Charles Daly 512 update

[Snakebite]

Last week I ordered a Charles Daly 512 Supreme. It arrived today so I went down to do the paper work and get started on the California waiting period. The gun is just as pretty as can be. It is light weight and petite, slim and trim and comes in a really nice hard case. I'm sure that my wife will be please, assuming that I can get one that works, and then get it tuned up. It seems that when the barrels are attached the shotgun Fore End will not lock into place, the release won't close down flat locking it into place. Also, the opening lever on the top of the receiver will not return to center with the barrels attached. It does without the barrels. IMO it just needs some fine tuning so that the locking lug will slide into the locking notch at the bottom of barrels. Most likely a just a small about of work on each will correct the problem. However I didn't want to take it without it working, so we ordered another gun.  This is not a good start.  So far it doesn't appear that Quality Control is a major concern. 

[Larsen E. Pettifogger, SASS #32933]

35 minutes ago, Snakebite said:

Also, the opening lever on the top of the receiver will not return to center with the barrels attached.

 

The fore end not locking needs to be fixed/adjusted.  However, the lever not returning to center when the barrels are installed is normal on most shotguns.  As the gun wears the lever moves toward the center to compensate for normal wear.  Once it hits the center the locking lugs need to be replaced, welded, adjusted, whatever depending on the gun.  On a quality gun this takes many thousands of rounds.

[Snakebite]

Thank Larsen. I am pretty much aware of all that. I could have taken it as is was and have little doubt that I could have fixed the immediate issues that were apparent. However, there are any number of other things that I was unable to ascertain not being able to go any further.... do the hammers cock, do they release, does this work or that work. Yep... most things can be fixed, but once I put a file to it or open it up I would have owned any problems that the gun might have. I just wanted a starting point that was at ground level and not below. A $1000 the gun should at least operate out of the box without me having to do ANYTHING to it.

 

Snakebite

[Snakebite]

Finally got the second gun. It's as tight as a Bull's @$$ in Fly season. Totally unusable out of the box, and I mean TOTALLY! I had a half day to mess with it, yesterday. It has been a learning process, that's for sure. If you take one apart make sure to scratch a mark on Left and Right parts just to be safe. Plan on doing some figuring out how to tune and RE-INSTALL the Top Lever spring..... it's a Bugger.  Remove the set screw from the left side to allow the Latch lever to come out. The latch up lug required a large amount of lever travel to allow the gun to open. You either live with it or cut down the on the depth of the latch up. There is plenty of latch area so it didn't bother me to reduce it just little and it helped a lot.  Hammer springs are plenty strong, since they are not very long they have to be strong.  I did take down the diameter a bit, that helped, but some longer firing pins are in order. I ordered some SGB firing pins for the 512, hope that they are longer. It relies on inertia for the pins to strike the primers, which works, but with lighter springs it wouldn't hurt to have some longer Firing pins. While the Top lever was out I used a little heat and re-formed (Bent) it so it was more friendly for my taste... that part worked out OK, however, before reinstalling it I decided to polish it back out. The buffer grabbed it and slammed into the table and broke off the Thumb pad. DRATS! I Silver soldered it back together and it seems like it is going to be OK... but DANG! I will try to order a new Top lever and another Top lever spring just in case.... I did manage to dress the original Lever spring down a bit but it's a chore. Overall, the gun just needs a great deal of polishing and fitting. I like it much better than I did the CZ Sharp-tail and IMO it will tune up better in the end. (I hope) My first attempt has greatly improved the Shotgun and it is now usable, but it is still not to the point where I think it needs to be.  O-Yeah.... you need a really long Allen wrench to get the stock off!

 

Edited April 17 by Snakebite

[Snakebite]

Update.... The 512 is turning out to be a real nice shotgun. IMO it has the possibility of becoming the "Go To" SxS shotgun for this game. IMO it is a much better choice than the CZ. I've tuned both and I found this one to be much easier to work on and am happier with the results I got.   I was able to get a couple parts that I wanted.  Both of the two I got were un-usable out of the box. I mean ABSOLUTELY not usable at all. They were so tight that they couldn't be opened if you were able to even put them together. But the good news is after spending some intimate time at the work bench I found that they are pretty straight forward and tune-up well. You will have to fit SOME parts if you want it to work, and MOST parts if you want it to be a competitive "Cowboy" shotgun.  I put in some after market Firing pins, which are longer and IMO are needed if you intend to reduce the hammer spring tension. The aftermarket pins were a little larger in dia and I had to dress them down a bit to keep them from hanging up... but no big deal. Most parts need to be fitted. The gun is VERY LIGHT. Weighs under 6 lbs. I put a Mercury recoil reducer in the stock to help. I wouldn't want to shoot any "Big" loads in it. I have ordered a extra stock and will cut it down for my wife to try. We both shooting Browning BSS right now. The BSS is a work horse and like a tank compared to these little light weights. Time will tell the tale. 

Edited April 23 by Snakebite