MORINI 84E cocking handle

[KALISH]

When closing the cocking handle of my Morini 84E, I sometimes need a little force to press it down and will feel a soft click before it close but mostly it just closes all the way down with no stoppage. It shoots the same, as I can tell, with or without the click.
This 84E is only 4 months old and has less than 1400 rounds through it.
The click exists when I first received it. After one disassembly and some lube, it was mostly gone but sometims it comes back.
I have tried Eley pistol match, trainer, Ultimate EPS, Lapua standard plus, Midas L & M, and pistol king. They all act the same.
Accuracy is not an issue here. However, it gets on my nerve when I close the action without the confirmation of that click.
How are the other 84E's behaving? Is it normal to have a click or it should not have the click at all?

[Steve Swartz]

AFAIK, the click has always been there on my 84E.

However, I don't always notice it.

Particularly when I am shooting well.

Steve Swartz

[Guest]

The click is normal and necessary.
When reassembling, two large pins (084015) need to be slightly knocked back in (in stead of sliding them back loosely) to obtain proper positioning.

[Guest]

IF the difficulty in closing increases, you may have crud under the block that holds the firing pin. The disassembly instructions are in earlier posts. 1400 rounds is a very light usage so unlikely at the moment.

[Eddie Tsoi]

I have the same phenomenum on my 84E but oterhwise, everything is OK.

One thing worth mentioning about my 84E is it is quite prejudice to ammo, I have used several different type of Elly and after the barrel warming up a bit, the used case jammed on the breech and the ejector cannot hook properly. I have no problems with Laupa or RWS R-50.

[viriceman]

My 84 E is also very particular. Eley Tenex is difficult to load and hard to eject. Lapua and RWS works fine. I do feel a distinct click when loading. The click is so distinct that if it were not for the electronic "eye" , the pistol would fire by this action. (Happened to me before when the eye became misaligned) This was caused by me caseing the pistol without the grip all the time. (It didn't fit) I have since gotten a bigger case and keep the grip on to protect the electronics from the rigors of air travel. All in all, an outstanding pistol with outstanding customer service support.

[Mark Briggs]

A note to Eddie,

If your gun won't extract fired cases, you have a problem. This is NOT the way the pistol should function. Believe me, a friend of mine went through the ringer with this particular problem before Morini fixed it. Don't take this as slinging mud at Morini - they were fantastic. It just took us a little while to figure out what was wrong.

The extractor rides in a slot in the breech end of the barrel. If you're not careful when you put the barrel in the frame you might have rotated it enough that the extractor is being bound against one side of the slot in the barrel. Check this by loosening the hex head screw that holds the barrel in place and then rotate the barrel very slightly while the breech is open. You'll be able to feel the center of this range of rotation, and in the center of this range is where you want to be as it will provide the maximum room for movement of the extractor.

Also, there's a possibility (slight possibility) that the barrel may have been made with an extractor slot that's milled too wide. This turned out the be the problem with my friend's gun. Obviously this is not easy to find without having another gun to compare to yours (in our case we had 4 guns to compare - lucky us!). Once we measured the width of the slot in each of the four guns we found my friends was milled about 0.005" too wide, just wide enough that it allowed the extractor to slip past the rim of the cartridge case. As I mentioned earlier, once this info was provided to Morini they replaced the defective part immediately with no further explanation required. The factory has been simply fantastic to deal with and I recommend Morini products highly as a result of the industry-leading service they provide.

Hope this helps, Eddie!


Mark.

[Eddie Tsoi]

Dear Mark,

Thank you so much for your post, It really enlightened me as I have never try to think about this problem is related to the FP before. With my experience with other shooting discipline, like SP and CF, jamming and used case ejection problem with particular brand is not uncommon. In our club, most shooters own Hammerli 208/208s, SP20 and 280, Pardini, Walther GSP, GSP Expert and Morini, and to certain extent, we all feel that .22 lr ammo from US of A (including PMC, Winchester or others) are having problems in these match grade competition pistols.

Your point is particular worth attention as when I receive my FP and did a primary check before shooting, I discovered that the barrel was not tightened and I forgot that did I keep the breech open when I tightened the barrel. I was a little bit unhappy about that because I believe for a highly prepcision instrument like the FP, the sitting of the barrel is rather crucial to the grouping.

Another question is on certain cold days, (5 - 8 degrees C), after firing app. 50 shoots or so, and the barrel becoming warm, the ejector lever also gets very tight and difficult to operate. Do you think it is because of the same problem or the mechanism needs a through cleaning.

I cleaned my equipments after each shooting session, especially the barrels. For CF and SP, I will dissemble the whole pistol and clean the frame, slide bolt and the trigger, but for FP, usually I will use a soft brush to wipe away any dust and use compress air to blow.

[Eddie Tsoi]

One more point I would like to state is I always have been a great supporter for Morini. I believe most readers in this forum and Scott knows. Besides this FP, I shoot a 162EI AP since 1998 and believe it or not, after more than 100,000 shoots, it is still shotiing one hole groupings and the AP works flawlessly. In between I had just sent it back to Morini factory for a maintainance, (replacing of o-rings, checking the compress air cylinders, etc.)

[Mark Briggs]

Eddie,

Just to make sure there isn't something being lost across the timezones, I'll try to clarify one point. When tightening the CM84 barrel in place the breech should be open. The barrel is pushed rearward by the hex-head screw that holds it in place. The rearward movement of the barrel is not limited by it making contact with the face of the breech block but rather by contact being made between the front of the pistol frame and the square shoulder machined into the barrel.

With this being the case, it is perfectly OK to remove the barrel to clean it and re-install it. This does not effect grouping at all - and in fact I do it regularly to ensure I'm able to thoroughly clean the chamber and breech face area of the barrel. But if you re-install the barrel so the groove in which the extractor rides is not perfectly vertical then the extractor may not move freely, or may be allowed to slip past the edge of the cartridge rim. Rotation of the barrel too far clockwise (when viewed from the shooters position, ie at the back of the pistol looking forward to the front sight) will result in the extractor binding in the milled channel in the barrel. Rotation too far counter-clockwise will likewise result in the extractor binding in the milled channel in the barrel, and may also cause the extractor to slip past the edge of the cartridge rim.

As for cleaning, the FP barrel should likely be cleaned regularly. I use the term "likely" because if you're using aggresive cleaning techniques (ie metal brushes or harsh solvents) frequent cleaning may do more harm than good. I've been using VFG cleaning felts (like the ones that we shoot through our air pistols to clean them, but these ones are used on a cleaning rod with a special adapter) for the past three years and have found them to be excellent.

On a reasonably infrequent basis (500 - 1000 rounds) you should fully disassemble the pistol and clean it. I don't make this recommendation lightly as I believe it applies to most FP's. Because most FP's have a mechanical sear it's important to keep the breech block/firing pin/sear clean to ensure accumulated dirt doesn't prevent the sear from fully engaging in the firing pin. I've let mine go about 1500 rounds without cleaning, unitl last week it fired once when I closed the breech - definitely not something you want to have happen in a match. A complete disassembly will also allow you to remove all the accumulated dirt from the face of the breechblock, an act which in itself may help alleviate the difficult operation of the cocking lever.

As you mention the temperature where you shoot it brings to mind one other point. As your gun warms up the metal may expand ever so slightly and reduce clearances between moving parts, resulting in an increase in force required to operate the cocking lever. I've noticed this same phenomemon in my pistol. Since I replaced the breech block (for another reason) I've had no such difficulties. This makes me begin to suspect that increased force required to operate the cocking lever may be a somewhat normal relationship to increased operating temperatures. I've certainly noticed that when shooting outdoors in winter (down to -10C or so - after that I don't shoot any more!) cartridges seem to almost fall into the chamber. I suspect the low temperatures definitely cause the brass cartridge cases to shrink more than the steel chamber of the pistol. Without knowing the thermal coefficient of expansion for these different metals I can only surmise this to be the reason for cartridges to chamber more easily in cold temperatures.

[Eddie Tsoi]

Thank you for all the advise, I will definitely try to examine my FP this weekend.