Light strikes fix

[big5ifty]

Suspected this was a spring problem, so went to Bruce at Valley Trading for a spring.

He pulled out an assembled P14 firing pin from a draw, and I immediately noticed the difference in the cocking piece.

About 12mm of material had been milled away on mine, reducing the firing pin travel by that much on firing.

The replacement is on top in the below picture, the old one on the bottom.

According to Bruce, it was fashionable at one time to do this modification to get the bolt to close faster, but then it needed a much stronger firing pin spring that could do the same job over shorter travel.

[Treeman]

Now that is interesting  !!

[Ds J]

I once read about a firing pin made from titanium or some similar metal - strong, but much lighter than steel to enhance the traveling time.

[Treeman]

There has been quite some playing around with firing pins in regard to accuracy/travel time. Heavy pins traveling long distance like the old Mausers to the other idea of a micro travel with a heavy spring. The other side of the try outs was ultra light pins with fast springs and every combination of trying to achieve small travel time with enough power to strike effectively and yet not have to use springs that caused their own issues.