I like shooting hammer guns and back then no one wanted them mainly because of having Damascus barrels. Some had light pitting/fouling but in the 12 gauge I was using light 3/4 oz. loads. Some were loaded with Remington primers (when they were still priced like the others), some with Winchester 209 and Cheddite primers. On this one particular hammer gun that I had I was shooting 100 rounds of sporting clays. Went through the one box using Remington primers and everything went fine. Opened another box with Winchester primers and on the first set of doubles the second barrel would not fire. Tried again and nothing. So for the rest of that box I was shooting singles. The next box was not Winchester primers and I tired shooting doubles and worked fine.
At home took the locks off and looked at everything, the firing pins were protruding the same, took the right side off and used the mainspring for the left side, same problem, made the firing pin .030 longer, no luck and last resort measured the ejector depth on both sides and they were the same. completely baffled now and elected not to shoot Winchester primers out of that gun. Just sold it an told the new owner the problem and said he would not shoot Winchester primers. Gun is an L.C. Smith.
Last edited by David Williamson; 05/31/24 07:56 AM.
