[sstalder5]

What are some strange things that have caused your gun to fail?

I just got done taking apart the bolt in my shotgun and found my firing pin snapped clean in half. How does this even happen?

I bent the spring getting the broken firing pin out so as far as I know it was fine before I got it out.

FWIW the gun is close to 60 years old so anything could've failed at any time, but everything was working fine until the firing pin snapped and it stopped striking the primers.

New firing pin and spring ordered for a total of $13.48, so all is well, but wtf??

 

[Jm_]

Well, can the weapon be dry-fired and was it? Either it's an overload failure or overload. Overload is due to stresses that were not forseen, which is not likely I suppose unless it's not meant to be dry-fired and was, and understress failure is due to stresses that were within the capability, which means there was a flaw. That might be caused by corrosion or a manufacturing flaw, which created a crack, which propagated each time it was fired (cycled). Usually under a microscope you can find out if it's overstress or understress fairly easily by looking for scalloping. (I've learned me a few things about failures and crashes in the last year or so)

 

[sstalder5]

Well I can't account for previous owners, but I rarely dry fire my weapons. I was shooting trap and after cycling about 50 rounds fine the firing pin stopped striking. When I took it apart the front half of the firing pin was on top of the back half and jammed the bolt from moving on the slide. I had to pull the spring out between the breech lock and the front of the bolt to get it apart so that's why the spring is effed too

 

[DirtyMike]

Going to ask the simple question..... did you break it down, clean and do full inspect before you started using it?

 

[JohnE]

I am saying a previous owners kid dry fired the hell out of it...or maybe hand loaded shells that were over powered? Too much back pressure?

 

[sstalder5]

Going to ask the simple question..... did you break it down, clean and do full inspect before you started using it?

I broke it down as much as I could when I first got it but that didn't include disassembling the bolt because I didn't know how at the time. It did look pretty gunked up when I got it apart the other day

 

[DirtyMike]

Well I would chalk it up to lesson learned, always tear it down as far as it is possible before you shoot it. Specially on a used gun.

 

[sstalder5]

Well I would chalk it up to lesson learned, always tear it down as far as it is possible before you shoot it. Specially on a used gun.

Ehhh its cycled probably close to 5k rounds flawlessly in the 2 years I've owned it. $14 in parts isn't that big of a price to pay. But the bolt is perfectly clean now, and will stay that way now that I know how to get it apart.