I bought this gun brand new back in 95’ or so? Never had issues up until 2 years ago. At the range sighting in a new red dot and I had white pieces of plastic shatter all over the bench and lost my bolt handle in the process. It flew out with the shot. Never did find the bolt handle. I took it apart and found that the plastic follower on the end of the recoil spring shattered. I ordered a replacement one for five bucks and installed it. Took the gun completely apart and cleaned it. Shot it re-zeroed it and the bolt handle kept flying out. Had a see-through saddle mount on it that somehow must’ve shifted so I filed out the long hole that goes up and down where the bolt slides through so I widened it till the bolt handle didn’t rub on it. I figured all my issues were solved. Re-zeroed it in and took it out turkey hunting last year. I ended up shooting at a bird and had a case, stuck sideways in the action. I put the gun up and haven’t shot it since. Over to my 12 gauge and use that for the rest of the season. I forgot it didn’t kick out a shell last year and clean the barrel and the action and took it hunting yesterday. I noticed when I went to close the action by hand instead of letting it snapshot the follower stayed open about 3/4 of an inch while the bolt was completely shut. It’s basically a two piece bolt. So I sprayed a little oil between the bolt and the follower and worked it back-and-forth because it would shut if I pushed it forward. I just left the gun in the truck, unloaded and grabbed my 12 gauge instead. When I got home, I found a bunch of buffer in the chamber. I figured it had to come from the magazine tube because the ammo I was using I didn’t have any buffer coming out of it. Also, the action would close all by itself without ammo in it. So I figured maybe it was the old ammo I was using which was probably 25 years old. Maybe it got swollen or who knows. I buffed the inside of the chamber with a little mother’s polish and cleaned out the magazine tube and put it all back together. It was closing completely 99% of the time. That’s with me just pulling the action back with a live round in it outside facing the ground safely to see if it would smoothly shut which it wasn’t all the time. Call Browning and they told me that you have to just let it slam shut so I would assume that it is good and fine now. If I pull the bolt a 3rd of the way back with some force it will slam shut every time. I also noticed a couple little small pieces of red plastic that fell out of the action when I cleaned it when I got home last night so I would assume red plastic buffer is starting to shatter. Ordered a new one today and will have to rip the gun completely apart to replace it…again. Didn’t wanna spend 50 bucks on the buffer since the plastic spring follower was only five bucks at the time. Here is a picture of the action. There is a gouge in my receiver. I’m wondering if this happened when the follower shattered? I drew a red point to it. I figured I would take a little file or stone and try and smooth it out and put some Oxpho blue over it to see if there’s any rubbing in the future. Also, you can see how the brass got marked up on the live round that I used to push forward and backwards to work the follower to try and see if there was burr I could smooth out. Guess I’ll have to wait and see if it’s smoother when I get the new buffer put in any suggestions of what’s going on other than maybe the buffer loose? Curious why the brass is getting chewed up and why that chunk of metal is missing inside my receiver or I should say just gouged any help would be grateful.
Tons of little lines all over my brass hole when I was working, it back-and-forth trying to figure out if there was a burr that maybe I could smooth out. It sure beat up my brass casing doing so.
Apparently, they don’t sell just the red buffer by itself anymore. I had to order the complete assembly unfortunately which is 10 times the price of a buffer. The only place I can find it was Midwest gun Works. Maybe becuase it’s starting to chip apart it’s causing the issues?
Here’s what the bolt looks like with the carrier not completely shut. The front of the bolt seals the breach, but the carrier doesn’t go all the way up. Browning told me that you just need to let it cycle by itself from one in the tube. That thing would break fingers and crush nuts doing it that way, which is fine and I know it’ll shut but figured it probably should be a little smoother even by putting ammo in it and slowly releasing the bolt with your hand. Maybe it just has tight tolerances?
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