Yesterday's Weapons Forums

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Bulged cases!
Funny, the length of exposed thread at the muzzle is just about the same size as the bulge.

exposed thread.jpg [ 34.81 KiB | Viewed 6277 times ]

And if I only tighten the knurled nut so it is flush with the end of the barrel there is a gap at the other end, also just about the same size as the bulge.(Damn! a 2 attachment limit! Just take my word for it, I had a picture of a gap between the cocking ears and the shroud/main frame.)

Taking it apart and examining it, the bolt face comes flush with the chamber. The rim sits flush with the chamber face and the bolt face/breech face has a recess in it that encloses the rim. The bolt and the barrel are held together by the main spring no matter how much barrel is exposed beyond the knurled nut so its not a classic headspace problem. It looks as if the bolt starts recoiling before the bullet has left the barrel, allowing the case to retract just about 3/32nds of an inch while there is still plenty of pressure there. Coincident with this, about every 3rd or 4th round the firing pin missed the round entirely (no light strike marks) as if the bolt rebounded after pressing the round home.

The whole barrel/slide assembly sticks when taking it apart or reassembling it. (Well more like 'catches' rather than sticks, and a light tap frees it.) According to some posts on the internet this is due to the hammer being a little bit in the path of the barrel/slide assembly, and I can see that it is.

Do you suppose the mainspring is a bit weak, allowing the bolt to retract too soon?
Any other possibilities?

A second concern, but I doubt it is connected to the bulged cases issue, is that the barrel key and barrel seat washer are seized in the shroud/main frame. They are in the right position, but they are supposed to be removable for cleaning. I'm not too concerned about that. If repeated soaking in oil doesn't loosen them (cleaning what I imagine is old dirt and gunk seizing them) maybe I'll take a heat gun on its lowest setting and see if I can free them.

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Them that know, know that they know. Them that don't know don't know they don't know.

Having never handled one, I'm pretty much at a loss here. SW

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Slava Ukraini!!

me too but i like that one , hope you get her working to your satisfaction , im not thinking you would ever reload those but i do see your concerns ,

I think you are on the right track with the return spring idea.

Had an old Cooey with the folding tenite forearm do that to me. Nylon end cap that retained the spring also acted as a buffer, and it was cracked almost all the way around. Possible culprit was stingers.

Not familiar with the Whitney system~ it may well be bufferless for all I know.

Hope fully it's not venting gas. Might want to try some target grade ammo in it- the lesser velocity milder fodder may balance things in what could have been intended as a target type pistol.

Regards,

Doc Sharptail

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"Ain't no Half-Way" -S.R.V.

"Oh Yeah!.....All Right!" -Paul Simon

how old is it ? you do not want to run modern high velocity in an older handgun of this type , but i know nothing of these and do not know the age of them , so often its the springs in early ones that will fix the condition , i hope you get her running as she should ,

I was using the 500 round box of Remington Thunderbolt ammo. Another shooter gave me some CCI medium velocity ammo ... same thing. I tried backing off the knurled nut until it was flush with the end of the barrel ... same thing.

Apparently these are supposed to use "good quality" ammo for the first 1000 or so rounds and after that they are fine with whatever you can get. That appears to relate to feeding and ejecting problems. I'm guessing but I think this was from about '59 or '60. It just has "Whitney" stamped on it so it was after they had to drop the "Wolverine" due to legal problems.

There was one internet post/article saying the barrel seat must be flush with the front of the shroud/main frame or if it extends beyond you will create a headspace gap of 0.090" (or was it 0.009"?) Either way that shouldn't be the problem here since the barrel seat IS flush with the frame, just not loose enough to get it out for cleaning.

My son suggested I try it with the safety removed just in case the bolt is hanging up briefly on the safety if it is bent a bit. If the bolt starts to retract properly but gets caught ever so briefly after about 1/8" travel that might be causing the bulging, as the casing would be extracted only that 1/8" and then held there briefly and the pressure that should be just retracting the bolt builds enough to bulge the brass, then the bolt starts to move again and the casing continues to eject.

I'm a little reluctant to remove the safety since, if I'm reading the disassembly sequence correctly I have to remove the trigger assembly and the hammer first, and reassembly requires the use of "slave pins". It basically sounds pretty finicky and complicated. (Weird, because the basic field strip part is extremely straight forward and not at all finicky.)

Most of the disassembly/reassembly instructions are for the Olympic version. Mostly the same but some differences.

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Them that know, know that they know. Them that don't know don't know they don't know.