TargetTalk

Hi,

They say no good deed goes unpunished. Well the shooting corollary is no cleaned pistol shoots as well as a dirty one!

I cleaned my filthy Pardini SP 22 after shooting an 842 in a 900 this weekend; i.e. it was working fine. At practice today and then during a match just now I got 5 light strikes out of about 60 rounds; had to take a DNF after second malfunction in Rapid. Firing pin was removed when I cleaned the bolt. Nothing appeared wrong. It struck fine those other 55 times. Never had this problem before with this gun.

Thoughts and ideas? I have my state indoor championships this Sunday! I'll order a new pin and spring, just to be safe, from the guys in Tampa but don't know how fast they can get it up here.

thanks,
Jab

The guys in Tampa are the greatest in my book as far as getting you parts unless they are out of the country so you should be taken care of.
They have recommended that a drop of oil (FP-10 is their oil of choice) should be put on top of the first round in the magazine. This practice will eliminate the carbon ring that forms in the chamber. This carbon ring as it builds up will keep a slightly bigger round from fully seating in the chamber. (unless you are using very expensive top line target ammo you will get some rounds that are physically bigger than others.) If the bullet rim is not tight to the chamber face the firing pin will hit the round, the round will move forward and a light strike will be all you get. Get a 25 cal. brush and really clean out the chamber do not go into the rifling. A carbon ring is sometime stubborn to remove so it might take some work. My Pardini puts a real good indentation in the rim. If you are getting a lot of good solid firing pin strikes look for something other than mechanical problems with the gun. These guns are really robust and really do not normally have parts problems.

Good luck at the State Championship.

Yes, Vladimir, Alex, and Emil are definitely always helpful.

FYI, I was shooting RWS Target Pistol.

Luckily I just found a spare firing pin! It measures 0.0075" longer than my used one. Putting that in. And I'll make sure the chamber is clean, looked it yesterday but it's too good a piece of advice to ignore!

Cheers,
Jab

Alas,

New firing pin didn't help. Replaced recoil spring at the range and reassembled pretty wet. Still got light strikes.

Switched from RWS to Wolf Match Extra and got 60 shots away. Could be a bad batch of RWS?! Its a particular brick I hadn't used in the Pardini yet; but have used that brand/style before.

-= Jab

jabberwo wrote:Alas,

New firing pin didn't help. Replaced recoil spring at the range and reassembled pretty wet. Still got light strikes.
.

-= Jab

If you have too much oil (especially if it's thick oil) on or around the firing pin it can have a hydraulic dampening effect on the firing pin. Try running the firing pin dry. Pardini usually has one fo the best strikes for a standard pistol.

j-team wrote:If you have too much oil

Hi,

I usually, including this last cleaning, have no oil on the firing pin other than what's left after a very slightly oil damped cloth was used to wipe it down during cleaning. The extra oil I put on today after another light strike was on the "wings" of the bolt, and the bolt's top and bottom just in case there was friction involved in not getting the bolt face and the round clenched in the extractor flush with the chamber.

Perhaps as "pistol champ" opined, some of the RWS rounds just don't fit the chamber. After putting the 4yo to bed tonight I going to try and sneak out and shoot another 100 rounds of the Wolf to make sure the first 60 weren't a fluke.

thanks y'all,
Jab

Just because it worked before doesn't mean the latest production lot is the same.

I have three different vintages of Aguila SE I have shot in my Pardini SP New. My wife's SP (old) loved the stuff, but she's been shooting Eley Sport for about 7 years now instead. The oldest Aguila SE, which came in a gold & purple box, worked fine in my pistol. I bought a case recently which was in gold and blue boxes. It didn't have enough recoil to feed the next round after about 20 shots post-cleaning. I got another case from a friend who'd had it for a while, with yellow and purple boxes. It was better, but still not very reliable. I had to cut quite a bit off the recoil spring to get it working well. The gold & blue box stuff works better with the cut down spring, but it's clearly weaker still.

Also, the forming dies for the brass will wear, and the cases will slowly get fatter & fatter until they are out of spec & get replaced. If the first batch of RWS was made with new dies, they could be considerably smaller than ones made near the end-of-life for the forming dies.

If the rounds are oversized, and/or your chamber is dirty, the rounds won't quite chamber fully. The energy of the hammer gets wasted closing the bolt the rest of the way, and doesn't have enough force left to fully crush the rim & fire the cartridge.

Hard crud gets built up in the chamber. Running a patch through the bore will do nothing to this. Even running a used brush through the bore won't do much because the bristles get worn & bent, and they aren't big enough to clean the chamber well.. I use a 25 caliber rifle brush to keep my chambers clean. Try dropping a loaded round into the chamber vertically. If it doesn't drop 90% of the way in, your chamber needs more thorough cleaning. Many rounds won't go in quite all the way because the leade is short & the fat part of the bullet actually has to get pushed into the rifling slightly.

jabberwo

This is how I would tackle the problem:

Remove the barrel from the gun, clean a couple of loaded rounds (different makes) with a rag to remove wax/lube, and see if they drop almost all the way into the chamber.
If not, clean the chamber.
If cleaned, check the size of the brass/bullet with a caliper and compare with the ones that drop (cycle) well.

Then, at the range, check the bolt position after each shot to see if it closes all the way. If you can push it forward (you already replaced it's spring) your problem is in the feeding part. Check magazine's lips and spring. Adjust/clean /replace if need be.
While you're at it, check the function of the extractor as well. A very stiff one can delay the position of the cartridge during the cycling process.
Thinking of the slide I would check the rubber buffer/stop and see what condition it is in. Just for peace of mind.

Assuming all's ok, my next suspect would be the hammer spring. Cases vary in "hardness", so a week spring may be strong enough for some cases but not for others. It is not likely but can happen.

After all this check out ok, the ammo is at fault. If the gun cycles well other brands/lots, you probably have a bad batch of ammo. This can happen with any kind of ammo, from the cheapest to the more expensive. Not that the external dimensions are off (you already check!), but something within the cartridge. Bad storage, wet conditions on transport (by boat), bad batch, etc...

Hope this helps