doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Firing pin extraction tool

Quite often, penetrating oil will take a while to get into threads... especially 100 year old threads that are packed with crud and burned powder residue. Patience is a virtue, buggered bushings are not.

As has been discussed here many times in the past, all penetrating oils are not created equal. If one does not loosen things (or thingies) try another. Heating a round copper rod about the diameter of the bushings and using the hot rod to transfer heat to the bushing may help break the bond. Tapping with a small hammer and a brass drift may also help the penetrating oil get to the bottom of the threads. Watch that all this oil soaking is not allowed to drain back into the action where it will migrate into the stock head.

I have had stubborn parts resist disassembly for weeks, and then found that after soaking with penetrating oil for a couple months that they unscrewed easily. Rushing and improper techniques are not the way to proceed.

I'm not rushing. Thank you both for the comments/advice, both will be learnt from. I'm going to try soaking them for a while and see if that works..failing that I'll have my smith take it out...possibly easier..

T

Disk-set strikers get hammered into place by every shot fired, are normally Very difficult to remove even with the proper tools, and if you haven't remove the breech vent screws you have already butchered them!
I wrote a story all about this in Shooting Sportsman a while back.

A couple of hopefully useful observations:
As mentioned above, DISK SET STRIKER DISKS can be a real devil to remove.

DO NOT try and use circlip pliers as suggested above, they simply don't have the rigidity to cope with the torque required.

Heat is good in moderation, a very fine flame on a butane soldering torch may help but be careful not to temper the breech face. Little immediate damage may be caused but it isn't a good idea.

Remember that these little darlings are usually set at an angle into the breech face so the pressure on the wrench needs to be down the longitudinal axis of the firing pin/striker, most likely not perpendicular to the breech face.

A truly stuck disk can be removed with a suitable well fitting, hardened and tempered bit in a impact driver but only use this method in desperation, it will almost guarantee to mash the pin holes.

My personal solution is a length of silver steel or other hardenable tool steel, cut and ground to fit the holes AND the angle of the disk in the breech face, hardened and tempered. Cross drilled to take a 4" tommy bar, lots of soaking with release agent, moderate heat and a prayer to the guardian angel of gun owners (and you will still probably mash it!).

I will be thinking of you!
Toby

Additional thought, as My Hughes says above, check that you don't have little breech vent screws locking the DSSD in place. From what I remember of the gun (plus the fact that you have got one out already), you don't but do check anyway. Like most gunsmiths I once fought with 'stuck' DSSD in my early years only to find that they were locked in place all the time by something else. 10 seconds later they were lying in my hand. Extremely embarrassing!

From many years of freeing rusted bolts, I found that you don't heat the bolt, you heat the area around it. If you heat the the discs, the same thing happens, they expand in the hole.
I would try penetrating oil, heat disc, and let it cool, hopefully some of the old gunpowder, residue might have softened. Re-do penetrating oil and try to remove. If that fails you might have to have them drilled out.
Like staed they are put in at an angle.
In the picture shown, these do have the "set screws" that hold them in.

I have used Kroil Oil on "frozen" bolts, most of the times it was only for a few minutes and they usually came out, the ones that don't are burned and then drilled smaller and an easy-out used.

L.C. Smith bushings were 5/16"x32 threads and were made from soft steel, British were probably Whitworth.

The appropriate use of heat (a butane torch) should do it for you. I would heat around the parts, until the oil already in the action is smoking probably no more than 200-300 degrees fareinheit(sp)(I've never actually measured the heat) squirt a little penetrating oil on them and wait maybe 1/2 hour, reheat and attempt to remove. They should be alot easier to remove by this time. A little heat can do wonders for problems like this. As David said, heat around the hole, what you want to do is expand the metal around the bushings. By applying penetrating oil after heating it makes it penetrate that much better.
Also, as Toby said, do check to make certain that they're not held in place in some other, not so apparent, manner.
Good luck,
Steve

Brownells sales this tool!

Mostly, I would agree with this but I just avoid applying torches to receivers and would not advise anyone to do so just not knowing how far they might take it. Heating the bushing will of course temporarily expand it in the female threads. But they will not expand at the same rate and this little differential expansion is often enough to break the bond or allow the penetrating oil to creep in. Then, upon cooling, the bond may be broken.

I have also unstuck many frozen rusty bolts by heating them dull red and allowing them to cool rather than heating the machine or part they are threaded into. Very often this allows the bolt to be removed without any penetrating oil, and it minimizes any risk of heat damage to surrounding areas.

Kroil is not my favorite penetrating oil. It was about all we had while I worked for GM, and I saw it fail to penetrate more than a couple threads deep on many occasions, even with prolonged soaking. The remaining threads would be as dry as a popcorn fart. And these fasteners were seldom severely corroded. To me, the claims that it would creep into spaces as small as a millionth of an inch were marketing hype.

My old man, rest his bones, was an old time engineer and he used to say "ALWAYS USE THE RIGHT TOOL FOR THE JOB" it was good advice then, and equally good advice now.

Making a proper tool with the correct dia pins is not a difficult task if you have access too, or a friend with a lathe or mill.

Using any other improvised tool that may 'bugger the job up' as we English say, and will prove far more expensive in the long run.

Has anyone priced the cost of having a replacement Firing Pin Disk custom made? No, I didn't think so. I promise you it won't be cheap.

Harry