John in WI
11-11-2012, 05:52 PM
Before I hand this over to a pro, or buy parts myself, I'm wondering if you guys could help diagnose a problem I'm having with a bolt action .22 I picked up a while ago.
My nephew wants to go shooting with Uncle John, and I figured a single shot .22 is an excellent place to start learning the fundamentals. Safety first and foremost. Second--being a single shot bolt gun you'd better learn marksmanship and making shots count. ("aim small, miss small" my old man used to tell me).
Anyway, last summer I was walking through Gander and there was an old Stevens 73 for $50. The bore was clean, the metal wasn't pitted, but the stock looked like death. So my nephew and I carefully sanded it down and did a beauty of a tung-oil finish on it and scrubbed the decades of storage gunk out of it. Some Uncle Mikes sling studs and it was ready to go.
We took it out a while back and it fires ok, seems to shoot straight. The problem comes in when you try to extract the shell. You can pull back on the bolt and it won't grip the rim and pull the shell out of the chamber. It will if you push the extractor in (towards the bolt). So this seems to me that the actual hook on the end of the extractor is not broken, but the spring that is supposed to pivot it down tight against the shell must be?
I don't think the shells are getting hung up in the chamber. If you open the bolt and rap on the stock (right by the action) the shells wiggle loose on there own. It's been well cleaned and I don't see any evidence of pitting or abuse.
Is replacing an extractor and spring an easy do it yourself job? I haven't had a look at it yet to see what would be involved in driving out the pin or the availability of parts.
Thanks for any advice--if I could get this thing up and running reliably I think it would make an excellent starter rifle for him.
My nephew wants to go shooting with Uncle John, and I figured a single shot .22 is an excellent place to start learning the fundamentals. Safety first and foremost. Second--being a single shot bolt gun you'd better learn marksmanship and making shots count. ("aim small, miss small" my old man used to tell me).
Anyway, last summer I was walking through Gander and there was an old Stevens 73 for $50. The bore was clean, the metal wasn't pitted, but the stock looked like death. So my nephew and I carefully sanded it down and did a beauty of a tung-oil finish on it and scrubbed the decades of storage gunk out of it. Some Uncle Mikes sling studs and it was ready to go.
We took it out a while back and it fires ok, seems to shoot straight. The problem comes in when you try to extract the shell. You can pull back on the bolt and it won't grip the rim and pull the shell out of the chamber. It will if you push the extractor in (towards the bolt). So this seems to me that the actual hook on the end of the extractor is not broken, but the spring that is supposed to pivot it down tight against the shell must be?
I don't think the shells are getting hung up in the chamber. If you open the bolt and rap on the stock (right by the action) the shells wiggle loose on there own. It's been well cleaned and I don't see any evidence of pitting or abuse.
Is replacing an extractor and spring an easy do it yourself job? I haven't had a look at it yet to see what would be involved in driving out the pin or the availability of parts.
Thanks for any advice--if I could get this thing up and running reliably I think it would make an excellent starter rifle for him.