Savage 110 failure to fire issue

In 1980 I purchased a Savage 110C LH bolt, in 30-06, s/n D326430. From the beginning I had occasional failures to fire. The primer dents, but not hard, or not deep, enough to fire. I put up with the problem for around 20 years, using the rifle most every year. In 2000 I shipped the rifle to Savage to have a new 30-06 barrel installed, which they did. Unfortunately, the FTF problem was still there. Around that time I purchased another left hand Savage rifle, a model 11 in 300 WSM. I quit using the 110 for many years. Recently I became intersted in getting the old 110 working reliably and asked Savage to fix it. They refused, saying they do not offer services for firearms that old. I took the rifle to a local gunsmith but had no luck in making the rifle reliable. I asked him to reduce the headspace to the absolute minimum in hopes that would result in some change. He did so and that seemed to result in Federal ammo, and federal brass when reloaded working reliably. I realize that doesn't seem logical, but my tests with different ammo showed Federal to be reliable. I became interested in putting a 338-06 barrel on the rifle so ordered an ER Shaw barrel and had the same gunsmith install it. Again, he screwed the barrel in to the minimum head space. Unfortunately, recently trying some reloaded Federal brass shows the problem is worse. The 2 constants in this story is the action and the bolt. I am now assuming one or both of those are contributing to my FTF problems. The problem is always the same, dented primer but no fire.
Anyone got any ideas? I emailed Savage again, explaining the long term problem. We'll see if they offer any help.
Thanks
MT

Has little to do with headspace, unless it is excessive. The spring could be weak, but not likely. The problem is lack of firing pin fall, resulting in loss of inertia. If Federal primers are the only ones that work, you still have an ignition problem. Federal primers have a softer cup than most others, requiring less impact to fire. One phenomenon that occurs a lot is a "cold fire". When a primer is struck with minimal amount of impact, it will not exspell all the available energy, resulting in a loss of velocity, change in the pressure curve and change in harmonics. When struck with the optimum inertia, the primer will exspell all the energy it contains with a consistent fire.

I said the problem was lack of firing pin fall, this is because in that time era, Savage rifles had the worst timing problem that ever plagued them. They tried to correct the problem by
"filing" ramps on the leading edges of the bolt lugs to reduce the effort to close the bolt. It made the bolt easier to close, but only made the timing more retarded, leading to a under cocking striker. When the bolt is lifted 90 degrees, it is at full cock. Once the bolt is closed, the striker would start to de-cock until the cocking piece pin catches on the sear, resulting in a loss of travel, sometimes up to .090". That puts you in the "cold fire" or no- fire zone, or even the "sitting on the fence" between the cold fire and the optimum fire zone.

To achieve optimum fire, you need a minimum of .200" fall, measured to the bolt face. Firing pin protrusion only needs to be .035". Most are set at .055" or thereabouts from the factory, however the firing pin will only penetrate the primer no more than .025", so the extra protrusion is actually robbing you of travel.

Thanks Sharp! You saved the day for me. Adjusted the firing pin protrusion to .035 last night. Primed 12 cases and got 5 of 6 Fed. 210 primers to fire and 6 of 6 Rem. 9&1/2 primers to fire. I'll read up some more to see if anything else can be done. Haven't heard from Savage yet but maybe I don't need them now!!
MT

Could also be a head space issue? Not mechanical/chamber/barrel as much as a brass problem. Short brass being pushed forward by the firing pin and you end up with a FTF soft strike.
You say you primed 12 cases? Were those fired or new? If fired, shoulders blown forward so the case doesn't move in the chamber like before being formed.

Velocity of the pin can be slow, causing misfires. Try a new spring. If that doesnt work, try a new bolt. The firing pin channel may be producing drag on the pin.

Looks like you checked pin protrusion. Thought .055" works for some other brands?

I cut the shoulder off a 223 case. Installed primers. Placed case head against bolt face. The extractor holdes the case and stops forward movement. Primer fired all 3 times.

Sizing of brass and slop in the chamber, seems to have little to do with misfires.

Could the trigger adjustment be causing drag on the firing pin , sear engaugement? Slowing pin velocity? Has been a problem on Remington. Dont know if possible with Savage?

My guess is if you still had a failure of 1 in 12 that the problem is not solved. As 243xb mentioned something may be slowing/dragging your firing pin fall.
1. If the over-travel screw on the trigger is set too tight, the sear may be dragging the trigger.
2. Check for trigger/sear/bolt release interference with the stock.
3. Check length of front action screw to make sure it is not contacting the bolt head.
My .02,
Randy

Quote:

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Originally Posted by martentrapper

Thanks Sharp! You saved the day for me. Adjusted the firing pin protrusion to .035 last night. Primed 12 cases and got 5 of 6 Fed. 210 primers to fire and 6 of 6 Rem. 9&1/2 primers to fire. I'll read up some more to see if anything else can be done. Haven't heard from Savage yet but maybe I don't need them now!!
MT

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I'm no expert but one thought came to mind with regard to your light strike issues. When you adjusted the firing pin protrusion, did you also make sure the cocking piece does not touch the bottom of the slot in the bolt body? How much gap is there? If the cocking piece is bottoming out, it will cause a light strike by taking away from the velocity of the firing pin fall just as it's hitting the primer.

Thanks again for all the info. The current problem started after the installation of the 338-06 barrel. With the info from sharpshooter I adjusted the rear firing pin bolt or screw (maybe not the correct term) to set the pin protrusion at .035 measured from the bolt face to the pin tip. This resulted in a distinctly louder snap from the pin when dry firing. I do not have any 338-06 brass so ran 30-06 previously fired brass thru the 338-06 sizing die to size and deprime. I used Fed. and Rem. brass priming 3 of each with both Rem. 9 1/2 primers and CCI 200 primers (I was mistaken in my 2nd. post saying I used fed. 210 primers). I got all 6 with rem primers to fire and 5 out of 6 CCI 200 primers to fire. I'm working on priming some more brass and I also have Fed 215 primers to try.
The headspace was set at the absolute minimum when the gunsmith installed the 338-06 barrel.
Texas10, I don't know if the cocking piece touches the bottom of the slot. Are you saying the primer should stop the pin protrusion BEFORE the cocking piece hits the bottom of the slot? How do I check and adjust for that?
MT

Just finished another round of test fires. 14 cases primed with CCI 200, Fed. 215, or Rem. 9 1/2 primers. All fired. However, the Fed 215s primed in both Hornady and Rem. brass, all had the primer back out. These are just primed cases, not charged and bullet seated. How the heck does a primer back out of an unloaded case?
MT

Quote:

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Originally Posted by martentrapper

How the heck does a primer back out of an unloaded case?
MT

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The pressure of the primer igniting and the cases being shorter than the chamber headspace.

As for the cocking piece and the cocking piece pin. When the firing pin is in the fired position the cocking piece pin should not touch the bottom of the cocking ramp window in the bolt body.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Robinhood

The pressure of the primer igniting and the cases being shorter than the chamber headspace.

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Why only one brand of primer out of 3 tested backing out?
M

As Robinhood said your cases appear to be sized shorter than the chamber (as in new cases). Cases that are sized too short will also do this.
If all your cases for each primer brand are sized the same my guess that the heavier material in the magnum primers are allowing the firing pin to push the case all the way forward before ignition. Then the pressure created at ignition allows the primer to be pushed back against the bolt head.
Also the federal primer may be a tad smaller or have a little less grip in the primer pocket.
Your results prove that your getting a decent strike. But if these are sized cases it is saying maybe they are sized on the short side. The amount of protrusion of the primer co-incides with the headspace of that case. Maybe something to doublecheck.

Hand loaders use tools to troubleshoot these issues by measuring case base to shoulder dimensions on fired and unfired/resized cases. Once you start to understand what a datum(reference point) is and the dimensions that are critical everything comes into the light.

I don't have any fired cases yet. Loading up some this week.
MT

Wanted to bring this back up. Thanks to all the posts and an email that helped me. Have done quite a bit of reloading, testing, etc. Once I adjusted firing pin protrusion most of my problem disappeared. Still had a couple ftf on Rem 9 1/2 primers. Haven't got the results in velocity I wanted from using those primers anyway so just quit using them. No problem with CCI and Fed primers. CCI 250s will likely be my choice for the hunting round I'm going to use. Actually hoping to use 2 loadings. One with North Fork 240s and the other Sierra 250s. 338-06 cal. Both will be just over 2500 fps.
Thanks again
MT

Hunting buddy had a Ruger MKII that would fire fine in summer but go "click" when hunting. For 3 years he lived with the problem even though I kept telling him to replace the firing pin spring. When he finally did, the new spring was several inches longer than the old one. Turns out he had been storing the rifle with it cocked.

May not be the problem here but worth looking into.

Possible, but not likely. Even stored uncocked the spring is still compressed to 22+ lbs. Storing cocked for long periods of time does nothing to the spring as far as making it weaker. What makes spring go weak is the number of cycles of being compressed and decompressed. Unless, of course the spring was faulty or incorrect to begin with.