Ejector Problems

[Gary Laudermilch]

Now that the weather has turned reasonable I have been shooting my newest repro weekly. It has been working flawlessly, until last evening. While shooting 5-stand for the first shot of the evening it failed to fire. At first I thought I must have had the safety on but that was not the case. I opened the gun fully and heard a faint metallic click/click. I closed the gun and shot like normal. However, on opening the ejector failed to fire but the shell was elevated as in a non-ejector gun. I shot the next pair and again the gun fired normally but the right ejector again did not fire but the left did.

After the round I disassembled the gun and can see nothing out of place. The ejector hammers appear cocked under spring tension. Supposedly the ejector hammers on this gun were replaced by the previous owner and, in fact, they do appear more robust than those of my other repro.

So, any guesses? My next move is to remove the forend iron to see if I can detect any abnormalities. I'm not mechanically challenged but I do not quite understand what makes the ejector fires after the hammer falls. And, why did the gun not cock the hammer in the first place.