Mikuro/US Rep. Arms 1886 light firing pin strike.

[Coyote Chris]

Greetings. First time poster, long time BPCR shooter. I have always enjoyed shooting my Browning 1886 1 of 3000 (no rebounding hammer) so when I saw a US Repeating Arms 1886 takedown with the pistol grip stock and Soule MVA sites (rebounding hammer) on it on a gunshow table, I just had to have it. I loaded up 8 rounds yesterday and the first one failed to fire till I hit the primer again. The next seven went off. All hits looked light on the primers. I took one fired case and hit the primer 5 times with the firing mechanism and the indentation looked normal. My Mikuro M92 in 38-40 does ok so I was a bit puzzeled till I read that someone else here had the same problem of light hits with the rebounding hammer guns. steveB's excellent disassembly procedure doesnt mention the firing pin spring. He calls it an "inertia" pin, in fact. He says that the firing pin can be removed to the rear if the extractor pin is removed first.
I am thinking that I would not have to take the whole gun apart to do this....it looks like all I would have to do is open the action, drift out the extractor pin, pull the firing pin and its collar, and spring and lighten up the firing pin spring a bit. Has anyone done this? I hate to go through load development for plinking at Quigley in the evenings if I dont have good ignition. I suppose I could switch to pistol primers since I am shooting Swiss but I cant be only the second person to have this problem. Others must have a fix.
Chris

[Ragnarok]

These have the safety and also a rebounding hammer....I've heard of this issue before. However I own an older M1886 from Browning..so have no idea what the fix is?

[Coyote Chris]

After looking into the web further, the most common issue is the complex firing pin assy and its being gummed up.
http://www.levergunscommunity.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=25712&p=318816&hilit=browning+1886+firing+pin#p318816
This gun is not a joy to take apart and put back together... I am going to see if I can contact these guys and see if I can indeed remove the firing pin assy without taking the breech block out.

http://www.levergunscommunity.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=33261&start=0&hilit=1886
This gun evidently has a seven piece inertia firing pin assy and I can see how that could get gummed up, especially if the gun was sitting for a long time before I got it. This gun I bought hardly has a mark on it so it couldnt have been used very much....

I have to admit the rebound castration mod has some appeal....
http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?12077-Winchester-Miroku-1886-Rebounding-Hammer-Fix-Tutorial

[runfiverun]

I have sold some really nice Winchesters because of that stupid rebounding firing pin.
I am down to only one now and I have done a bunch of mods to it.
I only use pistol primers in it and don't have issues with them.

[NSB]

I bought one a few months ago. The "problem" with the light strikes is that the same spring that works the hammer also works the trigger return. It's a forked spring. A friend of mine took the spring out of the gun and measured the thickness of the return spring and it was .040. He reduces the thickness to .025 and three things happened. It took less energy to work the return and it allowed more energy to drive the hammer (shared "energy". The third thing is the trigger weight went from 6.5lbs to 3.0lbs. Total time to take apart, rework, and reinstall was about one hour. Time well spent.

[Coyote Chris]

Trying the pistol primers is interesting.....I want to try that. Could you get the firing pin assy out without taking the bolt out of the gun?


I have sold some really nice Winchesters because of that stupid rebounding firing pin.
I am down to only one now and I have done a bunch of mods to it.
I only use pistol primers in it and don't have issues with them.

[Coyote Chris]

Not sure I completely understand as the hammer is driven by a coiled mainspring but the rebounding spring is indeed a flat spring that some choose to just cut off and take away the rebounding feature.
I bought one a few months ago. The "problem" with the light strikes is that the same spring that works the hammer also works the trigger return. It's a forked spring. A friend of mine took the spring out of the gun and measured the thickness of the return spring and it was .040. He reduces the thickness to .025 and three things happened. It took less energy to work the return and it allowed more energy to drive the hammer (shared "energy". The third thing is the trigger weight went from 6.5lbs to 3.0lbs. Total time to take apart, rework, and reinstall was about one hour. Time well spent.

[stocker]

It's actually a relatively easy fix if you have a bit of experience and an understanding of the system. Dave Scovill detailed it in either Rifle or Handloader several years ago. Remove the stock and have a good look at the spring/struts system. The strut has a fork at the receiver end. The lower leg of the fork may have to be shortened a bout .020-.035 to allow greater impact on the top (hammer portion) strut. The trick is to find a way to compress the spring and retain it compressed until you put it all back in place after shortening the lower leg. I made a sleeve that went over the compressed spring that had a notch across it to allow a slave pin to be inserted to hold it compressed. Once the assembly is back in place cock the hammer and remove the slave pin. I recall setting things up in my drill press and vise to compress the spring to insert the pin which was probably a finishing nail. Been several years since I did mine and you will find holes in the main leg of the strut intended to receive the slave pin. Mine had never had a misfire but I did the change just in case. The hammer will rest slightly lower than before after you do it.

[frank505]

The communist morons who made these rebounding hammer systems should be hung.
The fix is on leverguns.com or take buttstock off. There is a "forked" dohicky that pushes the hammer forward and contacts the trigger, hence the rebound ****. Take it apart and remove .025 to .030 from the end that contacts the trigger. Should solve any further issues with light strikes. Works on all the rebound junk in 94's, 92's, 86's and 95's. My 92 has shot thousands of rounds and never has a light strike, also an 1895 in 405 and a 94 in 7/30. I also think all this can be replaced with Winchester or Browning parts if available(probably not though). There are high quality rifles and deserve to be fixed and shot forever.

[Coyote Chris]

stocker and frank505, steveb seems to have come up with the same fix? It seems he has also come up with an easy way to reassemble. It does look like he took off more material than you folks did but you still have a rebounding hammer....see step 4 and step 5. Is this what you folks did?
http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?12077-Winchester-Miroku-1886-Rebounding-Hammer-Fix-Tutorial

[Coyote Chris]

6692066921(Cleaned breechbolt and shot some groups....indentation better on Large rifle mag. primer but still what I would consider light. Indentation on Large Pistol Mag primers seem normal.)
I still want to modify that rebounding hammer....(groups shot at 100 yards) 5 gr of Old RL-7, 50 gr. goex express, Lee 400 grain bullet, 20/1 with SPG, .030 Walters wad, CCI Large pistol primer. I am confident rifle will shoot better than this as I load develop.

[frank505]

Yes sir, pretty much the same. I did not cut that much off the lower leg though. I also would not lighten the hammer spring as i need the rifle to go bang when the trigger is pulled.

[muskeg13]

Light primer strikes are a well documented problem in the USRAC/Miroku M1886 (also in some M1895s). The fix is also well documented...shortening the lower hammer strut. I don't believe the amount you remove is critical, as long as you remove enough material so that leg of the strut no longer "rides" on and slows the hammer. I had to remove more material a second time as I didn't remove enough the first time around. When you remove the buttstock, bring the hammer back to 1/2 cock and insert a small nail or pin in the hole in the strut to secure the mainspring. If you do this, you won't have problems trying to compress the mainstring when you reassemble.

If you happen to remove the strut and spring before inserting the pin, you can compress the mainspring by securing the strut in a vice, insert a pin in the hole nearest the fork and begin turning and compressing the spring by gripping the spring with pliers.

There have been several mentions in this thread about using pistol primers to overcome light strikes. I'd strongly caution against doing this in a Model 1886, with it's tube magazine and cartridges aligned nose to primer. You'd be courting a magazine tube disaster. Don't tempt fate. Fix the hammer strut.