H&R 365 Issues

[spartan00054]

I recently inherited an H&R 365 .22LR bolt-action single shot rifle. Upon cursory inspection, it looked good to shoot; barrel was shiny, rifling was in good shape, bolt looked to be in order. I oiled it up, bought some Remington bulk .22LR and headed out to the range. First round, click. Extracted cleanly, case had an obvious dent from the firing pin, so I put it back in and tried again. After a few cycles of the bolt it eventually fired, but refused to fire after that first cartridge.

Took it home, and still can't find anything obviously wrong. Anyone have any ideas on common failure points for these rifles?

 

[Kernel]

The problem you discribe is pretty common. Especially, with a rifle that might be 50 or 60 years old.

Disassemble the bolt, remove the firing pin and all the innards, clean the heck out of everything with pipe cleaners and a stiff toothbrush. Oil lightly and reassemble. 90% of the time that's all it takes to get a .22 back into action.

If it don’t, you may need to go to gunpartscorp.com and look for a replacement firing pin.

 

[spartan00054]

It is pretty close to 65 years old as far as I can tell; H&R only made them for a year in the mid-'40s.

Alas, I digress. I pulled the bolt apart, took my parts washer to it, oiled it and got it back together. It feels smoother upon reassembly, but I haven't had a chance to get it back to the range yet. I did notice that there is a little bit of pitting/wear on the firing pin itself. Would it be worth it to try to polish that out? Failing that, it looks like Numrich has some parts for this thing, but it looks like I have to order a complete bolt, as individual parts are either not listed or sold out. If it comes to putting a new bolt in, is headspace going to be a major consideration?

 

[Kernel]

Polishing the pin is probably okay. Just don't remove significant amounts of metal, and be sure not to leave a sharp edge on the point that strikes the case head. It needs to be flat.

Just speculating, but it's possible there would be other H&R models (or, even generic store brands - think: Sears, Western Auto, J.C. Penny, Wards, etc) that would have the same firing pin. Model numbers can come and go, but the "guts" of a rifle, often times, stays in production for decades unchanged, across multiple model numbers.

 

[spartan00054]

Thanks for the guidance.

I'll look into parts commonality; I just wish people had exploded diagrams available so I could see if the components are even close.