Model 40 Extraction Problems

[saleen322]

Here is the background on my rifle. I purchased a model 40 in .22 Hornet in March of this year. Pretty rifle and I like the caliber but it wasn't long before it began to fail to extract the cases. I took it back to the shop I bought it from, Grice, and they gave me the option of a refund or they would send it to Savage for repair. I chose the latter and the rifle was returned in April. I took it to the range and within 10 rounds, it was doing it again. I was so disgusted that I just put it back into the safe and forgot about it. Ok so I retired this month and now I have some time so I got the model 40 out and shot it some more. Same problem, after about 2-3 rounds it won't extract. I shot both factory ammo and handloads. I took it back to the house, cleaned and bore and chamber but got the same problem. The only thing that will come out of the rifle reliably is a very light loaded handload that is not the most accurate. I got back on the phone to Savage told them the whole story and they confirmed the rifle was worked on and told me to send it back again so it went out yesterday.

I found this forum in a Google search. My question: does anyone know exactly what the issue is with the model 40s extracting? It seems to be a common problem but I was unable to find the fix. Thanks for your help.

[thomae]

Saleen,
Welcome to the forum. I've "seen" you over at PAFOA.
I don't have an answer, but likely there is someone here who can help you.
Hope you weathered the storm ok.
All the best,

[saleen322]

Hey Brother!
Anyone who has the class pistols you do in your signature, I don't forget! Actually we got a little snow and I was out on the ATV and even cut some wood today. It is one of the good things from the storm in that a lot of the dead standing trees got blown down so I have lots of firewood. Hope you and yours got through the storm well.

I really like that model 40 but I just don't want to have to have a cleaning rod with me just to go shooting. A smarter guy than me would have sold it but I think of it as a challenge.

[bootsmcguire]

I have heard several times of this issue with the Model 40 and luckily I have not had to deal with this as of yet. I know that some brands of brass have slightly different rim dimensions and some have said that certain brands worked better in their 40's. Mine was rechambered to 22 K-Hornet which gave me some feeding issues, but thankfully the extraction troubles of others have yet to show themselves in my Model 40.

Hopefully someone with more Model 40 extraction experience can chime in, and more hopeful that Savage gets it fixed for you.

[rjtfroggy]

Saleen, when I was researching these I saw somewhere that the original ones had this problem and when I asked the gun smith/gun shop he said he returned a few but the problem was fixed.Slightly different extractors.
I still look once in a while for one but everyone thinks they are made of gold.Prices are now higher than when new.

[1SHOT1KILL]

Full length resize your cases. Just don't just "bump" shoulder, full length resize the cases. This has completely eliminated the extraction problems on 3 model 40's in 22 Hornet that I personally know of. If you amke sure the brass is clean (tumbled/polished) and full length resized, you should have reliable extraction. The 3 rifles I speak of, all shoot pretty hot loads, 13.0-13.2 grains of Lil Gun with either 40gr V-max or 40gr Blitzkings. Extraction has been flawless since adhering to these procedures.

[saleen322]

Full length resize your cases. Just don't just "bump" shoulder, full length resize the cases. This has completely eliminated the extraction problems on 3 model 40's in 22 Hornet that I personally know of. If you amke sure the brass is clean (tumbled/polished) and full length resized, you should have reliable extraction. The 3 rifles I speak of, all shoot pretty hot loads, 13.0-13.2 grains of Lil Gun with either 40gr V-max or 40gr Blitzkings. Extraction has been flawless since adhering to these procedures.

Thanks but that made no difference as the problem is with the extractor system.

[saleen322]

Just a quick update. UPS was just here and my rifle is back from Savage and they had it about 3 weeks. On the slip it just lists, "Repair.....Headspace Good....Replace Small Parts." I did not take photos of the chamber but it looks like they had the barrel off and did some machining around the outside of the chamber to let the extractor grab better. I don't remember the side of the chamber being that steep and the bluing shows no extractor marks (like it was re-blued in that spot). The extractor is either new or reshaped because it looks sharper. Also it will not chamber a previously fired case so it looks like the chamber is a little shorter indicating it may have had some excessive headspace before?? I will get it out to shoot in the next couple of days and I will let you know if they got the problem.

[saleen322]

I took the action out of the stock to make sure the mating surfaces were good and then re-torqued the screws to 30 in/lbs. I cleaned the rifle and shot 5 rounds at 100 yards. Everything ejected with no problem and the 5 shots went into 7/8".


I gave the scope 7 clicks left and shot 5 more shots. I got another 7/8" group but with 4 shots in one ragged hole. No problem with extraction and I think it has real accuracy potential. Savage did a good job repairing it.

[bootsmcguire]

Glad to hear its all fixed up. They can be a fun gun.

[dnsmith]

good work there. I have had no problems with mine. I do full length resize the brass. The hornet has such a tapered shoulder, I would not be surprised if headspacing was an issue. Seems like the shoulder wouldn't have much margin for error. Mine does seem to blast holes in the neck of the brass after only one or two firings, but I'm wondering if I just got a bad batch of brass. Accuracy does not seem to be affected.

What load are you using? I have switched over to the Sierra 40 g bullets made specifically for the hornet, they seem to do very well. Also have good luck with the 33 g Speer TNT hornet bullets. I use a small pistol primer and 12 g of lil' gun. 13 g lil' gun does well too, but I seem to get a little better results with 12. A lot of folks use the Lee factory crimp die to put a little crimp on the bullet, but I've never gotten around to trying it.

[saleen322]

I never really was able to work up a good load for the model 40 before because of the extraction failures. You would fire one shot and then have to fool around with the rifle to knock the case out. The load for these targets was with the cheap midway dog town bullets, 34 grain, 12.8 grains of LIL'GUN, Win case, with a CCI 450 primer. This load shoots well in my old Savage 340 BUT if you change anything (especially primers) it seems to go to crap.