[Stinger]

I have a Hungarian M44 that is a pretty good little shooter.

However, after about 10 shots, the striker screws further into the bolt, and must be readjusted. It never travels to the unsafe mark on my bolt tool, but I unscrew it back to the recommended length just the same.

Is this normal? What can I do to fix this?

Stinger

[No4Mk1*]

If you screw it in all the way does it reach the "unsafe" point?
Is it really unsafe to rupture primers? I know it is not desirable or pleasant, but unsafe? I have done it once with a Mosin Nagant and just got a face full of warm gas.

[Mike Irwin]

Letting the Genie out of the bottle via the back door is NEVER a good thing.

At roughly 40,000 PSI, the only direction you want that high pressure gas going is out the muzzle.

I've seen more than one Mauser-style rifle suffer a broken stock from a ruptured primer. If the gas relief hole is partially or completely blocked, say with hardened cosmoline, all bets are off.

Not to mention that that hot, high pressure gas is also hard as anything on the firing pin nose.

[Cosmoline]

This shouldn't be happening, obviously. You might want to strip down the bolt and check to see how worn the threads are on the striker. Tapco and some other sources have replacement strikers for dirt-cheap, so you might grab one or two and see if they fit tighter. Lock-tite is another option in the mean time.

[foghornl]

Second Cosmoline's motion on bolt parts from Tapco. I bought a couple of ammo pouches and some stripper clips from them for my M-44. I think Tapco also has complete bolt assemblies for the Mosin-Nagant rifles.

www.Tapco.com

800-554-1445

[Marcus]

How far is the striker supposed to protrude? Marcus