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Member Joined: 26 Jun 2005 Posts: 425 Location: Big D

My Arrieta 578 was this weekend and has been at times very difficult to open. The left cocking lever has been rubbing on the main leaf spring, but my gunsmith supposedly addressed this. Still very stiff. Ideas or suggestions?

Mike

Guest

My buddy and I have both experienced a similar problem with our respective Poli's (it would appear when we would put several rounds through the guns and the heat expansion would "tighten" up the locking mechanism) and we took his gun to the best gunsmith around. Long and short was he could take a little metal off the face but IHMO, that a finely tuned gun should not close when even a thin sheet of paper would be placed on the face when closing the gun. Basically, he indicated that we needed to shoot the heck out of the guns and they would work themselves loose. After shooting 3K rounds through my gun, it opens and closes perfectly. My buddy's gun can still hang up but it's not as much of a problem as before. IMO, this problem seems to appear more with game guns than target guns. I think the larger and thicker frame of a target gun distributes and absorbs the heat better than a game gun. Remember a game gun is something you walk alot with and shoot little. It's only when we shoot clays that we throw that equation off...

Good luck

Member Joined: 08 Nov 2005 Posts: 3439 Location: Illinois

That is not an uncommon occurance in high grade-close tolerance guns.I hear tell that the guides on the high volume dove shoots shudder when a client shows up with one of these.They are meant to be fired twice(mabey) and then carried for a long enough period before firing again-with more than enough time to cool the already unheated barrels back to air temp.

Member Joined: 26 Jun 2005 Posts: 425 Location: Big D

That is a good theory, but it seems to be connected to the load I use (may of course be my imagination). Opening day of dove season this September I shot a lot of shells Embarassed

without a hiccup. They were the black hull Remington promos. Last year in Nebraska I had trouble opening the gun with my friends light re-loads. This hunt in KS I was using 1 oz Estate factory loads at 1165 fps, and had great difficulty opening the gun. The cocking lever is rubbing on the mainspring, and the smith relieved a tiny bit of metal and lubed the plate behind the lever. No improvement. I'm off to Montana in a week and a half for roosters, and sure would like to have an idea of the problem.

Mike

Try the Remington shells again. If the gun exhibits no problems, its possible you might have slightly tight headspace problem or a slightly snug chamber. Try miking a factory unfired Remington shell at the rim. Then mike one of the shells that are giving you a problem. I'd also remove the barrels and drop one of each in the chambers for a visual comparison to see if the problematic shells are seating a bit higher. Could be the Remington shell rims are a bit smaller and are seating without any mechanical assist from closing the gun. Check at least a 1/2 dozen of each type too. Even factory shells vary a bit.

If it turns out to be the problem, then its a fairly easy fix. Just have the chambers adjusted a thousanth or two. This should do it.

One other point, 16 gauge hulls now all have steel rimmed or brass washed steel rimmed cases, at least all the domestic ones and all the imported ammo I've seen. These rims need to be resized back to factory spec. Only an adjustable collet or a specially undersized resizing ring w ith a bit of case lube will do it. I've had trouble with a couple of my guns with these once fired steel rimmed hulls until I adjusted the collet on my Grabber to squeeze them down a bit more.