Colt Lightning .22

[Throckmorton]

I recently inherited this fine old shooter,and BOY is it stiff to operate !! Is this normal for a lighting? I will lube it up some,and work with it,but I"ve never owned one before.
It's been re blued,and has very minor pitting on the outside,but it's stilla nice old gun,and I'd forgotten how it sounds to shoot .22 shorts.:)
It also has failures to fire quite often even tho the rim of the cartridge shows a good solid hit.
??
I'll take her out again over Christmas and see what a little lube might accomplish.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v30/Throckmorton/Lightningcloseupforinternet.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v30/Throckmorton/Lightningforinternetno1.jpg

[atr]

Nice looking rifle !!
I purchased a High Standard sport King .22 semi-auto last summer. And I noticed that it tended to jam ALOT...so I had to completely take it apart and do a through cleaning...that solved the problem. I suspect that yours may be suffering from lack of cleaning and having alot of built up, dried out oil/ dust, etc.
a toothbrush for scrubbing and a can of break cleaner are very helpful !

I would really like to see how your rifle shoots,,,its a great looking rifle

[Gee_Wizz01]

Wow that's puuurdy rifle. I have not fired a .22 Lightning, but the larger caliber Lightnings are slick. Initial pull while extracting a fired round can be a little stiff as there is no camming action to extract the round, just a straight pull. After the initial pull, the bolt usually snaps back quickly. Chambering a round is usually very slick too.

Is yours hard to pump even with no ammo? If it is, it may be gunked up with dried grease, or something may be bent or broken. Your mis fire problem may be dried up sticky grease or oil in the firing pin area. Also have you checked your ammo with another gun? Recently I have had a lot of failures to fire with bulk ammo, so don't rule out the ammo. It sounds like the gun needs to be taken apart and given a good scrubbing and oiling. The down side is that Lightnings are a bear to disassemble if you don't know how.

G

[pietro]

FWIW, I would remove the buttstock (via the tang screw) and suspend the action (only) down into a pail of kerosene ( from a Hess gas station, whatever) for a few days to dissolve any internal gunk.

I would cycle the action a time or two, while immersed, to help things along.

After that, an external wipedown with an oily cloth should do 'er just fine - AND the oily residue from the kero will leave just a tad of lube/protection on the internals where you cannot reach.

.

[trevj]

Keep an eye on the cartridge lifter. The arms that operate it are pushing on a substantial enough piece of steel on the up stroke, but work against a couple quite thin parts on the way down. I've seen several that had both sides broken out. PITA part to remake, if you have to.

I've never put a bunch of time into one to see if it could be slicked up. The Italian copies of teh full size Colt, are sure slick though. Dunno how true they kept the internals to the original.

Cheers
Trev

[Mk42gunner]

I vote for a thorough cleaning. I looked at one that was chambered for .22 Long when I was stationed in San Diego; I don't remember it being difficult to operate.

Robert