Well good evening every one...been pretty busy today.
To make a little extra cash in my retirement, I am a consultant. I provide information to gunsmiths, shooters and collecters about the function and operation of rifles using the hinged block Martini system. I had a call this morning from Begium requesting help with a rifle that won't extract. He is rebuilding up a rifle by using parts from one rifle in another. When he opens the action the breech block does not go down far enough to hit the tail of the extractor to make it function
All afternoon I sat and opened and closed 7 different Martini actions and studied their operations. Open and close, open and close. Exciting stuff this.
Every firearm has seven steps of operation. Understand how these seven steps are performed in your rifle and you will know where look to fix it when it gives you problems. Take a look at you favorite rifle or handgun open and close, manually function the gun. See how it functions. Look for the subtle things. Ever notice the little flat on the upper corner of the square root of the bolt handle on an 98 Mauser. That is the primary extraction cam and it give the bolt a bit of rearward mechanical advange to break the brass loose in chamber. These are amazing mechanical devices that often times seem very simple yet are extremely complex.
Well after a couple of hours of opening and closing, I came up with several subtle areas that that might be a problem . Things like the rear of the breech block might be hitting the the trigger frame are easy to spot. But others like the striker spring might be wrong weight not letting the breech block drop far enough are not so easily seen.
We'll see tomorrow.
