Intermittent weak hits to primer.

[Guest Druganicus]

Howdy,

I bought an older .32 acp not too long ago (Bronco 1918) and it will just dimples the primer (failure to fire) about half the time. When I clean the firing pin assembly real well, I might get 4 to 6 shots off before the malfunctions begin again.

Everything else seems to work when it does fire; it cycles fine when it does fire, the hammer seems to have plenty of impact. Being an older gun parts seem to be a bit scarce so I was wondering what the more experienced might suspect as the trouble.

Thanks.

[Guest gunsmoke308]

I had a customer bring me one a while back and we stretched the firing pin spring and made some small adjustments. check the extractor,spring, and check on an empty gun how much firing pin protrusion your getting with a caliper and get back to me. i might ahve some ideas for you.

[Guest Druganicus]

Thanks. I did try stretching the spring a bit before I read your post, so hopefully that will do something good. I'll see if I can get my hands on some calipers and get back with you if my basement armory skills didn't help.

[Guest Druganicus]

My attempt to stretch the firing pin spring out seemed to mangle it so I don't want to mess with anything else if all I need is a new spring (this one is likely around 90 years old anyway and may well be the original problem). The problem is I can't seem to find one for my model. A couple of places have springs for the .25 but not .32. Would a .25 firing pin spring be too different from the .32?

Thanks.

[1gewehr]

Springs are springs. If you have a Harbor Freight anywhere nearby, they sell a box with a huge assortment of small springs. I got one of those several years ago and it has been worth it's weight in gold! I would be willing to bet that there is a spring in the box that will match what you need. If not, find one the right coil rate and diameter and clip it a little longer than you think you need. Then try it out.