Cypress Sam, SASS #10915

It would probably be cheaper to buy a new pawl. Unless of course he has a TIG welder. For the record, I didn’t suggest he modify the engagement portion of the pawl, which would affect the timing, only to remove a couple of thousands of an inch on the part that contacts the ratchet while it is spinning, not the top that engages when cocking the hammer. That would not affect the timing. Rugers’ design for the free spin has the tail of the pawl banging down on the frame to retract the pawl every time the hammer falls. That is a serious wear point that dry firing makes even worse. Looks like they could have designed a cam arrangement for retracting the pawl that would not involve impact. Oh well.

The front face of the pawl has worn so that the top shelf (the part of the pawl that first engages the cylinder when cocking the gun) is barely touching the ratchet on the cylinder. You can probably fix it without taking the gun apart by removing a tiny bit of metal from the pawl using a hone or fine file. With the cylinder out of the gun and the hammer cocked the tip of rhe pawl will stick out enough for you to carefully remove a bit of metal from the front of the pawl. Don’t touch the top of the pawl because that would change the timing.

In my previous response I missed the part about the “ridiculous amount of effort to eject and cycle” every 15 to 20 rounds. Back around the late 90’s, Uberti changed the lifters in their toggle link guns to have more angle on the face of the lifter in order to permit shorter overall length cartridges to work. If your rifle has one of these older model lifters, you should be able to tell by loading up a few rounds to a slightly longer o.a.l. If it still gives an intermittent hard cycle and you don’t have a telescoped round, it probably wasn’t that. Just wondering, have you tried any of the other suggestions?

With the parts out of the gun, assemble the bolt, firing pin and firing pin extension along with the firing pin spring. The firing pin extension should be firmly in contact with the firing pin, and the tip of the firing pin should be even with the face of the bolt. This (along with minimal excess headspace) will allow the impact of the hammer-fall to be transmitted directly to the primer. Any break in contact along the way will result in energy loss and will require a heavier hammer-fall to get enough energy to ignite the primer. You may have to get an extra-length firing pin to achieve this. If you have excess headspace exceeding .006”, contact the manufacturer of the short-stroke links and see if you can trade them for longer links to decrease the excess headspace. The other posts about reducing friction bring up important points also.

Do this! Good info. GJ always has good info. Pay special attention to the cycle slowly part. Cartridge cases have rims of varying shapes and diameters. Some have beveled edges on the rim and some don’t. When setting up the timing, you want to find an example of the largest diameter rim and having the least bevel. Check out a couple of dozen cases of various manufacture should give a good approximation. For the “Slow Cycle” part, hold the gun up at about a 45 degree angle and watch the case rim as you slowly bring the lifter up. The edge of the case rim must completely miss the tab on the bottom of the bolt every time, all the time. (If it doesn’t, the tab will break off sooner or later.) As Null ‘N Void said, be sure to check it again after it wears in a while.

Thanks for the video. I knew that the ‘98 Marlin was a potential bomb but until now never knew why! Push it out of battery unknowingly with your thumb and it will still fire? And evidently can’t be reset without working the action again? That thing is really a bomb waiting to go off. Thanks SASS for making it illegal!

Scattershot, I only shortened the sizing die. The searing/crimp die and the Lee Factory Crimp die seemed to work fine with the Starline brass. After adjustment of course. I also determined that my old sizing die was worn to the point that it wasn’t sizing the cases down small enough to give good neck tension. I solved that by buying another set of dies. I also went through my brass and tossed any that had even the smallest crack in the mouth. I don’t want to jinks myself, but I haven’t had any turtling problems with the latest batch of reloads. They have all been the longer case length though. Not the shorter Starline cases.

Take the extractor out and see of the retaining pin is bent. A bent pin can cause the extractor to feel loose like that. You can get a replacement pin by using the end of an appropriately sized drill bit. If you want to bend the extractor, the best way I’ve found is to place the extractor on a flat piece of lead and using the round end of a small ball peen hammer, tap the extractor in the center to create a bend. I’ve had good luck using that method for bending tempered steel.

The very tall cases can lean to the side when a primer doesn’t seat all the way.

It looked like a ruler to me too.

That kind of defeats the purpose of a small, easily concealable pistol. Sort of like a Webley pocket pistol. But I don’t know the answer, except that any mod not specifically approved isn’t legal. I think that applies to side match guns as well. From the Rulebook: “Revolver grips must conform to the front and rear of the grip frame but may extend beyond the bottom surface.” But derringers aren’t revolvers.

It looks to me like you don’t have “backup guns” for the category you’re entering. For instance if I’m entered in the frontier cartridge category and run out of black powder ammo, I couldn’t just substitute smokeless for the rest of the match without incurring an “out of category” penalty.

The latest advisory for the hurricane (8:00am Sept 1) has it turning NNE sometime Monday and skirting the east coast of Central Florida Tuesday and Wednesday then on to Georgia and the Carolinas. It’s beginning to look like while we will still get some wind and a lot of rain, we may have dodged the bullet on a major hit in Central Florida. It’s not good news for the ears coast of Florida and further north though. With the eyewall just off shore and moving north up the coast, there is real danger of major flooding and rearranging of the shoreline.

Very impressive! What kind of rifle and sights?

Much of the coastline of Florida is barrier islands, which are completely made of sand. When a tidal surge comes the sand is easily washed away. It doesn’t really matter what the house was made of if the land on which it sat is gone and is now 10’ deep salt water. Inland we are safe from tidal surges and most flooding and the wind loses strength after the hurricane comes ashore. A serious hazard for those further inland is debris blowing in 100+ mph winds. Trash cans and lawn furniture moving that fast can do some real damage. There is also the danger of tornados spawned in a hurricane (think flying cows and pickup trucks.). I’ve got a picture somewhere of a Toyota pickup sitting nose down in someone’s living room from a hurricane (Charlie) spawned tornado. We are about as ready as we can get, but there is always an element of luck involved. (Like having this thing turn North and miss Florida completely. We are in Kissimmee just South of Orlando so we’re hoping!