Model 99 fires without pulling the trigger

[Jerry Powlas]

I have a 99E. ser. 1027475. Three to four times out of 10 the rifle “fires” when I pull the lever up, not touching the trigger at all. Except for one time, this has only happened if there was a cartridge involved. If the rifle is unloaded, and I work the lever, it functions normally, just staying cocked when the lever is fully up. It will stay cocked overnight. In the one exception, I loaded a dummy round, and closed the breech, and it did not “fire”. I opened the breech and ejected the dummy, and closed the breech again with the lever, and then it “fired”, not thouching the trigger at any time.


If I load a dummy round, (and sadly in one case, a live round) the rifle “fires” when I close the breech by pulling the lever up. If a dummy round is used “firing” means it just clicks and the little brass pin drops down and after the click the trigger won’t click it again because it is no longer cocked.


I don’t always hear the click when I pull the lever up because that makes some noise, but I see the brass pin (cocking indicator?) drop. The one noise masks the other.


After the accidental discharge I stopped using live ammo, so I’ve only discharged the rifle once since I’ve owned it. During subsequent testing, on two occasions the the lever came all the way up, breech closed, and then after about a one second delay the rifle “fired”.


I’m using “fired” in quotes to indicate that I’m not using live ammo anymore. All “firing” is just clicks, except for one firing which was with live ammo.


Anybody out there seen this before? I’ve been to two good gunsmiths. No joy.

[CalhounRR]

I'm going to guess that somebody "tuned" the trigger by filing off some metal. Not much to do except replace the parts that were messed with, with replacements that fit the gun.

[snoeproe]

This exact thing happened to pops 99E series A several years back. His (our) gun smith fixed it And it’s now in my possession. I’ll inquire and get back to you.

[snoeproe]

Just got confirmation. This happened about 20 years ago with pops 99e.
Our smith replaced the spindle carrier to resolve the problem he said.

[Jerry Powlas]

Thank you. I looked up spindle carrier on the internet. It looks like a shaft with screw threads on the end. This rings a bell. Since I've had it, the rifle has been somewhere between difficult and impossible to load with dummy rounds. I don't know (yet) why this has anything to do with the rifle's tendency to fire without the trigger. I've waited for your response before I disassemble the rifle. Now I have no further excuse. I hate to bother a third gunsmith, nor do I know how to find one that knows the model 99. It is do it yourself time. I don't much like that.

[snoeproe]

My guy diagnosed it quickly.
It’s not something I’d be comfortable doing myself, that’s for sure. Pops passed away 15 years ago now. Time flys. I had him re sight pops 99E awhile back. Serial number starts with 9.

[Jerry Powlas]

I may have a line on yet another gunsmith who knows Mod. 99s, within a few hours from here. I'm going to study the internet to see if there is enough information to do it. At the moment I don't see the connection between that part and the trigger system. When this is over I need to trust this rifle, which at the moment I don't. My wife wants me to bury it in the back yard. In general, trust is hard to get and easy to lose.

[snoeproe]

This is why it needs to go to a guy who knows how to work on 99’s.

[Slinky Pickle]

I've disassembled many 99s and many carriers and I can't fathom any way that a carrier would have any influence on whether the rifle fires when the lever is closed. As has been mentioned above, most likely, someone has tried to reduce the trigger pull by filing down the sear or even the heel of the hammer. I would definitely have a qualified 1899 gunsmith look at it.

[snoeproe]

I was at my smiths place today. Ended up there on a reloading supply seeking mission. My initial correspondence with him on this was in a text message. Today he indicated it wasn’t the spindle carrier itself that he changed, he said it was the the spindle carrier support that he changed. ?
My apologies for any confusion. It’s all brail to me.

[Sav22]

This shows an early cocking indicator, but the other parts should be the same. As the bolt closes there is initially a lot of contact of the sear surfaces but as the bolt closes the surface on the hammer slides up leaving just a slight engagement when the bolt is fully raised to lock. This sliding could cause a lot of wear if there is dirt in the action. I do not see how any part of the carrier can affect this, snoeproe's gunsmith may have got lucky and just cleaning the gun when he changed the spindle parts cured the problem.
9074

[snoeproe]

We have to remember, not only has his rifle fired when closing the lever, like pops did, he has indicated having difficulty loading it also.
My guys described this part as to what was worn and what he changed.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/353457947653

Hopefully the eBay link is ok.