rebounding hammer modify?

[Newtire]

I recall a thread that talked about someone taking care of the rebounding hammer either by modifying or eliminating it. Is this a possibility on a Win '94 angle eject? If so, anyone point me in the right direction and I would appreciate the heck out of it! Would like to do myself if do-able like that.

[fecmech]

I've played around with my 94AE .357and came to this conclusion. If you are using the AE parts you can shorten the bottom legs on the hammer spring guide and get rid of about half of the rebounding effect. This will let you go a little lighter on the hammer spring for a slightly lighter trigger and still get reliable ignition. If you take the bottom legs off totally you can get rid of the rebound effect but in my case the upper leg would sometimes slip out of the notch on the hammer and tie up the gun. If you decide to do it order another hammer spring guide or two, they are only a couple bucks and then when you go too far you will know on the next one how much to take off. My trigger is right at 2 3/4 Lbs and decent but I've played with it quite a bit and changed the sear angle slightly. The best thing if you can find an old parts gun and swap out the whole lower tang, hammer,trigger and all from one of the older 94's.

[MtGun44]

The reasone I reduced the rebound on my 1886 Ltwt (new production) was that the
darned thing misfired about half the time. If your rifle is reliable, like my 94 AE is, I'd
leave it alone.

Bill

[Newtire]

Well, my one 94AE (earlier) doesn't have the problem but this newer one misfires about every 3 or 4 shots. I tried a new spring and spring guide so never would have guessed it was the rebounding hammer since I didn't even see how it worked until now. I will tackle that after I finish fitting the new walnut stock to the rear of it to replace the ill fitting plastic one it came with. Next, will go for the extractor spring. This rifle was just a real ***! Fun for a project rifle-I'm learning alot. It's real accurate whenever it decides to fire one off!

Thanks you guys for the help. I think that should solve the problem of misfires. Take off half of the lower legs on the spring guide...OK...

[Larry Gibson]

My current (it's also a keeper) M94AE also would miss fire every 3 - 4 shots. I shortened the lower legs as mentioned but it did not help. I took the push button safety out to modify it so it wouldn't work. For a lark I shot the rifle for a while without the push button safety in the rifle. It fired every time. I then noticed that the undersid curved part of the hammer was also hitting the push button safety cushening the blow. I ground off a little of the bottom of the push button safety for clearence and that solved the problem.

The push button safety is redundant as there is a hammer block also that prevents the hammer from hitting the firing pin unless the trigger is pulled the same as in most all modern revolvers. The rifle is entirely safe with out the push button safety. Mine is back in the rifle but it is just cosmetic now.

Larry Gibson

[Newtire]

Thanks Larry, like I said before, I never would have thought of some of this stuff so will check that too. I'll give that a shot first and see since I was going to try to eliminate that button too. My earlier version doesn't have the redundant safety. I read an article about doing that on Marlins and it doesn't look that hard to make one of those.

Once again, thanks a heap!

[ktw]

I have a 94AE Trapper//tang safety that was 100% reliable. I wanted a lighter trigger pull and installed a lighter hammer coil spring. This made it unreliable with trimmed down 454 Casull brass and small rifle primers, although it still shoots CCI LPM primers in 45 Colt brass without a hitch.

Someday I will try shortening the bottom leg of the hammer spring guide, but for the time being I'm content to just stick with LP primers.

-ktw

[Newtire]

Having removed the safety and finding out it wasn't hitting on mine, I carefully ground off about 3/16" of the lower legs and now...wham! The hammer smashes the firing pin in every time. I don't see how it was even firing before.

So, the grinding of the lower legs really did the trick on this one. Glad I asked...Thanks guys!

[FergusonTO35]

I dug up this thread because I'm having the same problem with my 1985 94 .30-30. I'm getting light strikes about 10% of the time and some vertical stringing that I think is related. Cases are full length sized and the primer pockets reamed and uniformed. Same ammo shoots great in my Marlins.

I went ahead and ordered a new factory hammer spring from Midwest Gun Works. I suppose I'll also try very slightly shortening the lower rebound leg.

[uscra112]

OK, I know what a rebounding hammer is. My old Hopkins & Allens all have the feature. But I have a hard time understanding why a recent-mfg Winchester would incorporate the feature. It was a poor idea in 1900, and IMHO and even poorer idea today. What on Earth does it do for the functionality pf the gun?

[FergusonTO35]

Well, Winchester wasn't known for always making good decisions.

[GhostHawk]

My Win 94AE is perfectly happy operating without the cross bolt safety at all. Yes I removed it, decided I liked the holes better than the safety sticking out and left it out.

Now that I have read this thread I see that perhaps I was farther ahead of the curve than I thought I was.
While I have not shot mine a lot I think I have at least 50 rounds through it without a single missfire. And no more "Click" when I expected to hear "Bang" because someone else handled the gun and put the safety on.

[Greg S]

Completely removed the leg on a 94AE and three Winokou 1892s and trimmed the hammer spring. I have had no problems with miss fires or the hammer strut coming out and timing up the rifles. Worst case scenario, new lawyer approved rebounding hammer struts are available from gunpartscorp. I can't recall how much I trimmed the hammer springs but I recall 1/2 a coil on either end to start then took another 1/4 coil from each end and tapered the ends till I liked it.

They are terribly oversprung to have enough energy to get through the nuetral/resting position of the hammer position and still strike with enough authority to detonate the primer.

The overspringing also compounds the trigger pull resistance. I ended up polishing the hammer and sear surfaces and shimmed the trigger return leaf sprung to reduce trigger pull. This was in low of reducing the width of the trigger return finger on the leaf spring. G

[FergusonTO35]

My 94 AE doesn't have the cross bolt safety so no worries there. The trigger pull unmodified is actually pretty good and I am happy with it.

[NEKVT]

I have a Big Bore 356 bought new in 1998. Didn't have any ignition issues at first then years later began getting about 10% misfires. Researched it and found the lower strut adjustment did it and got 100 straight at one point but then it started again. Took off more to where the rebound hammer barely clears the crossbolt safety but didn't resolve it. I'm seeing the possibility of hammer contact with the safety for first time on this thread. Can someone explain how to remove the crossbolt to check and adjust for contact there? I want to retain the safety feature and would like the rifle to function with any primer and load.

[uscra112]

Ah, now I get it. They wanted the hammer far enough back to allow the crossbolt to engage. Do these guns not have a half-cock notch on the hammer? Does the hammer not rebound far enough for it to engage?

[DAVIDMAGNUM]

I have corrected two 1892 and one 1886 Winchester. They are, however set up different than the 1894. I do however want to point out the the problem with all three Winchesters is two fold. The rebounding hammer slaps an inertia firing pin. The firing pin has a rather healthy return spring and is shorter than the bolt. In other words IF the hammer rested on the firing pin (1886 &1892) or firing pin striker (1894) the firing pin will not protrude from the bolt face. The firing pin travels against the return spring under its own inertia after being slapped by the hammer. So......gunk , grit and/or old dried oil will easily bind things up enough to retard the movement of the firing pin. An over complicated mess.
I will call myself out on a lie. I did correct the inertia firing pin on an 1894. It however is a Uberti 1894, top eject, no safety and standard hammer. I simply fitted an "original" (new manufacture) firing pin and tossed the return spring. This allowed the installation of a lighter hammer spring.

Personally I believe that the described OEM safety features added to these firearms are an abomination !

[.45colt]

With All Respect to those who done the modifications , I say this "if You or any one who buys such a modified firearm from You has a malfunction that leads to a court room good luck . I wish All Good Luck ....................

[FergusonTO35]

Ah, now I get it. They wanted the hammer far enough back to allow the crossbolt to engage. Do these guns not have a half-cock notch on the hammer? Does the hammer not rebound far enough for it to engage?

As I understand it, the rebounding hammer actually predates the crossbolt safety by a decade or so. In fact, there was a brief time in the early 80's where the 94 was still top eject but with the new rebounding hammer.

[Mk42gunner]

Ah, now I get it. They wanted the hammer far enough back to allow the crossbolt to engage. Do these guns not have a half-cock notch on the hammer? Does the hammer not rebound far enough for it to engage?

In my opinion, the rebounding hammer and all manner of additional safeties on Winchester Model 94 (whatever version) came about because some lawyer decided that there might just be someone out there who was too stupid to operate a traditional hammer with a halfcock safely.

The term Nanny-state comes to mind.

Robert