cock on opening" before giving it to me. He also had a Timney trigger installed. I scoped it and put it in a new Bell and Carlson stock, and love the way it handles. It's even fairly accurate. A very succesful project so far except...

It doesn't always go bang!

This is a big problem with a rifle intended for elk, black bear and deer.

Almost always happens when I have the rifle on "safe" then push the safety off and press the trigger. If I just chamber a round with the safety off, and press the trigger, it fires right away. Most of the time anyway. Sometimes I can put the cartridge back in, cocking the rifle again, and the second strike sends the round downrange. There is only a very shallow, small mark from the firing pin, nowhere near as large as with any of my other rifles.

The primers are not the problem, I use the same primers for several different rifles, and none of the others have problems. We're talking CCI 200's here.

25 - 30 years ago When I was a kid I shot this rifle hundreds of times with no problems. That's when it still had the original "cock on closing" bolt and the original long, really long, pull miltary trigger.

Any ideas? Thanks, Guy

m700,

I'm not sure how the safety fits into the equation unless when you flip it off it doesn't clear the cocking piece which would slow it down and cause the light hit, but failing that inspection, I would look at where the trigger sear slips up through the window in the receiver. Sometimes the sear doesn't have enough clearance to fall completely which will interfere with the travel of the firing pin.

Malm

Maybe the firing pin is being slowed by frozen gunk inside the bolt. Or the spring is too weak.

Thanks for the info - I did check the firing pin spring for cleanliness. It was hovering around 18 degrees during my last testing session. Everything appeared clean inside the bolt. I'll look into the trigger & sear - rifle will probably be making a trip to a good smith for diagnosis. Thanks to all, Guy

Guy,

You might just need a stronger spring. Numrich gun parts sells them. I believe this is one of the hazards of cock-on-open conversions for the Enfield, as they shorten firing pin travel. I'm going to try to get used to the cock on close on my enfield.

Hope you get it figured out,
Todd