TargetTalk

After my question about cleaning another question how do you clean a 160 without being scared to fire the gun with the breach open? Is there a tecnique to protect the fireing pin from damage? I have been talking to some gun smiths and have found spare pins though they are expensive the 160 special are divided into 2 groops the first modle having old 160 pins and the later one having the fp 60 pins that for information are still being sold by walter and has not been discontinued as was mentioned befor on this sight parts being easly avalable .

First: YOU SHOULD NEVER FIRE THE HAMMERLI 160 WITH THE BREECH OPEN since this makes a high risk of breaking the side arming pin of the firing pin and as you have discovered, it is quite expensive.

Indeed, to clean the barrel, you need to fully open the breech what also arm the firing pin.

Since you should not leave the firing pin/spring armed, the solution is to insert a dummy .22lr (plastic or aluminium) into the chamber, fire the pistol with that dummy and leave the dummy into the pistol till the next shooting session.

There are indeed two kind of firing pin: the old one which is mainly black/dark grey (excepted two machined rings) and the new one which is silver/light gray.