fireing pin spring strength, misfire in colt light rifle

24 October 2001, 18:14

This summer I bought one of the colt light rifles in 30-06 caliber.

Its quality has been dismal. Trigger had tremendous creep and over travel as well as being quite hard. I adjusted the creep and overtravel. The pull is a little high, but crisp enough now that it suits me fine.

The trigger retaining pins fell thru their holes in the action until I staked them.

When I finaly made it to the range, I got 7 misfires in 90 rounds. This was with rem 9&1/2 primers. Win primers (when I tried them) also misfired on later trips to the range.

Cleaning the bolt and polishing the fireing pin body helped, but did not fix the misfire problems.

I lengthened the fireing pin protrusion (from .035 to .050 inch) and reshaped the point of the fireing pin, without affecting the misfires.

During the tuning, I noticed the fireing pin spring was much weaker than my remington or my rugers. I further noticed the spring looked similar on all three. It seems either the remington or the ruger spring will fit the colt light rifle.

So I traded the spring in the colt with the spring in my .280 ruger. This made the bolt lift in the colt very heavy and required polishing the cocking cam on the bolt.

Misfires are fixed, but the bolt lifts rather hard, SO if I clip a few coils off the ruger spring, how much force do I need (at the installed length) to prevent misfires?

Note that this action looks much like a remington 700 with a thinner bolt body and a sako extracter.

JerryO

26 October 2001, 18:23

<Jordan>

Jerry:

Are you aware that Colt did a recall on a significant number of early '06 rifles? If I recall it was a safety issue related to the firing mechanism. I mention this in the event yours (and the troubles you have had) fall within the purview of their recall. I have a .270, but have not yet shot it. I hear they are accurate. Interestingly, Colt forgot to thread the front scope base screw hole in my receiver. Quality control must be a problem for them, but I do like the smaller receiver and bolt.

Jordan

27 October 2001, 02:15

GeorgeS

Gentlemen,
There was much discussion of the poor quality of the Colt Light Rifles when they began appearing on store shelves.

The fact that there was a recall, and that the entire line was discontinued should be a strong indication of how much support Colt is going to provide its customers.

George

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Shoot straight, shoot often, but by all means, use enough gun!

27 October 2001, 11:14

JerryO

quote:
Originally posted by Jordan:
Jerry:
Are you aware that Colt did a recall on a significant number of early '06 rifles?
Jordan

Thanks for the reminder. Yes, I had a slip in the box saying the recall had been completed.

I was wondering if they put a very light fireing pin spring in so it wouldn't fire by accident!!!

With the trigger work done and the new mainspring, its going to be a great rifle (I hope). Both light and accurate at close out prices is not bad.

George, You're right that colt gave up on these rifles, but I didn't expect to need any parts, so I didn't care (mistake!). Anyway, I lucked out as either remington or ruger mainsprings will increase the fireing pin energy to the required amount.

JerryO