memilanuk
Gold $$ Contributor
So... recently someone was having some issues with wonky ES numbers from one of their match guns with a known-good load. The ES would consistently start out single digit for a few shots, then jump to ~20, then to ~30+. The problem was isolated to that specific gun - i.e. consistent across different range sessions, different chronographs, other guns across same chronographs did *not* exhibit the errant behavior, etc. The ES would consistently start out single digit for a few shots, then jump to ~20, then to ~30+.
After discussing things back and forth a bit, I was at a loss. Knowing that this shooter uses a custom action, I tossed out the only thing I had left - that once upon a time, a very experienced and renowned shooter had told me that he changed out the firing pin springs in his rifles (custom actions) every year whether they needed it or not, to avoid ignition issues leading to erratic ES. At the time it was relayed to me, I viewed with a healthy dose of skepticism - I'd never heard such a thing anywhere before or since, and had at the time probably 6 years and 10k+ rounds on one particular factory action, and plenty of rounds through many others with no observed erratic behavior. With that qualifier, I passed along the suggestion.
Lo and behold... it worked. He swapped out the firing pin spring for an original, and the ES dropped dramatically, and stayed there for the whole string. Afterwards, he talked with another top-level shooter who uses similar custom actions who said yes, they changed the firing pin springs every couple barrels, or X number of rounds (few thousand). But in talking with another good shooter who runs factory actions, the response was the same as mine - nope, never done it, haven't noticed any problems indicating that I should.
Which kind of begs the question... for those of you shooting serious competition with a bolt gun, regardless of venue (conventional HP, F-class, long or short range BR, whatever) - do you routinely replace the firing ping spring in your rifle? What kind of action are you using - custom (i.e. Panda, BAT, Borden, etc.), factory (e.g. Savage, Remington, etc.) or semi-custom (i.e. Rem700 clone w/ OEM style bolt e.g. Stiller TAC30)? If you use more than one of the above in competition, have you noticed any difference (with regards to the longevity of the firing pin spring; lets keep it on topic!)?
I for one am kind of curious as to why it sounds like (at least some of) the custom actions may have springs that are perhaps more consistent up front, but appear to have a much shorter life span. Or am I drawing entirely the wrong conclusion from the observations above?
Monte
After discussing things back and forth a bit, I was at a loss. Knowing that this shooter uses a custom action, I tossed out the only thing I had left - that once upon a time, a very experienced and renowned shooter had told me that he changed out the firing pin springs in his rifles (custom actions) every year whether they needed it or not, to avoid ignition issues leading to erratic ES. At the time it was relayed to me, I viewed with a healthy dose of skepticism - I'd never heard such a thing anywhere before or since, and had at the time probably 6 years and 10k+ rounds on one particular factory action, and plenty of rounds through many others with no observed erratic behavior. With that qualifier, I passed along the suggestion.
Lo and behold... it worked. He swapped out the firing pin spring for an original, and the ES dropped dramatically, and stayed there for the whole string. Afterwards, he talked with another top-level shooter who uses similar custom actions who said yes, they changed the firing pin springs every couple barrels, or X number of rounds (few thousand). But in talking with another good shooter who runs factory actions, the response was the same as mine - nope, never done it, haven't noticed any problems indicating that I should.
Which kind of begs the question... for those of you shooting serious competition with a bolt gun, regardless of venue (conventional HP, F-class, long or short range BR, whatever) - do you routinely replace the firing ping spring in your rifle? What kind of action are you using - custom (i.e. Panda, BAT, Borden, etc.), factory (e.g. Savage, Remington, etc.) or semi-custom (i.e. Rem700 clone w/ OEM style bolt e.g. Stiller TAC30)? If you use more than one of the above in competition, have you noticed any difference (with regards to the longevity of the firing pin spring; lets keep it on topic!)?
I for one am kind of curious as to why it sounds like (at least some of) the custom actions may have springs that are perhaps more consistent up front, but appear to have a much shorter life span. Or am I drawing entirely the wrong conclusion from the observations above?
Monte
