Springfield 187N .22 semi-auto rifle, basicaly a Savage 187 or 87 rifle.
I aquired this rifle from a coworker quite sometime back. He had done the usual to it. He had fired it thousands of times without cleaning it. Shot it until it started jamming, then began prying on the feed lips through the ejection port! That just made it worse I suppose. The gun had stopped feeding, and was now damaged. He was done with it.
I bought it from the kid for $25, figuring it would be an easy fix. Clean it, tweek the feedlips back to normal, and have me a decent little .22 auto for the truck. I'm a pretty decent amatuer gunsmith(vo-tech trained and all!), didn't think it would be such an ordeal!
I stripped the action bare, and cleaned all the grey crud out, cleaned the chamber and bore, even ran a patch or two through the magazine tube (she's a tube feeder). Then I examined the feed assembly/shell lifter assembly for the possibility of an overhaul.
The coworker had mangeled the sheet metal feed assembly pretty badly! The mechanism is constructed of not the thickest or toughest sheet metal, and it was badly sprung. I tried tweeking it back to form, however with marginal success. Gun wouldn't feed reliably at all, even after a couple of feed assembly repair attempts. The rifle would fire, load itself or not, usually not!
Something pertinant to the problem, the gun would always re-cock itself upon firing, as it should, whether it jammed or not. That aspect of the rifle was still working then.
No big deal, I think. GunParts Corp. Numerich Arms had complete feed assemblys, lifter, spring and all for $14. I needed some other parts so I ordered me a complete feed assembly(less the mag tube and inner tube).
I stripped the gun yet again, and installed the feed/ lifter assembly. Reassembled the rifle and tried it out. The rifle feeds great now!
Unfortunately, the rifle will not re-cock itself when fired now! Will cock fine manualy, feed the cartridges perfectly, fire and eject, load itself another cartridge, then won't fire because it didn't re-cock? Then you can manualy cycle the rifle(ejecting the loaded cartridge), chamber another new cartridge, and the gun will repeat the cycle, firing/ejecting/loading/not re-cocking!
Ok, maybe it's the ammo? It ain't the ammunition. I've tried everything from Stingers to Russian target ammo, not the ammo.
I strip the rifle back down and inspect, nothing obviously wrong. The rifle cocks fine just won't cock itself!
Must be short cycling, I'm thinking. I reinspect the recoil spring, and bolt assembly. Looks fine, trigger parts are good, assembled like I've assembled it a dozen times when I had tried to fix the original feed assembly. It had always recocked itself then(just didn't load for crap!).
I must be missing something stupid here! I fix one issue and create another. I see nothing obviously wrong, gun feeds great, and absolutely nothing I see to cause the re-cock issue.
Anyone familiar with the mighty Savage 87/187 series rifles have a brilliant idea, or even a silly idea what I'm overlooking?
Thanks, Stevie
I aquired this rifle from a coworker quite sometime back. He had done the usual to it. He had fired it thousands of times without cleaning it. Shot it until it started jamming, then began prying on the feed lips through the ejection port! That just made it worse I suppose. The gun had stopped feeding, and was now damaged. He was done with it.
I bought it from the kid for $25, figuring it would be an easy fix. Clean it, tweek the feedlips back to normal, and have me a decent little .22 auto for the truck. I'm a pretty decent amatuer gunsmith(vo-tech trained and all!), didn't think it would be such an ordeal!
I stripped the action bare, and cleaned all the grey crud out, cleaned the chamber and bore, even ran a patch or two through the magazine tube (she's a tube feeder). Then I examined the feed assembly/shell lifter assembly for the possibility of an overhaul.
The coworker had mangeled the sheet metal feed assembly pretty badly! The mechanism is constructed of not the thickest or toughest sheet metal, and it was badly sprung. I tried tweeking it back to form, however with marginal success. Gun wouldn't feed reliably at all, even after a couple of feed assembly repair attempts. The rifle would fire, load itself or not, usually not!
Something pertinant to the problem, the gun would always re-cock itself upon firing, as it should, whether it jammed or not. That aspect of the rifle was still working then.
No big deal, I think. GunParts Corp. Numerich Arms had complete feed assemblys, lifter, spring and all for $14. I needed some other parts so I ordered me a complete feed assembly(less the mag tube and inner tube).
I stripped the gun yet again, and installed the feed/ lifter assembly. Reassembled the rifle and tried it out. The rifle feeds great now!
Unfortunately, the rifle will not re-cock itself when fired now! Will cock fine manualy, feed the cartridges perfectly, fire and eject, load itself another cartridge, then won't fire because it didn't re-cock? Then you can manualy cycle the rifle(ejecting the loaded cartridge), chamber another new cartridge, and the gun will repeat the cycle, firing/ejecting/loading/not re-cocking!
Ok, maybe it's the ammo? It ain't the ammunition. I've tried everything from Stingers to Russian target ammo, not the ammo.
I strip the rifle back down and inspect, nothing obviously wrong. The rifle cocks fine just won't cock itself!
Must be short cycling, I'm thinking. I reinspect the recoil spring, and bolt assembly. Looks fine, trigger parts are good, assembled like I've assembled it a dozen times when I had tried to fix the original feed assembly. It had always recocked itself then(just didn't load for crap!).
I must be missing something stupid here! I fix one issue and create another. I see nothing obviously wrong, gun feeds great, and absolutely nothing I see to cause the re-cock issue.
Anyone familiar with the mighty Savage 87/187 series rifles have a brilliant idea, or even a silly idea what I'm overlooking?
Thanks, Stevie
