[Topgun]

Wife was shooting the Trophy yest and BOTH of us kept having misfires with Remington ammo.

That gun just .... B A R E L Y...... snicks the rim of the case.

I removed the firing pin this am and am gonna take a look at a new one. The one I have looks unbroken.......but.......the contact point is TEENSY.

The wedgie shaped part that is ground off the end has bluing so I am sure it is the standard dimension.........but.........I GOTTA see a new one.

Why they beveled the end of the pin BOTH WAYS is beyond me. Just no contact.

FEDERAL ammo will misfire CONSTANTLY.

Maybe I'll use a..........NAIL!

Anyone know if the HS pins are deliberately tiny on the contact portion?

GUNS!

[Jim Watson]

I've only got one old Citation. Its firing pin is chisel shaped but with a very slight bevel on the corner. I don't have any more misfires with it than any other .22 I shoot. I'd get a new firing pin if it did as bad as yours.

[mete]

Sounds like your pin was ground twice 90 degrees apart. The rimfire primer of course is in the rim. That primer compound in the rim must be crushed by the pin. They are usually round, square or chisel shape , with no sharp edges and a significant flat area on the face. The other thing you should check is firing pin protrusion, should be .035-039 ". Sharply pointed ones don't work too well.

[Topgun]

That's where I think the problem lies. Not in the bevel which SHOULD be there but in the amount of flat space they left.

It looks (sideways) like this




/----------------------------
|__________________|

Where just too much of the beveled contact part was ground at the factory. It is an old East Hartford and has ALWAYS been fussy to some extent but I figger......bein a cheap gun nut......that 30yrs is LONG ENUFF to put up with it.

heh heh

[C.R.Sam]

Maby...
Check protrusion.
Crud inside could be limiting protrusion.

Wingin it.

Sam

[Badger Arms]

With light strikes, I'm also inclined to polish the sides of the pin and the internal surfaces it mates to. This, combined with a good cleaning, lets the pin slide freely. Also a shot in the dark.

[Traveler]

Cleaning is probably a good idea. Especially inside the channel for the pin. A suprising amount of stuff blows into the firing pin hole, and being heated it becomes very difficult to remove.

I would look at the spring prior to reworking anything on the pin itself. After all this time it is probably getting old.

Another thing to look close at is the chamber. If it has been reshaped by dry firing then it will cause misfires as the anvil is not working to fire the round.

Lastly, if the ammo is giving different results you need to look close at that. I suggest using something like a Fiocchi or Eley match round, as they have uniform and fairly light primers.

[Topgun]

I took OUT the pin. Actually had to DRIVE it out. A galled burr on the pin from the spring. More crap in it than a California Legislator.

So I cleaned it. BUT......the pin was hesitant to go back in easily. Something catching.

so I 360 gritted it until it was a smooth drop in. Cleaned it stem to stern.
Put some oil on it and put it back. Is you aware that the spring is DIRECTIONAL???? Wowzer! THAT cudda bin inneresting.

The spring is tapered like the pin. Put it on backwards and it would not hold back the pin at all. Slamfires anyone?

Heck, maybe I missed a chance for a very accurate burp gun.

Anyhow, nothing LOOKS wrong with the geometry of the pin and NOW it pokes out a bit more just by visual lookin.

..............................AND.................................

I betcha I know wot caused it. I am so AVERSE to dry firing a rimfire that every time I quit shooting, I have been holding open the slide just a crack so that the pin would not hit the chamber.

An I betcha that geometry allows that powerful hammer to strike the back of the pin at an upward ANGLE instead of straight on an I bet it was driving the back end of the pin against the SIDE of the pin channel enough to peen it just a wee bit over the years.

As hard as it's going to be to do it, I think I will try clicking the hammer ONCE at the end of the shooting day to put it away and relieve the springs.

And I wonder just how important it is to relieve those springs instead of just putting it away cocked.

Now all that's left is to try it and see if some Q tips and 360 grit did the job.

Also supporting that peening effect is that the pistol seems to be made of very SOFT steel. The notches on the barrel for attaching the muzzle brake (which is useless) are very deeply dented from the times I did attach the brake. So ...... soft metal getting hit from wrong angle..........maybe.

[Standing Wolf]

...I wonder just how important it is to relieve those springs instead of just putting it away cocked.

All my semi-automatic .22 caliber pistols stay cocked all the time, and I've never encountered a weak firing pin spring. I don't even bother trying to feed Remington ammunition into my High Standards any more: too many failures to fire even on the second and third tries.

It may be worth your while to replace all the springs in your Trophy with Wolff springs, which are of significantly higher quality than High Standard ever produced.

...the pistol seems to be made of very SOFT steel.

It's my understanding High Standard frames were never heat-treated. They're great guns, on the whole, but nobody ever said they're not weird.

[mete]

The old High Standards had a good design but were made of soft steel. They would have much longer life if they were made of better steel like my old Browning..... When asked to fix a 22 that wasn't working I always asked - when is the last time you cleaned it ? Oh , I don't know , maybe a year or so ago ! Often as not it only needed a cleaning . The 'blowback 'operated pistols really do blow back powder residue into the action, firing pin etc. People often forget to occasionally clean the firing pin and hole and extractor.

[C.R.Sam]

Topgun

You are respectfully requested to give a range report after you live test it.

Or...
We will hunt you down.:D

Sam

[Archie]

I was reading about this problem on the Bullseye list.

Check to see how much play there is between the frame and bolt. Some High-Standards have excessive play, and the bolt actually rides too high in relation to the chamber and round. So you only get a minor hit on the rim of the case, and somewhat poor extraction.

Give it a look and see. To fix it, you have to tighten either the frame rails or the slide-bolt rails, or both.

[Sunray]

While the dirt and the burr may have been the problem, try changing the ammo too. Some .22 pistols are very picky about what they'll shoot.

[Grump]

I vote for the fired case to dry-fire on the putitaway routine for a High Standard. Always Rules 1-4. Even though the design doesn't batter the chamber edge, the brass case eases up on the long-term impact damage/hardening on the firing pin.

Had a Ruger 10-22 we kept bolt-open all the time, and after 30 years the hammer spring was not so springy and needed to be replaced. Keep it hammer-down/"show clear" now. Rules 1-4!