doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Hollenbeck / Royal Gun Co Drilling #1518

Noce piece of wood on that one.

Well, I finally built up the nerve to test fire.

Winchester Extra Light 12ga, Winchester 170gn .30-30 (that's all I had).

Turns out I have either a broken firing pin or a weak spring on the left shotgun barrel/rear trigger (will not fire, just click, probably broken firing pin as there's no mark on the primer), and some pretty significant chamber erosion in the rifle barrel (shoulder excessively stretched and a ring at the base of the shoulder, maybe from too much pressure). My rifle firing pin always protrudes, too, and I've read something about a return spring there that tends to break, which has me wondering.

Hopefully some hand loads and creative spring hunting will make the .30-30 ok, but the left barrel problem is... a problem.

I guess I'll take it apart this Sunday and see what exactly is wrong. Did I read something about someone in Florida having bought up all the parts for these things some time back? Are they still around?

Well, don�t fret too much, I received my old gold #35 from the German gunSmith, (see my other thread) all three barrels fired, my reduced handload of the rifle (.25-25 Stevens) had high pressure signs, now my left shotgun barrel does not fire at all, no click, nothing, the rifle firing pin does come out but fails to fire the primer, it�s not the firing pin spring, the old girl is a little finicky, It could be a weak spring to the rifle hammer, but don�t give up,she�s easy to get into, and my German gunSmith (Tobi Nisse) is an expert now on Hollenbeck drillings, he will be visiting the USA again in July. The spring is easy to find, The wheeler screwdriver set I got from Midway has the special little tip that unscrews the firing pin screw. The width of my spring is 0.44 inches the height of mine is 0.84 inches but may be slightly short because it looks like a small piece broke off. Apparently you just Obtain a long spring of the proper width and cut it to size you want. I Have not found a source for Springs yet, because my second Hollenbeck number 236 (I got it from cherries Fine Guns) is missing the spring to the rifle firing pin, believe it or not. I actually got that second Hollenbeck in case I need to rob parts from it ,which I hope never to do. if you enter your Hollenbeck, take off the trigger guard first, then take the screws beginning towards the bottom of the stock and work toward the barrel, separate the action from the stock about an eighth of an inch, then slide out the trigger assembly, it�s really very easy. Interestingly the safety and the mechanics and other factors of the action are quite different from number 35 to number 236, no telling what changes were made by the time yours was built, nevertheless don�t give up, there have to be a lot of us in the same boat, we can figure this out, Worst case,ship it to Mobile,AL and Tobi can fix it,since he�s become the Hollenbeck gunsmith expert!! Also you might consider emailing Tobi directly,send him pictures and make your problem his problem, I do that regularly info@tobi-greener.de. Good luck!

Here is the peculiar .30-30 brass.

Mr. Polecat,
previously, cartridges that headspaced on a rim( or belt for that matter) often had the shoulder area too far forward in the chamber. Such chambers would still pass a "go" gauge and not a "no go". Your problem could likely be addressed by fireforming cases with a small load of "fast" powder like Unique, 1/4 sheet tp, grits as filler, and more tp to close it up. Once fireformed, set the loading dies to just "kiss" the shoulder. Then only use your handloads.FWIW in a drilling, you won't be limited to round nose or flat bullets.
Mike

Well,I love the toilet paper, grits idea and will try that with my reduced load 2525 Stevens for my Hollenbeck drilling
I�m so excited to find another use for grit�s ,and for those readers that don�t know what grits are: search �ode to grits� by Roy Blount,Jr,he speaks the truth

ginge,
I also sometimes use worn out polishing media for fireforming and eat the grits. Some people that are not cultured enough to have any grits, use Cream of Wheat.
Mike

I�d be curious the OD of the neck. That really looks out of proportion.

Thanks, everyone.

Yeah, the neck seems pretty large to me, too, but I've discovered that the battery is dead in my caliper and I haven't had a chance to go anywhere that sells stuff like that yet. A .308 caliber bullet falls down inside the neck easily, but I 'spect that's to be expected as the same happens with the fired necks of some of my other brass from the other .30-30 too. It does seem a little looser though.

Someone elsewhere suggested that it could be reamed to .30-30 Ackley Improved, too, if there is a burr in the chamber that the brass is flowing into. Though if I can make it work as-is with fireformed brass, I certainly don't plan to load heavier and I imagine the AI calls for heavier loads, so eh....

I think I read somewhere that paper-patched lead bullets shoot well from barrels with eroded throats. Maybe that could be an option if the chamber is eroded over-size. The rifling looks a little weaker back near the breech, but it's certainly not gone or anything, so I dunno.

At this juncture, I think it may be beyond my redneck head-scratching, and time to suck it up and make the 3 hour drive to the nearest gunsmith that doesn't suck. Maybe I ought to just get hold of that fellow mentioned earlier, though he's about as far away as someone can be from me and still be in the same state, haha.