Loose Safety or Top Release Spring? Bolt Won’t Close in Chambered Round

Got my four or five years in the making 26 Nosler project to the range for the first time today. SSS Monte Carlo Sporter bedded by SSS with top release action T&T’d by SSS. Barrel and action head spaced by McGowen. My local gs touched it too, mainly setting trigger pull and mounting scope.


Got three rounds off cleaning after each round. Then the bolt wouldn’t close on Nosler Custom 140 gr AB in the chamber. Looks like the spring under the top release is loose. Trigger won’t pull and safety won’t slide if top release is recessed. Bolt pulls out too. If I pull up the top release the safety moves, the trigger resets, and I can dry fire but most of the time the bolt still won’t close if a round is chambered.


Is this a repair a pheasant club shotgun gs can handle or should I get it to SSS?


If pictures post well the spring is visible by the top release.

Attachment 7262Attachment 7263Attachment 7264Attachment 7265

That's an easy fix. Take it out of the stock. The tail end of the sear return spring has just popped out of the notch on the receiver. Push it back with a screw driver and return it to the stock.

Thanks, Fred. Will give it a whirl.

Any competent gunsmith that cant fix it should fold up shop. The safety if adjusted correctly shouldnt be loose. I have met a bunch of people who cant seem to get the tension on the safety right there fore rendering it a dangerous situation. I had one from the factory when on safe if you pulled a bit harder checking it and it went off. I adjusted it and fixed the problem.

Will the 220F slug gun with top release serve as a one for one mechanical comparison?

Thinking on it over lunch, I’m pretty sure it has a Timney trigger in place now.

I am not sure what you are describing. Maybe Sharpshooter nailed it.

If not, once a trigger is installed the first thing to do is adjust the trigger return spring to where it holds the trigger against the seer. The next thing isto adjust it for the safety to function correctly. Does it slide through all of the positions? No? Why?/Yes? adjust(tighten slowly) the safety adjustment screw until the safety will slide into safe-bolt lock position and the trigger will not move to release the sear when trigger is pulled. One way to do that is put the safety in the rearmost position, SAFE, then tighten the screw till it stops. Adjust till the safety will slide out of the safe position. work things from there and test.It should slide to the into the middle position and the bolt will open but the trigger will not release the sear when pulled. Lastly when the safety is slid into the fire position it will allow the trigger to release the sear when the trigger is pulled and obviously the bolt functions normally.

Thanks for the process/method. When I separated the stock and action everything looked in place. This method will come in handy for my 260 With accutrigger. It is set noticeably lower than 3 lbs which for me is a good balance.

On the Nosler 26 in question after comparing it to an Accutrigger bottom release and non Accutrigger top release and seeing it didn’t look like a Savage trigger, I bailed and dropped it off today with my gs. Will advise.

If the trigger was done at SSS when all the other stuff was done then it might be a SSS trigger like pictures. I have the instructions if you need a copy.

https://external-content.duckduckgo....jpg&f=1&nofb=1

Attachment 7271
Here’s the mechanism in question.

Looks like an old three screw. Are you missing a trigger return spring?

Look at the sear spring........like I said before, it's not seated in the notch on the receiver.

Like Sharpshooter said the sear return spring is not in place.
You could easily see it in the first photos and it clearly shows in the last one portraying the Timney trigger.

Thanks, gents!

Safety is now operational. Got back to sighting in. Today plopped a dozen rounds on paper and surprised myself positively at 200 yards, although moved the scope forward after being pummeled.

Headspace problem, I assume? After a few rounds, but not before, the bolt got sticky while closing on some unfired rounds (Nosler Big Game purchased from Nosler). And some rounds would not allow the bolt to close at all. Once home with painters tape, all fired empty brass loaded fine except when one layer of tape was present. With tape none let the bolt to close. Same experience with one live round. Heat have anything to do with 3-4 successful rounds then not when fired?

In January I’ll see if SSS can schedule a date for it.

The trigger hinge pin appears to be in backwards. Normally not an issue unless there is too much clearance between the head of the pin and the stock, the pin can creep over enough to disengage from the left side of the sear. Had that happen on an aftermarket stock. Reversed the pin and no further issues.

Sounds like it may be headspaced a bit tight. Might want to buy, borrow or rent a headspace gage and check it out yourself. If your shot brass chambers with a slightly stiff bolt drop, that brass is fully fire formed to your chamber. You can measure that shot brass with a headspace comparator and compare to new factory ammo. If the factory ammo is longer from base to shoulder, that is your issue.