A square 10 wrote:
wow , i never would have gone there - i was scatchin my head on those first couple posts , glad you got it figured out ,
Funny. Sean said something to the effect that that was a common way of arranging the firing pin. He also said turning the knob was how you adjusted the length of strike of the firing pin to resolve any problems of light strikes or of piercing the primers. I don't see that since the whole thing turns as a unit, not the knob against a ramped surface. Oh well. It isn't piercing the primers and I've only had one light strike so it isn't an issue.
KimFella wrote:
NebrHogger wrote:
Having never seen one of these, that's all I got. I looked around for youtube vids, but couldn't find anything. SW
When I described it to my son he didn't know. But today I showed it to him and he immediately took it apart!

Just put the pin on a hard surface and press down on the bolt body. The knob backs out of the bolt and simply slips onto a groove in the back of the pin.
Attachment:
FK 12840 shotgun bolt disassembled.jpg
(sorry about the out of focus

)
Attachment:
FK 12840 shotgun bolt knob and pin.jpg
KimFella wrote:
He also had some scraps of walnut that I can use to fill some gouges in the stock and take this out to the range tomorrow.
Crap. Now I'm beginning to think the stock wasn't walnut at all. The walnut patches stand out like a sore thumb.
KimFella wrote:
I found I had some 250gr LSWC the right size, and some 200gr "APC" lead SWC, so I loaded up half my .45 Colt cases with one and half with the other. The "APC" ones seat the last ridge flush with the case mouth. I don't think I'll use them again.
Funny thing, that. With a proper sized bullet and a published powder load it was much more accurate. Seventeen of 22 shots actually showed up on the target (about 6" high). And they all tumbled (at 25 yards), but the 200gr APC bullets aren't that much longer than their diameter so their key holes aren't that different from a 'proper' hole. The 250gr ones are longer and their key holes are much bigger.
So here is the next question: would the tumbling just be from the chamber insert only having about 1 1/2" of rifling? Or would the expanding gases be able to get past the .452" bullet traveling down a couple of feet of 12ga. barrel and create turbulence? In either case fiddling with the load won't fix the tumbling (although I suppose I could try to find some .452" round ball and load those). I'm still trying to decide if it is worth fixing the shotgun (it doesn't even have the usual shotgun front bead) or just chalk the chamber adapter idea up to "Well, that was fun, but now let's do something else". The barrel does appear to have what looks like wrench rash
inside it. Maybe I could cobble together a bore cast hone and hone that out.
KimFella wrote:
It was fiddley work reloading since I don't have .45 Colt dies and .45 APC don't work at all. I had to ...very gently... expand the case mouth with a .38-.45 neck expander plug, seat them using a .41 Swiss bullet seating die and finally crimp them with a .44-40 Factory Crimp die.
I suspect if I continue with this I'll break down and buy a .45 Colt die set. (Then I'll have an excuse ... er, I mean a reason, to buy a .45 Colt revolver.
KimFella wrote:
Dang! I just realized I haven't turned down the chamber adapter to fit the 2 9/16" chamber, and won't get that done today. So I guess I won't be taking this to the range tomorrow after all. Maybe sometime next week I can take it to a machine shop ... or maybe Sean knows someone with a working lathe.
Suddenly that isn't an issue. One of the guys at the range said the hard-to-close problem with the bolt was the extractor trying to jump over the steel rim of the adapter. Just manually fishing it under the rim before closing the bolt fixed that problem.