[JCT]

After looking everywhere for takedown/disassembly directions for my Beretta Goldrush or similar Lightning repros, I went ahead without them...
Taking it apart was very easy, gave it a good cleaning throughout and then tried to reassemble. It's not that I forgot what went where, that's clear, there's not many parts anyway.
What happened 3 times, in the course of 2 hrs, was that when putting the trigger guard/pump assembly back into the receiver, something was catching, the bolt closed and everything was stuck, with no access to get unstuck! I had to use a steel pick to poke around where I couldn't see. Eventually, for unknown reasons, releasing whatever was stuck.
I think the bolt catch was jamming into the elevator, not sure. Somehow, I got it back and it's normal once again.
I'd like to know the proper way to do this should I ever take it apart again! Obviously, there are specific things that need to be in place for it all to fit. I got it back with the hammer cocked, bolt out, pump mostly back. Luckily that worked.
At one point I imagined I'd be sending it back to Beretta where they might have to drill out the bolt to unjam it.... It was scary for awhile.:uhoh:
From now on, I'll just remove the wood and boil the whole thing....
Any links to lightning specific assembly/maintenance would be great!

[JCT]

Off topic, but I'm looking for some empty Swiss BP cans, metal ones that they used to come in, not plastic.
I want to fill some cans up this winter and only have a couple empty cans right now ( I should have been saving all the empties all these years!!....) I prefer the cans over plastic, due to the long term storage and safety of them.
If you have any empty ones, granulation/grade doesn't matter.
I can paypal or Money order. thanks

[RecoilRob]

http://usfirearms.com/pdf/USFA_lightning_manual.pdf My Thunderbolt got real stiff when fouled by light cowboy Colt loads that didn't obturate properly. Had to break it down to clean. Had a similar time getting it back together the first go round. Now it is much easier and the blowup pics show the proper orientation of the internals. Fun rifle to shoot!

[JCT]

Thanks, looks like that'll help.
Mine was actually firing from pumping! The hammer wasn't locking back and was coming forward and firing with the pumping! Not a good thing to do. It's fine now since cleaning. It was just very dirty, close to 500 BP rounds through it lately!!

[Misfire99]

I believe it was in the current issue of American Rifleman that said that the Lightning should be able to fire when you hold the trigger and pump the pump. I don't know if this is what you meant or you meant that without holding the trigger it would fire.

[sundance44s]

Seems I remember reading they were built to slam fire if you held the trigger .or maybe one make was and the others weren`t ...don`t remember exactally now .

[JCT]

The Beretta won't slam fire, they say so in the manual. It was modified to be a smoother action that won't jam. Fine with me, it's been great so far, no jams.
I'm waiting on a new cartridge stop spring now, it was broken and causing problems. With that fixed, it should be fine.
It was firing while pumping because the hammer wasn't going back far enough to lock, that seems to be because a piece of the spring was broken and in he way of the slide.

[.44walkersabot]

That sound's kind of dangerous from one point of view I guess! But from the other point of view, hey man, that's a genuine street cleaner! The reason I'm sitting here smiling is because I remember years ago over yonder a friend of mine decided he was gonna carry one of those 12 guage pump riot shotguns. It already had the plug out of course. Me and him (neither one of us knew diddly squat about a shotgun's guts, but we figured we could get it done) worked for about 3 hours trying to get it to slam fire. (We didn't want to cut or file anything because it was government property) Anyway, we had to take it over to the armorer so he could put it back together for us and he reported us. We didn't get in any trouble but we had to listen to a good ass chewing from the company commander about how much money the Marine Corps paid for that shotgun and how the money came from the taxpayers...Okay...