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Savage MkII FTF / Brass thickness

Boncrete

Private
Minuteman
Mar 28, 2010
9
0
38
So I've done a lot of work to my MkII lately, and it has come a long way in terms of accuracy. However, it has seen a sharp increase in the number of rounds that don't go off.

I did do some work on the bolt (which is described below), but I am trying to figure out why I am seeing such a sharp increase in FTF.

Here is my main question: Do different brands of ammo use thicker brass, or is this more likely resulting from something I've done to the bolt?


Let me begin by saying that before I did this I had only put federal bulk pack and federal auto bulk pack through it.


In the process of testing out different ammo I noticed the failure increase, and it seems most pronounced with remington/eley target rifle ammo. It still has a high failure rate with wolf and eley sport ammo. I have only put a few rounds of other types of ammo through, but not enough to notice a pattern.

I still need to go out and test it with the bulk pack I used before to see if there is any difference.

I didn't do much to the bolt, but I'm not ruling out the possibility that this is something I've done.

I had the bolt completely dismantled at one point, and I polished the exterior and interior contact surfaces. I left the pin that contacts the sear alone, as well as the striker and extractors. The only other thing I did was clean everything thoroughly and reassemble the bolt.

I am almost certain that the nut that holds the bolt together is completely torqued, as it came to a very distinct stop when I reassembled the bolt. I checked this first because the spring wouldn't be as compressed if the nut was a little loose.

One last note, with wolf it seems that about 1 in five rounds has a ftf, and with the eley ammo it seems like almost half of them ftf.


Any insight would be greatly appreciated!

(Edited typo in thread title)
 
Re: Savage MkII FTF / Brass thickness

Was it doing this before you took the bolt apart ? It seems like another member had a similar issue that was caused my a hammer malfunction. Yes there are differances in brass dimensions
 
Re: Savage MkII FTF / Brass thickness

Did you check the firing pin protrusion. The pin should stop just one or two thousands from the bolt face so that it does not strike the face of the barrel. I don't know what work you did on the bolt but in reassembling it something could be interfering the the pin.
 
Re: Savage MkII FTF / Brass thickness

My bet is you have some crud built up in the extractor openings in the breech face. This can keep the bolt from completely seating causing the problem you describe.
Many rimfire shooters ignore cleaning the chamber and breech face due to the belief of never cleaning a rimfire barrel.
Take a close look, it doesn't take much to cause a problem on some rifles.
 
Re: Savage MkII FTF / Brass thickness

ytaler- I'm rather embarrassed to say this, but I don't know if this was happening before (I was only using cheap bulk pack before, and have since been testing out different types of ammunition). With federal bulk pack it seemed like 2-4 out of a 550 round pack would fail like this.

3oh8er - None of the work I did on the bolt involved anything that would change the distance that the striker would protrude from the bolt face. It appears to protrude the correct distance.

waltt7420- I will check those openings. I have no doubt that there is crud built up in there, but I never considered that as a possible source. I will clean those out and see if anything changes.


Thanks for the responses guys, I will see if I can figure anything out and give an update when I get a chance!
 
Re: Savage MkII FTF / Brass thickness

Keep using the bulk pack. I run an AR in 22lr and that is all it likes not even the cci ar crap.