Hang-fire??

[akpls]

I have a .257 Roberts built on a VZ24. Every so often while shooting at the range I will experience a "hang-fire." There will be a loud click and nothing happens for 2-3 seconds, then bang, the round fires. I've disassembled the bolt and there is no fouling or gunk present. There's no indication of light primer strikes. This has happened now with both Remington and Hornady factory loads. I have had 2 separate local smiths look at it and they can find no evidence that anything is working incorrectly. Headspace is fine. This rifle is deadly accurate and my son had planned to use it for steenbok, etc on our next Namibia trip, but it's staying home if we can't get it to be reliable. Soooo........anybody got any ideas on what to look at on this thing? 

[gunnut69]

It's likely that your having intermittant light firing pins strikes. Sometime quite hard to diagnose.. Sometimes in welding the new handle in place the bolt body is not returned far enough to the right, bolt down, for the firing pin to clear the safety cut out in the interior of the bolt. Also the cocking piece lock may be allowing the bolt handle to raise a bit. This causes the sear to hit the cocking cam as it's falling. This slows it down and can create poor ignition and hang fires.. Making sure the bolt handle is completely down before firing should eliminate the problem initially although a smith should be able to make it a permanent fix by altering the bolt handle and bolt shroud lock relationship. We must also check the rifle for excessive headspace and a weak mainsping(striker spring.. Also check the firing pin protrusion.