doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com merkel firing pin problem

Hi, I've got a late 1920s kersten action o/u shotgun that I just bought (miller val greiss). There is a through pin in the lower right corner of the frame but no cocking indicators. The gun was sold under the miller val greiss name, but I thought a lot of their stuff was made by one or the other merkels.

The firing pin from the lower barrel only makes a slight ding on the primer and it won't fire. I tested it on two brands of shells. From looking at the action without the barrels it appears that lower firing pin does protude a little less than the upper, but not by too much.

Any ideas or suggestions? thanks

Change out the hammer spring
Mike

What you have to do remove the stock and that will allow access to the firing pins which are actually bushed but screwed into the breech from inside ( just the opposite way from most SxS guns where you unscrew the bushes from the breech face). In Merkels these bushes do not show at the breech face so you wouldn't know about them until you remove the stock. Sometimes they get unscrewed a little with the the result you describe. You just have to tighten 'em in, don't use locktite, the next person will curse you. The trick of course is getting off the stock.
In addition to removing the tang screw/screws, you also have to drop out the trigger plate and trigger guard. This is finicky work requiring perfectly ground screw drivers and experience so as not to bugger the screws. About 90% of fine gunsmithing consists of NOT buggering up the screws.
nial

thanks for the advice. I removed the stock, the gun is a boxlock so there aren't bushed firing pins. The hammer spring probably needs to be replaced.

Anybody recommend a good merkel gunsmith?