Makarov light strikes

[KrankyKraut]

My Bulgarian Mak has developed a nasty habit of requiring two or three strikes to fire. It happens every 15,16 rounds, or so. Happened with S&B, Wolf Military Classic and the black box Wolf. What would cause that, and how can I fix it?

 

[M2 Carbine]

If when shooting you get a light primer strike and the round fires on the next trigger pull you may have a weak Thumb Safety spring.

What happens is when the gun is fired the thumb safety moves about half way to Safe. When you pull the trigger the hammer hits the Safety knocking it down to Fire.
If you look at the gun everything looks normal and it will fire until the Safety again (randomly) moves toward Safe again.

I almost went crazy looking for this problem in a friends Makarov.

Check the Thumb Safety and note if it easily moves from the Safe notch. If so you can remove the Safety and bend the spring or buy a new Safety.


If you are talking about the round not firing with repeated trigger pulls you could have a problem like a weak spring or crudded up firing pin.

 

[Jason_G]

Another thing to look out for that I've seen personally is a dirty firing pin channel. Those Mak's have free floating firing pins, so if there's enough rust or fouling in there, it'll slow the pin down enough to cause light strikes that barely make a dent in the primer, sometimes failing to set it off.

Jason

 

[Ukraine Train]

My vote is for the firing pin channel also. Take the pin out and run a pipe cleaner through there with some solvent then lightly oil. Also verify that your firing pin isn't actually broken when it's all apart.

 

[KrankyKraut]

These are all interesting ideas. Thank you, Gentlemen! I'll try them out and will report back.