Bountyhunter,

Thanks for the input. The first thing I checked was the block. I even shaved a little off the top edge of the hammer, to allow it to go forward a little farther to strike the block. I could see by the worn blueing that the hammer was hitting only on one corner, so I used the dremel to even it up. The firing pin goes far enough forward when dry-fired, but it lacks the energy to strike the primer deep enough. It appears to be the classic "weak hammer spring" that I've seen on hundreds of M-16's over the years. On an M-16, the most likely cause is keeping the weapon cocked for long periods in storage. This wasn't the case on this gun.

By the way, I don't have a hummer, but my F-350 is outside begging for a tire rotation. <img src="/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> If the barrel was about 6 inches longer, it would make a good tomato stake. <img src="/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

Semper Fi, George

Keep your Mdl M70, but send the Rossi back to Brazatech in Tampa for warranty work. I agree with Bountyhunter's clues (good job, B-h!) and can think of only a couple of others, but otoh, why not give them a chance to fix it? They really had a great customer service reputation in the past - I was proxying for my sister on an older (abused) 22 pump rifle and they really came through.

So far my only concern is dinging the rimfire barrel with that centerfire firing pin (yeees... it already happened with an accidental dry fire... but subsequently it fires just fine into the sand-filled weapons discharge bucke - actually, the firing pin on this example has some real authority)

I have an older (Russian, I think) side-by-side that has one chamber just a wee bit deep - a matter of a few thousandths - and that barrel will only reliably fire with new shotshells - fire one and reload the hull, and it has about a 20% misfire rate. New hulls, factory ammo - perfect. The other barrel fires everything chambered in it flawlessly, as one would expect. I might make a firing pin for that one some day... nah!

Virginian:

You should still have someone put a headspace gauge in the chamber to see if it is within tolerances. If the firing pin protrudes sufficiently dry firing, it could still be the firing pin spring reducing the inertia because the spring is too stiff.

Good luck!

Bountyhunter

AyersTG:

I don't know if you are aware of it, but a lot of .22 caliber rifles and pistols have a "shouldered" firing pin so that the firing pin cannot accidentally peen the barrel chamber rim.

My cheap little 14 year old Jennings J22 has that feature and it is one of the cheapest built guns made. I lucked out despite its reputation and ended up with one that never jams if kept clean (Good for about 60+ rounds before cleaning.) , which prompted me to buy 2 more magazines for it, all of which work flawlesly. I still wouldn't dry fire it because the slide that contains the hardened steel firing pin is made of soft zinc and eventually dry firing would cause an indentation on the firing pin stop and allow the firing pin to peen the barrel chamber.

I'll bet your Rossi has a shouldered firing pin. Check into it.

Bountyhunter

Tom,

Hi!

I like your approach of using a 20 ga., but loaded down.

I did a few quick computations of the likely recoil forces involved. A typical 20 ga. factory load in a 5# shotgun using 7/8 oz. of shot at 1200 fps propelled by 16 grs of gunpowder would yield a recoil of 18.03 ft. lbs. according to my calculations. Keep in mind I did not include the weight of the combination shot protector and wad.

A 28 ga. load of 11/16 oz of shot at 1170 fps propelled by 10.8 grs. of gunpowder has a calculated recoil of 10.24 ft. lbs.

Incidentally, about 18 years ago, when I was starting to handload 20 ga. ammo, I tried a load you might find interesting. Since one of my goals was to minimize the number of gunpowders I needed to keep on hand, I tried Dupont Hi Skor 700X (which I otherwise used in 12 ga. and various handgun calibers). A contemporaneous Dupont Handloaders Guide ( this is the source for all loads mentioned herein) recommended the following recipe:

Win. AA case + Win. 209 primer + 12.5 grs. of Dupont Hi Skor 700X + Win WAA20 wad

+ 7/8 oz. of shot = 1110 fps at a chamber pressure of 11800 LUP.

The load shot well from our 2 Rem 1100 LT20 shotguns. It performed well in skeet. In my shotgun it either did not operate the action or barely ejected the fired shells (I just don't remember which). In my wife's shotgun, the empties tended the jam in the action. That was the only reason I did not pursue the load further. It was a very mild shooting load. Recoil was very light. The clay pigeons were broken well. Leads (and therefore velocity) were acceptable. The calculated recoil of the load fired in our approximately 6.5 # shotguns was 10.92 ft lbs. Of course those were also gas operated semiautomatics, so the actions would have further mitigated the recoil.

In any case that load shot in a 5# shotgun would yield a recoil of 14.19 ft lbs. Even that might be a little more than you want for now. Still it might be useful load for later use.

Obviously the numbers above are the most helpful when used grossly in comparing guns and loads. Regardless of the numerical absolutes, felt recoil is the supreme consideration. These formulae do not consider all factors. But as the numbers get further and further apart, they become more useful for comparative purposes. Thus a load generating 15 ft. lbs might feel much more comfortable than on yielding only 14 ft. lbs. Velocity of the recoil, is a good example of a factor not considered. But in comparing, say loads with 20 ft. lbs. of recoil with loads generating only 14 ft. lbs of recoil, the greater comfort is more likely with the load yielding the latter amount of recoil. These comment are probably truisms for most serious shooters, but for those who are not, they may prove illuminating.

In the junior division of our gun club, the shotgun coaches provide factory 20 ga. 7/8 oz. loads for club's free coaching sessions held monthly at the skeet range. However, virtually all of the shotguns are gas-operated semiautomatics. The kids range typically from about 10 to 16 years old. The program works well and is very popular. Recoil seems to be at most a minor problem, and typically at the younger ages.

I hope your nephew has as much fun as we've had in shooting.

Good luck,

John

John,

That's the tack. I customarily have plenty of Unique on hand because it's... uniquely adaptable for a huge range of uses in everything I shoot, push come to shove. And I'm aiming for a bit less velocity - anything near 1000 fps is plenty - even as low as 900 fps if I must. I could use 700x (on hand) or Green Dot or a number of thers on hand and get the powder charge down a grain or two - we'll see. I need to burn some older Unique anyway... yeah, it burns dirty - no confusion about needing to clean after shooting!

I'm not averse to shortening the case if need be, or putting a precut filler under the shot charge. The main thing will be keeping velocity low and shot charge light. I think the 11/16 oz or 5/8 oz range is on the money, although I may try some 3/4 oz loads as well. Hard to find reduced load data these days of one piece wads, but no worries.

My first gun was a beauty of a Savage M220 single shot hammerless 20 gauge with a factory polychoke. Still have it. It still has pretty fierce recoil with factory field loads and you don't want to go there with short magnums... I shot a couple of truckloads of small game with it over many years and make a few yards of gravel out of clay birds. I never noticed the recoil when I was a kid, but that's an imponderable variable. It fit me well.

My nephew's opportunities to shoot and/or hunt will be seriously constrained until he's old enough to drive himself afield - they live in the Chicago NW 'burbs. Most of his opportunities will come from visiting here and visiting Grandpa in Colorado. We'll be keeping a close eye on stock fit as he grows and fit a recoil pad as soon as it is time - that's an easy and pleasant evening's work. Or if it holds up, I may order an adult replacement buttstock from BrazaTech and set it on the shelf for now.

I don't shoot much trap or skeet nowadays, so I rarely reload shotgun anymore - too lazy and in the springtime I get great prices on cases of last year's ammo. My time is worth more to me than it used to be... and I'm starting to drift that way on most pistol ammo now, too. But about the only rifle I shoot factory ammo in is my Ultra Match Garand. Not much point in loading for it - it likes everything factory and loves Federal Gold Medal Match.

I know! I need a Dillon set up for several calibers! <grin> Maybe Santa....

A friend of mine who is still an active duty Marine just stopped by the house on his way to hunt deer. He told me an interesting story about how he was sighting in his brand new Rossi .243 yesterday after putting a scope on it and how it malfuntioned "5 or more" times out of a box of 20 rounds. He has the adult model, while my son has the youth model. He didn't even have the hammer extender in place and he was still getting light strikes. He spent the 2 hour drive here from Quantico teaching his son how to recock the weapon without moving his head, in case the deer don't run away when they hear a click. I thought maybe my gun was an isolated incident, but it's starting to sound like a trend. If I can weld his barrel and my barrel together... maybe I'll finally get that tomato stake I've always wanted. <img src="/images/graemlins/cool.gif" alt="" />

Semper Fi, George

George,

That really sucks - these look like a good idea. We'll see how this one does. So far it's gone "bang" in the bucket... I'm sure it will get a couple hundred rounds of 22 and a box of 20 gauge run through it this weekend.

I was really close to getting him a bolt action 22 single shot until I saw this. A Savage with a nice peep on the receiver was looking good... I was a little disappointed that the Marlin 15Y was up 50% in price from the last time I bought one, as that was what I first set out to get. I have no intention of getting him a centerfire rifle for a few years - probably not until he graduates from high school. He may borrow one of ours in the meantime.

If it was me, I'd put make these in 6mm BR with 1:10 twist for the youth market instead of 243. My wife's heavy barrel 1:10 Hart barreled 6mm BR is phenomenally accurate, nada for recoil, and handles 100 gr bullets fine. She doesn't care to have the chamber deepened to 243...

I'll post how the Rossi does.

Tom

Tom,

Hi!

Unique is one of our staples, but we tend to use it more in handgun loads than anything else.

For whatever reason, it really is hard to find data for reduced loads. I seem to recall an article in Wolfe's Handloader in the area of 10 years ago on reduced shotshell loads. I have also read articles on reduced loads in Handloaders Digest or Gun Digest, but probably 15 + years ago. Also An NRA publication discussed them, also about 15-20 years ago. I actually cannot recall other treatments of the issue.

Your ideas of shortening the shells or using filler/OP wads under the combination wad and shot protector sounds as if it should work.

We have a couple of Dillon 550B loaders. They work well and load very rapidly. For whatever reason, I think I am happiest using them to load straight handgun cartridges (using carbide sizers of course). Everything slows down when we go to bottlenecked rifle cartridges. I have even considered shifting back to my old Lyman All American Turret Press to get a more hands on feel. I'm not sure I get that much speed from the Dillons with the bottlenecks. However the Dillon's additional leverage is really appreciated when resizing bottlenecked brass.

I can commiserate with you on getting too busy and lazy to reload. The main area where we cannot get good factory ammo is medium powered ammunition, especially for magnum handguns. I have yet to find a good factory medium powered .357 Mag. load. I'm not happy with factory ammo in .32 H&R Mag. either. And we won't even talk about factory ammo in .45 Colt. I have a reduced recoil 12 ga. short magnum load using Blue Dot. It does seem to work well. I got it out of an NRA or Digest article about 15-20 years ago. Incidentally if you need it, I actually have a shot at locating the NRA/Digest article of 15-20 yrs ago since I used one of the loads. Come to think of it I read another article on reduced shotshell loads for beginners about 5 years ago in one of the above publication, but I don't know which. At least modern data is out there.

Some friends have a daughter who is an Olympic shotgun shooter (3-time medalist now). She typically shoots over 3000 rounds a week. Before she became prominent, her father was handloading all her ammo!!! Needless to say he likes high volume equipment.

Good luck with the load development and gun.

John

Tom,

I wish you nothing but good luck with your nephews gun. Thankfully, he's at an age where a few misfires on a range will only cause him to apply better trigger control (after he sees how hard he jerks the trigger on a misfire). But as you well know, when your'e older and alone in the woods, a reliable weapon could be the difference between life and death.

I agree with the 6mm, instead of the .243; my son got a pretty good "scope-bite" when he finally shot his deer. I think he enjoyed showing off the knot on his forehead at school though. <img src="/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

Semper Fi, George