Colt Woodsman - reassembly problem

[MattC]

The pistol (a third series model) won't cock when the slide is actuated. The recoil spring is in place, the sear spring is in place, the hammer strut is resting on the main spring with the hammer forward and there is tension on the slide when it is assembled.

I'm assuming that the sear is not being caught, but I can't figure out how to fix this problem.

This pistol is new to me and I looked up the information on how to disassemble it at colt22.com.

I took it apart to clean it after shooting it, and also to see if there was any obvious reason for a different problem: if I shoot more than once within a 20-30 second time window, the second or third cartridge will not detonate. But if I wait more than that, each cartridge will fire. The cartridges work great in my .22 lr rifle, so I do not think the problem is in the ammunition. The firing pin leaves a faint mark on the rim when the cartridge does not fire, however, I do not know how to isolate the problem.

Any help on either of these problems would be very much appreciated. If it will help you diagnose the problems, I can post pictures of its current configuration.

Thanks!

 

[Johnny Guest]

With regard to the soft strikes - -

When you disassembled, did you remove the firing pin? Two things come to mind - -

-- Some sort of burr on the pin itself, or somewhere along the channel. Suggest you make sure the pin is moving freely in its path.

--Some sort of obstruction in the firing pin channel. Outside lubricated .22 ammo can be very gummy, especially some of the imported stuff. Most US-made has a harder lubricant and seldom causes much difficulty. It is not unheard of for .22 autoloaders, pistol and rifles, to go several thousand rounds without a detail cleaning. But, once things become obstructed, they DO need a good cleaning.

Also, I've seen some pistols to gum up pretty badly after just a few boxes of Wolf ammo.

Old, caked up lubricant and powder fouling can build up over the course of time. Occasionally it will break loose in a lump and cushion the firing pin travel.

I wish I could suggest something with regard to the sear catching the hammer. Did you clean the hammer hooks throughly?

Best of luck to you.
Johnny

 

[MattC]

Thank you for the reply, Johnny.

Attached are frontal and side pictures of the firing pin at full extension. The pin looks rather worn to me. I suspect that is a part of the problem, but perhaps your eye can dismiss this concern.

There didn't appear to be any fouling or grime in the slide that could have been binding the firing pin. I wiped off some oily residue in the slide when cleaning it, but not much else.

 

[MattC]

Solved the cocking problem. I'd been looking at it and thinking about it for over an hour, and finally figured it out: I was sliding the tab of the sear spring in the gap between the frame and the sear rather than keeping it on the back of the sear. Now only the failure to fire problem remains!

 

[dogtown tom]

That firing pin looks fine.

I would remove the firing pin and throughly clean the channel.

You might want to try a new FP spring as well.

 

[sm]

Handy Reference

http://www.colt22.com/


Nice guns them Woodsmans!

 

[Johnny Guest]

Very good!

Glad you worked out the sear problem. Frankly, that issue concerned me more than the failures to fire. I'll bet this problem ends up being equally simple.

Examining your photos of the breech face, I agree the firing pin looks okay. It appears to me that there is a lot of gunk and fouling there. My first concern would be to clear out the firing pin channel. Second, and, I think, an even more likely problem, is the extractor and its channel. If there's fouling built up on the outboard side of the extractor, it COULD keep the slide from going completely into battery upon subsequent shots.

Scenario: you load and hand-chamber the initial round. You fire it. The slide goes to the rear, extracting and ejecting the first spent hull. Slide goes forward, stripping next round off the top of the full magazine. (Maximum spring pressure, perhaps binding the slide in its forward travel.) Perhaps the recoil spring has weakened somewhat over the years, which ALSO keeps the slide from slamming forward at full design velocity.

Combine any/all of the above factors with an extractor which cannot move sideways freely. The extractor MIGHT very well rest on the rear of the cartridge rim without going fully home. Slide even 1/16 inch from being closed could well prevent proper primer ignition.

The more I consider the matter, the more confident I am that this is at least a contributory cause, if not the entire problem.

Some years ago (okay, a few decades ago,) I understudied a gunsmith in Fort Worth. Something he taught me early on, especially as concerned old shotguns and .22 autoloaders: A detail disassembly and a through cleaning tended to cure about 80% of the problems.

I'll be anxious to read more.
Best
Johnny

 

[MattC]

Since this has moved away from being a reassembly problem, a new thread title may fit it better. However, I don't want to lose the ongoing conversation. Thanks to Tom, SM, and Johnny for the help.

After my last post, I took it out shooting and had fewer failures to fire, but it was still prevalent. I discovered that in about 75% of these occasions, I wasn't hearing the firing pin completely strike. By pulling the trigger one or two more times, the pistol would fire. Sometimes, the pin would strike and lose spring tension, requiring me to manually operate the slide to load a new round.

Yesterday, I took Johnny's advice and pulled out the firing pin and cleaned that whole area as well as I can with some Hoppes 9, brushes, cleaning patches, toothpicks, and a little oil when putting it back together. It looks better, and I'll try it again this afternoon.

When reassembling, I tinkered a little and could reproduce the need for multiple trigger pulls to fully release the hammer unto the firing pin. To do this, I held the slide just a little bit out of battery (dry firing). Johnny, you seem spot on. We'll see this afternoon if it will take a new recoil spring.