Misfires in a 16
 

A friend of mine has spent a bunch of time and effort as well as a fair bit of $$ refurbishing his father-in-law's 16 ga. This is a very nice Belgium Guild gun we think to be mid 50's production. It has developed an issue where it will "light strike" about 1 in 10 on the right, 1 in 7 maybe on the left. The primers are struck WAY off center particularly on the left. On close examination we see the firing pins are no longer nice round hemispheres on the ends and the holes on the breech face are ragged, out of round in appearance. Gun has gone to Briley's here in Houston for repair. They said no big deal, new pins and "flash weld" breech to re-drill.
Is this common? Has anyone seen this before?

Keith, I had a similar experience with a Belgian 20 hammer gun that had light strikes on the left barrel with misfires. Now this was a cheaper gun, not what I'd call a guild gun. The firing pin holes appeared to be "wallered out" New, longer firing pins solved the problem, but the holes weren't welded up and redrilled. Good luck!

Harold the ONLY thing good about this is it isn't one of mine!

Unless the gun has excess headspace, the firing pins don't look bad enough to be causing misfires. The firing pin holes look worn some, but I have only seen that happen a couple of times, and both were old Ithaca trap guns where the pins moved at an extreme angle. They were very short pins and would actually bind because of the angle.

I fhte gun hasn't been deep cleaned I would first do that. Degrease and relube. While apart, examine the firing pin hole and the pins. I would polish the pins and the hole till smooth and then try. Of course the springs could be weak too.

Am I seeing cracks between the standing breech faces?

This gun was just disassembled, serious cleaning, had a firing pin spring replaced and hinge pin replaced by a gunsmith that will remain nameless. What appears to be a crack is actually a score. We believe a result of a sloppy hinge. It is now actually a bit overly tight, a tad difficult to open. Not impressed with the work recently done. That's why it's at Briley's now. MHO it should have gone there in the first place. I've had good experiences with them for years on a number of items.

I had a Parker T/A 16 that would misfire on the left barrel about 30% of the time and once in a while on the right.
Jason Bardon replaced both mainsprings and I never had that problem again.





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Firing pin nose shape has less to do with reliable detonation than firing pin protrusion. I don't see why protrusion should differ from one gun brand to another but, FWIW, A H Fox guns typically have a protrusion of .050", plus or minus. From my experience differing brands of shells seat at differing depths in chambers. Those which seat very deeply can suffer from misfires due to light strikes, even when the firing pin protrusion is sufficient. B & P Comp Ones are the most susceptible to this that I have found. This is all from personal experience.

I would agree with Dean, the spring gives the force to the strike, they can and do fatigue eventually

Have you looked at the primer on the shells ? I believe Federal shells have a (Fat primer for lack of a better term ) Than a Remington or other shells. I had this problem once with a Italian hammer gun an it was the primer on the shell causing the problem.