My New Rifle Sux. Any Advice?

[publius]

At the gun show today, I picked up a Marlin M60 .22 lr semi-auto. It was pretty cheap, and I thought it'd be fun to have a plinkin' iron.

Here's a pic:

It's nice to fire and shoots pretty tight groups. Ejection works fine. No failure to feed problems. All in all, I like it.

One little problem: it suffers from severe firing pin wimpiness. I shot probably 40 rounds from two different types of Winchester Super X cheapo ammo. About 20 of those did not fire! Most looked like they had almost, but not quite, been struck hard enough to fire. On the rest, you could barely see any mark at all on the rim. Just to make sure I didn't somehow get two batches of extremely bad ammo, I took some of the ammo out and shot it with another .22. The ammo is fine, and my other .22 leaves a nice, deep mark on the rims.

Anyone know if this is common to these guns? I'd always heard that Marlins and Savages were good, cheap guns, but this is my first one. Also, any suggestions for care and feeding for this thing? It didn't come with a manual, and I don't even know how to properly clean it, how much you disassemble it, how to go about that, etc.

Hee hee! This is what you get sometimes with those impulse purchases. Just wanted some cheap fun, bought myself a problem. Doh! Any words of wisdom for me? Thanks!

 

[BusMaster007]

http://rimfirecentral.com/forums/

Start in the Marlin section.
Good Luck!

 

[P95Carry]

I love mine . scoped it too and it's a great plinker ...... overall very reliable.

I do find tho it functions better if crud build-up monitored .... .22 ammo is mucky stuff and bolt face gets well affected, along with extractor claw recess to side of chamber. I think it's important to keep this fairly crud free to make sure when bolt closes on a round, it does so fully ..... even slight falure of closure will have effect of lightening pin strike.

Not sure who mentioned but I am sure Win ammo was not so popular ..... I use cheap bricks of Fed from WallyWorld .... and I get all but 100% function.

Could be some work on cleaning would pay off .... disassembly not too difficult at all .... if you don't find info you need from the link given above .... just shout and I'll give a description of that.

 

[waynzwld]

Check the breech face of the barrel. Many times, someone has dry firred it and put a burr into the edge of the chamber. When this happens, the case will not seat fully in the chamber and when you fire, it just pushes it forward and wastes the firing pins energy seatting the round. The other is to make sure the firing pin channel is clean and not slowing the firing pin.

 

[Dr.Rob]

Whoa!

Try different ammo first.

I recall getting a batch of Winchester 'wildcat" 22 ammo once, and I got TONS of misfires, it may be your ammo.

I recall dad and I throwing away bricks of that Wildcat stuff, as we had NO confidence in it and had bought it on sale from the same lot.

 

[Old Fuff]

Be sure it's not a case of gunk build-up in the breech that is keeping the bolt from going fully into battery. A good cleaning might solve you're problem.

 

[foghornl]

Not the same model, but I have an OLD Marlin 99. When it gets too grundged up, the bolt doesn't fully close, and it may misfire. Same symptoms, shallow firing pin marks.

 

[publius]

Thanks!

Busmaster, I'm visiting that site now.

P95, the gun started doing this right away. Sign on it at the gun show said "test fired only" whatever that means. Anyway, it looked very clean.

waynzwld, I inspected the breech face of the barrel, and could see no burrs or damage. I still don't know how to properly take this gun apart, so I don't yet know how to check the firing pin channel.

Dr. Rob, I'm pretty sure it's not the ammo because, as I mentioned, the ammo works fine in my other gun, and the marks on the rim are extremely light. The ammo is just not getting smacked on the rim properly for some reason.

Fuff and foghorn, though the gun was sold as "almost new" and looked very clean, I did spray some break-free in there and brush it down. Got things as clean as I could without disassembly, took it back outside, and the same problem occurred.

Thanks again, all. I'm off to rimfire central to see if I can get some disassembly instructions.

 

[gun-fucious]

my M60 was a tad "weak" on the action cycling, while shooting reduced power loads.
i figured it would not properly cycle this ammo

but i gave it 3 squirts of CLP and worked the action a bunch of times
Then i swabbed it out and it now cycles Aquilla.

Yer rifle prolly needs to be lubed & broken in