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

dumb mistake, I only loaded 1 chamber and then pulled the wrong trigger. Upon opening the gun I found a small piece fall away, luckily I found it, the tip of the firing pin. So this morning I sent both pieces to a friend, who happens to be a great machinist and gunsmith. Later while at the hardware store I thought of buying a drill bit of same diameter to cut off enough of the shank to make my own pin. Thoughts before I spend a bunch of time.

Micro TIG welding. Just spoke about it with my (young) gunsmith today. Totally feasible.

rarely happens...

what gun type wuz hit...

Many guns can be damaged by dry firing, but not an A H Fox.

In the article "Why Should I Buy A Fox Gun?", in Volume 11, issue 1 of DGJ years ago, Tom Kidd wrote (in quoting Fox literature), that it will in no way damage a Fox gun to dry fire it, because of the way the hammer is designed and the way it meets the rear of the standing breech. As I recall it was described as having a substantial boss for the hammer to meet, not allowing the rear of the firing pin itself to ever contact the steel around the firing pin hole, preventing any possibility of "mushrooming" the steel around the hole as is seen on so many other old doubles.

Not all steel is weldable. No steel is consistently hard after being welded on. No steel can be hardened without knowing exactly what it is, or, was, because once it has been welded it is not the same anymore.

Turning a firing pin out of a material like O1, and then hardening it, is probably a better idea.

Best,
Ted

Most shotgun firing pins aren't too complicated to make on a lathe, especially if you have the pieces of the broken original for correct dimensions. Depending upon the make, original replacements may be found from Numrich or other parts dealers for less than the cost of a machinist to make one.

I've made a couple using common O-1 tool steel, and then hardened and tempered them. Some say the hardening and drawing is not really necessary. But I've seen a number of pins that mushroomed on the rear end due to being too soft.

Others say they have successfully had broken firing pins repaired by welding. However, welding tool steel has the risk of soon cracking again due to the high carbon content. It's also likely the weld repair will need to be cleaned up on a lathe anyway. For that reason, I'd go with making a new pin if replacements aren't readily available.

I don’t see how that’s possible. I just completely stripped and cleaned two Fox doubles and nothing inside of there said to
me that dry firing would be a good idea. The tumbler/hammers on a Fox are massive, very similar to & about the same as a Greener FP tumbler/hammer, but I don’t see anything in the Fox action that would prevent the hammer assembly from smacking the front of the firing pin hole when loosed. I certainly wouldn’t recommend it.
Kind of off topic, but the Fox is kind of a [censored - come on man!] to disassemble and reassemble. That clevis pin/screw is a real piece of work(I guess Fox never thought these guns should be fully disassembled for cleaning or repair!!). Why they thought that should be peened over I’ll never know. Second thing is the mainspring plunger and yoke doo-hickey. What an idea. Pain the butt to put back together.

On the broken firing pin question….what make of gun are you talking about? Something with bushed or separate strikers/pins or a gun with integral pins with the tumblers/hammers?

Using a an old drill bit to make a firing pin. Sure it could be done. Gotta think about the hardness of hss, carbide, etc. and how it’ll affect that tumbler/hammer. If it’s too hard, it might break prematurely or it’ll start to peen the tumbler/hammer or worse yet, crack it. Probably best to use mild steel rod, turn a new pin and then properly harden and temper it.

I have tried a couple times to repair busted firing pins by drilling and inserting roll pins or drill bits shanks or other hardened steel rods into the old pin body. Though I cold make it functional I was never pleased enough to call it a final solution and found it easier to buy used pins off eBay.

the gun is a C Boswell pigeon gun. Similar to other Sxs pins I have seen with a notch for the retaining screw to keep pin from too much rearward travel.

Nitrah;

It will take a competent gunsmith an hour or less to make and fit a new firing pin using oil hardening drill rod for your Boswell. Contemplating welding the broken one is counter productive.

Regards;
Stephen Howell

thanks Stephen, if you made it to the Southern, sorry we didn't connect.

I've disassembled and cleaned mine numerous times, I have seven of them. I've never had the need to repair anything in a Fox action, with the exception of a silver soldering job to repair a broken guide pin on an ejector, which I did myself some 10-12 years ago. I've never had, nor heard of, anyone who had a Fox hammer/striker to break, and I've never seen a Fox action with "mushroomed out" firing pin holes from dry firing, though I have seen that on many other makes of doubles. I've asked old doublegunsmiths what make of vintage double has come into your shop for repairs the least in your career. "Fox" is the common reply, not because there weren't many made, Fox sold multiple times more Sterlingworths than Parker did Trojans. Part of the reason is so few moving parts in a Fox lock . . . . four, as compared to a Parker with sixteen per lock. You may not care for Fox's design in peening the threaded end of the yoke screw, but I personally do. It will never loosen itself and cause the gun to be non-functional. A simple way of heading off the possibility of a screw backing out. Why would you want to take it apart anyway, if it's not broken or worn out? An ultrasonic cleaner will totally clean the assembly without taking the screw out.

Personally, I'd much rather strip and clean an A H Fox than a Savage Fox Model B. Maybe I've just been messing with Foxes long enough that they don't seem to be difficult.

Take care, Dustin.

Yep. That is the way people replace the firing pin in a Ljutic trap gun- using a drilling rod ground down to the correct shape. Guys used to do it at my place of work. Good luck.

Hi there Stan. Why would I want to completely take down an action when I do a strip and clean? Because that’s how it’s properly done. End of story. A sonic cleaner will do a good job, especially a commercial grade one like the one I use. It isn’t the end all be all in regards to a thorough cleaning!! The action will still need to be taken completely down to clean out the nooks and crannies. All kinds of stuff gets stuck in the brown rotary bolt/drum and that all needs to be cleaned out too. When I do a strip and clean, everything gets taken out, cleaned, polished and lubed. All of the old corrosion needs to be removed from each part too, that includes the top lever, the rotary bolt, the clevis, etc.
I’ll stand by my thoughts on the peening of the clevis pin and say that the clevis pin being peened over is a wonky idea. I wonder if CSMC did that on the guns they made? I’d be curious to find that out.
I wasn’t disparaging the Fox. I own them too. I don’t think it matters how many Fox’s a person owns. Owning a grundel of them doesn’t make one anymore knowledgeable on them than the next guy. I can’t say I have had many problems with a Fox either. The issues I’ve encountered have been with the rotary bolt, trigger pulls, ejectors and cracked stocks, etc. Fox must’ve know about the cracked stocks too because they decided to inlet a corrugated staple in the head of the stock (on some guns).
Again, there’s nothing in a Fox action that would lead me to believe that it’s ok to dry fire. The similarities to the FP Greener are obvious, maybe the reason you don’t see many issues with the hammers and firing pins is due to the shear size of those parts. You don’t see many Greeners with those issues either.

Dustin, far be it from me to question how far a proper strip and clean should be taken. You've learned under far more masterful craftsmen than I. Most of what I know about these old guns I've learned on my own, by trial and error. That said, I cannot see the reasoning behind wanting to remove the screw from the yoke on a Fox when doing a strip and clean, any more than I could see the reasoning behind wanting to disassemble a trigger plate by drifting out the axles to remove the individual triggers from the plate. It can all be cleaned completely in an ultrasonic, then dried and lubed. Would one take the top lever off of the spindle, too, in the case of one that is held by a screw, in order to say it was a proper strip and clean? Not saying it's wrong to do so, just that I can't see the reasoning behind it. My respect for your abilities is greater than you might think, but I don't always understand WHY some things are done.

I have no idea as to whether CSMC peened their yoke screws. Doesn't really matter to me as I know first hand of too many goof-ups CSMC has made with their guns. I wouldn't ever set their practices up as a standard of any kind.

One other point if I may, I wasn't implying that I know any more about Fox guns, because I own seven, than anyone who may own one, or none. It was simply my means of conveying my admiration and respect for them. I think the young man Ansley Herman Fox did quite well when he designed, and patented the design, at the ripe old age of 18. The fact that he borrowed some design ideas from Greener is just wisdom, IMO. Hell, at 18 the only thing that interested me was muscle cars and girls, with a dove shoot thrown in from time to time.

I have a competent gunsmith making a new pin, but wanted to try my idea. So I cut off an old drill bit, using a carbide blade in my dremel tool I reduced the forward end to approximate diameter and cut the slot where the retaining screw rides. It looks like I am about 1/16 too long. Before I shorten it I was wondering if there is a negative to leaving it long, as long it doesn't stick out too far from breech face.

Piercing the primer? Be careful it doesn’t protrude from the breech face when the gun is cocked, it could fire at closing.

Good luck.

Best,
Ted

A way too long FP can keep the gun from closing.
If the pin is hanging way out there, it's tip can end up underneath the extended extractor/ejector while closing the bbls. That makes for a clunk as the pin hits the underside of the extractor.
That can bend the tip on the already too long FP as well as put some dent damage on the underside of the extractor blade.

The extractors should have a shallow beveled cut in them to push a proper length FP (shorter protrusion) back into the action as the bbl is closed.

Cut the pin back so it allows somewhere betw .035 and .045 protrusion and with a nicely rounded and polished point.

Most everyone will have a perfect protrusion length for a FP, but I have found the above to be completely reliable with proper hammer fall and HS. Plus no un-necessary extra length to it.



...No peened yoke screw in the CSMCo Fox that I ever ran into. Not to say that they never did it though..