doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Dragging Firing Pins

My Remington 1900 12ga is not opening easily after firing. The firing pins are dragging against the primers. After the action is opened I can easily push the firing pins back into the action. From the info I found it appears the firing pins are integral with the hammer. Can anyone suggest a reason as to why the hammers are not rebounding and what a possible solution could be?

I don't think those internal hammers rebound; they are down or they're cocked. I have a Fox with integral strikers which does much the same. Worn cocking levers not exerting pressure on hammer toes early enuf to get hammers to a position which places the strikers behind the breech face as the gun is opened?

jack

If you haven't tried this already...try some Remington primers.
The harder primer cup allows some guns to open easier.

S-N-R: I once had a similar problem with an 1889 and, as I recall, ended up needing to replace worn-out or broken firing pin springs. The springs were supposed to push their pin back into the frame after ignition, but the originals no longer had the stuff to accomplish it. Now, an '89 has external hammers, and so there may be no comparison at all, but since they're both Remingtons, I thought I'd mention it until somebody who knows a lot more than me shows up ... which shouldn't take long at all. TT

External hammers on an 89 Remmy DO rebound such that the springs can act on the pins. Different animal. At the current "brick" price for STS primers, l64.25, not a particularly cheap cure altho I personally like them.

jack

The cure for your problem was supplied by Rabbit in the first reply. Do what's necessary to get the hammers moving back sooner.

If you can piush the pins back into the action, you have a later Remington Hammerless Double. Remington changed the design of their hammerless doubles around 1906. The earlier guns had the firing pin integral with the hammer, but the later guns had free floating firing pins. I too would suggest trying Remington primers as the first and easiest possible fix.

Researcher, that's good info. I had no idea they changed the 1894 design during it's short production run. Semmer does not mention it in his book nor did I find it on the Remington website. BTW that website does have exploded views of the 1894 that are pretty cool. My 1900 is year 1906 so I suppose it has the firing pins. Could it be the firing pins are too long? The indentations on the primers were fairly deep. I used Federal target loads.

Well, it is getting "stinkin' hot" out today, so I'm inside playing with the computer and have tried scanning a few pages out of a 1901 and a 1908 Remington Arms Co. catalogues, converting from bitmap to JPEG, loading into Photobucket, and now hopefully here! These are from 1901





These arew from 1908 --

Part#s 61 and 25 in 1908 cat. are sure pin and hammer without striker. Every pitchure tell a story doan it? Researcher's got it as there's no way that integral striker in the earlier catalog would NOT be behind the breech wall AFTER the hammers are completely cocked. A great eye and experience tell every time.

jack