Looking for info on roll pins used in Rascal bolt

Hi all.

I recently got a Rascal for my daughter and was having a lot of light primer strikes. I looked at a DITY about touching up the firing pin. While it appears Savage may have made a revision as the face of my firing pin looks narrower than the one shown, I did work on the breech strike surface a bit, as it strikes pretty shallow on a case. It still extends past the strike surface of the pin... but should provide a deeper strike and hopefully cure it's issue.

To the point... When I tried to get the roll pin out (my older Savage had a solid one) I managed to dork it up and it cracked and flattened out. I checked a few spots like Nurmich and I didn't see parts for the gun. I figure I might be able to get a replacement from Savage and got their number to call next week... but didn't know if there was a standard size Savage is using on all their modern guns and I could just snag a bag. I just can't find a part or physical description of the pin at all to purchase replacements.

It's the, "firing pin retaining roll pin".

https://adigaarmory.com/2017/06/04/fixing-savage-rascal-light-primer-strikes/

Fingers crossed my ignition problems will be solved. I tried CCI blazers, Rem thunderbolts and CCI quiets. I got about 75% igition out of the Blazers and Thunderbolts and 1/3-1/2 ignition on the Quiets on their first strike. Just got to get a suitable pin to finish reassembly. Thanks!

Nevermind...

I just realized I could buy sets with hundreds of roll pins of varying sizes for about a $15. I guess it's not that big of a deal since I suppose a roll pin is a roll pin, so long as the size is right... and now my kids can fight over the hundreds that'll be left when I'm done on Earth. Happy 4th everyone. :cool:

Just to close the loop... while, again, I do think the firing pin may have been revised as the striking surface seemed narrower than some pictures of older ones I've seen, rubbing the breech strike surface on a whetstone to pull a few mils off seems to have done the trick. I gave it a quick spin on the most offending ammo, those CCI quiets, and managed 20 of 20 firing... rather than the 1/2-1/3 failure rate.

for what it's worth, I bought a Rascal for my grandson to shoot about 2 years ago, maybe less. From the get-go after 10-15 rounds we would start getting light strikes. I thought it must be a fouling problem in the chamber, so I cleaned the heck out of it. It seemed to do ok at first and but then the light strikes came right back. I tried putzing with the firing pin myself, making it narrower/sharper and seemed to have made it worse. I took it to my gun smith and got it back and after 10-15 rounds, same problem again. Took it back and he worked on it again and replaced the firing pin. Now it works fairly well, but we still get a light strike about every 1 in 5. I am, to say the least, very disappointed. My grandson is becoming a pretty fine shot, but FTFs are not the best learning option.

In my uneducated opinion, I think the firing pins do not have enough mass. I wish you luck in solving the problem and look forward to hearing how it was resolved.

Yep... taking a little bit off the breech strike surface allowed the firing pin striking surface to strike deeper on each round and allowed for good ignition. I can't say that it's 100% as my sample size was only 20 rounds... but considering these were FTF 1/3-1/2 the time before, I think it's close to being good. I could always take a little more off too... but I didn't want to go too wild right off the bad. You sure can't put it back once it's gone.

Good luck to you. You might check the breech striking surface portion of the pin to try and get a deeper strike if you haven't already.