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Discovery -- New Firing Pin Spring Reduces ES/SD!

About twenty five years ago, I was visiting with a gunmaker who specializes in building high dollar falling block hunting rifles and Mauser sporters which are works of art. He told me, whenever he had a rifle which was shooting vertical groups, the first thing he did was to replace the striker spring and this usually did the trick. Now, although I had seen the effects of poor ignition on vertical dispersion, I had never really connected the dots as I should have.
At the time, I had a pre-war Model 70 action on which I had built a nice 308 prone rifle. It shot pretty well but always shot a little vertical. My best handload shot into about 3 inches at 300 meters with an inch and a half of horizontal dispersion but 3 of vertical. With some old Lake city match, it shot groups which were 2 1/2 inches wide and five inches tall. With my conversation with Martin fresh in my mind, I pulled the old Model 70 apart and installed a new, mid-rate Blitzschnell spring from Wolff. I walked back out to the bench and fired ten rounds of Lake City at my 300 meter target. It produce a nice, round, three inch group. Handloads went into 2 inches or less.
This experience showed me two things. First: It showed me that I was, too often, ignorant of clues which were right there if I cared to look. Second: It reminded me that good information can come from unlikely sources. I had always consider Martin Hagn to be a superb craftsman who did things I will never match but I had never considered that he knew a bit about accuracy as well.
The bottom line? Striker springs matter! WH
 
In the past I have changed firing pin assemblies in quite a few Rem 700 rifles for one reason or another but never considered it to improve accuracy but I saw a new firing pin assembly make a huge difference in group size a couple of years back in a 22-250 Rem. No other changes were made to the rifle at that time.
 
Bill Norris said:
In the past I have changed firing pin assemblies in quite a few Rem 700 rifles for one reason or another but never considered it to improve accuracy but I saw a new firing pin assembly make a huge difference in group size a couple of years back in a 22-250 Rem. No other changes were made to the rifle at that time.
Click to expand...
I just changed the spring. Not very difficult on a 700 or a Panda. That's all I have experience on.
 
It couldn't be said that changing striking would improve things for everyone.
But I think there is great potential in testing striking changes.

I was forced to discover best firing pin setting when it had slipped in the cocking piece.
I shot groups with different released pin protrusion from boltface, and while all primers fired, groups opened/closed/opened. Best setting gained me a full 1/8moa better than I would ever have known before the failure.

I don't think this was about actual pin protrusion, but about striking energy -for the primers I had worked up my load with (Feds). Could be a different optimal setting for CCIs or REMs or WINs.
And since it's all an abstract, this could be a clue about primer swapping in general.
Maybe we could make any particular primer best -with striking adjustments.

As to best striking adjustments, I don't know.
It is not really total energy that sets primers off, but relative speed in striking.
This is affected by a good handful of things.
 
No doubt a weak spring can cause grief. Personally I dont understand running a spring so close to the edge you have to replace it so often if it looses a pound or two of force. I have a preference to the heavier springs. At least what we do for long range, I have yet to see the accuracy fall off of too much spring.
 
mikecr said:
It couldn't be said that changing striking would improve things for everyone.
But I think there is great potential in testing striking changes.

I was forced to discover best firing pin setting when it had slipped in the cocking piece.
I shot groups with different released pin protrusion from boltface, and while all primers fired, groups opened/closed/opened. Best setting gained me a full 1/8moa better than I would ever have known before the failure.

I don't think this was about actual pin protrusion, but about striking energy -for the primers I had worked up my load with (Feds). Could be a different optimal setting for CCIs or REMs or WINs.
And since it's all an abstract, this could be a clue about primer swapping in general.
Maybe we could make any particular primer best -with striking adjustments.

As to best striking adjustments, I don't know.
It is not really total energy that sets primers off, but relative speed in striking.
This is affected by a good handful of things.
Click to expand...
I have also noticed that a particular action would always prefer a particular primer and, often, the difference was remarkable. I also had the experience of having the firing pin move in the cocking piece (on a Wichita action) and saw the difference in performance at difference protrusion settings. I agree that this is not really because of different protrusion but different striker energy as a result of reduced or increased spring compression. WH
 
Will Henry said:
About twenty five years ago, I was visiting with a gunmaker who specializes in building high dollar falling block hunting rifles and Mauser sporters which are works of art. He told me, whenever he had a rifle which was shooting vertical groups, the first thing he did was to replace the striker spring and this usually did the trick. Now, although I had seen the effects of poor ignition on vertical dispersion, I had never really connected the dots as I should have.
At the time, I had a pre-war Model 70 action on which I had built a nice 308 prone rifle. It shot pretty well but always shot a little vertical. My best handload shot into about 3 inches at 300 meters with an inch and a half of horizontal dispersion but 3 of vertical. With some old Lake city match, it shot groups which were 2 1/2 inches wide and five inches tall. With my conversation with Martin fresh in my mind, I pulled the old Model 70 apart and installed a new, mid-rate Blitzschnell spring from Wolff. I walked back out to the bench and fired ten rounds of Lake City at my 300 meter target. It produce a nice, round, three inch group. Handloads went into 2 inches or less.
This experience showed me two things. First: It showed me that I was, too often, ignorant of clues which were right there if I cared to look. Second: It reminded me that good information can come from unlikely sources. I had always consider Martin Hagn to be a superb craftsman who did things I will never match but I had never considered that he knew a bit about accuracy as well.
The bottom line? Striker springs matter! WH
Click to expand...
Martin Hagn makes pure works of art. If I ever stumbled upon 15k extra, I'd be ordering up a mini in 222 from him. For anyone interested, here is his site: https://www.hagnriflesandactions.com/
 
In 2018 I put in a new spring that measured 23.2 pounds at cocked length in my 6ppc LV. The gun was shooting really good, shot a teen agg, won some wood. Life was good. Tried a heavier spring and noticed dry firing made a big WHACK! and the crosshairs jumped. The gun agged in the .3's until I put the 23.2 pound spring back in. Then it went back to shooting .1's.
I think some guys go too weak on the spring to reduce bolt lift effort and gun upset in the bags so they can run a group faster. Not good either.
 
I'm confident that there is optimal striking for each system, but we have not defined it -yet.
It appears to me that most folks give it little thought beyond sufficient to fire.
There are observed result changes, with striking changes, but that doesn't cure us of abstract.

If I were in a life condition to do so, I would devote testing to define this(sear to paper).
Just not looking good for me though..
 
I do not think theres a one size fits all. A 10.5lb rifle will react differently than a 17lb rifle. Also different primers will tolerate different amounts of energy. Trial and error for your setup is probably the best bet. Over the years I have tweaked my setup for what seems to work well for 1k BR. I have no doubt a short range ppc shooter could end up on a different setup. But from what I have seen I'll error on the heavy side.
 
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