Mosin Bolt Timing Question

[Gottahaveone]

I picked up (another) 91/30 yesterday, and a nice one it is. It's an all-matching 1941 Izhevsk with about 95% bluing, nice wood, and a bore that looks virgin. After stripping and cleaning it last night, I lubed it up and reassembled it.

I was playing with it and noticed that when lifting the bolt handle to cock it, if I didn't wiggle the handle ever so slightly to the rear, the trigger wouldn't reset and the cocking piece would follow the bolt handle when you lowered it. If you do wiggle it just the littlest bit you hear the click of the trigger resetting and you can lower the handle without the bolt un-cocking.

I realize this isn't a real world problem, when you lift the handle "for real", there is plenty of wiggle to make it catch. Still, I can't make any of the other Mosin's I have do it, and it's not from lack of trying. Is there any tweaking of the interrupter/ejector that I can do to make the trigger reset happen just a little bit earlier in the cycle? All of the parts look new with no visible wear in the bluing.

I appreciate any helpful responses

 

[stubbicatt]

Perhaps if you remove the action from the wood and spray the trigger area down with non chlorinated brake cleaner to remove any trace of cosmoline, your rifle will work better. Also, look to make sure the return spring is in place and the trigger rotates freely around the axis pin.

My .02 anyways.

 

[expvideo]

Tighten all of the screws. That might help. Why does this matter again?

 

[jpwilly]

Double check the sear to trigger engagement. Sounds like it's minimum at best and could be dangerous should the rifle be dropped. Tighten screws etc. If you have to swap out the trigger with one from your other mosins see if the problem moves to other rifle or stays.

 

[bobby n.]

cosmoline build up may be the problem.. dissassembe and clean and lubricate and everything else listed above

 

[expvideo]

cosmoline build up may be the problem.. dissassembe and clean and lubricate and everything else listed above

Great point. I assumed that the OP had cleaned the cosmoline out of the gun, but in this day and age, that might be assuming too much. It really grinds my gears when someone has a rifle that has not been properly de-cosmo'd and they have the nerve to ask why it's not working correctly. To those people, stop being lazy and clean your gun if you want it to function correctly. Yeah, it takes work. That's part of owning surplus guns. That's why they're cheap.

 

[Gottahaveone]

Great point. I assumed that the OP had cleaned the cosmoline out of the gun, but in this day and age, that might be assuming too much.

You must have missed the last sentence of my first paragraph
I've never shot a weapon that I didn't first strip, clean and lube. I looked at all the parts, trigger, trigger pin, disconnecter, etc when I was wiping the Hoppes off of them. There is no cosmoline in this rifle. I promise.

jpwilly, we think alike. I was going to sit down tonight and swap parts between this and the closest one I have to it, a 1938 91/30. We'll see if the problem can be isolated to one specific part......

 

[Gottahaveone]

Update:
OK, I fixed it. I took the action back out of the stock and with the trigger guard off, I put the bolt back into the action. The part that went "click" when I wiggled the bolt handle after cocking it was the Bolt Stop tab snapping back into it's notch in the action. There were NO tolerances. I looked at the 1938 that I have and there was 40 or 50 thousandths between the tab and the end of it's slot. I swapped the bolt stop between the two rifles, and now they both have a nice gap and they both work perfectly. Nice to have tolerance stack work in your favor for a change

Thanks for the suggestions. And as for

Why does this matter again?

It doesn't really. In actual use, it worked perfectly fine as it was. It just bugs me to have something mechanical that doesn't work quite right.

 

[expvideo]

Sorry, I get a little sharp tounged sometimes. There have been a lot of interestingly noobish posts ever since Obama was elected, so I appologize for the smartass attitude. I'm glad you got it working the way you wanted.

 

[Gottahaveone]

Sorry, I get a little sharp tounged sometimes.

I thought that was my job
Not a problem, take care and have a safe New Year.
Randy