Home Forums Lever Action Central Rimfire Levers 94/22M not reliably firing

I was wondering if anyone else here has had this issue, I have a 94/22M in good shape, that quit firing reliably. I have had it apart, changed the firing pin with no change. If I thumb the hammer back after a non fire it will usually fire after a few repeated hammer drops. Hammer spring feels fine, don’t know where to go next, anyone seen a similar issue with these rifles? Thanks in advance.

Have you tried different ammo? Check to see if the chamber and breech face are clean so nothing is cushioning the firinjg pin strike.

I haven't had that particular action apart, but they all have some things in common.

1) Typically there has to be a shoulder on the firing pin which keeps the pin from slamming into the end of the barrel if you dry fire without a cartridge chambered. Remove the piece that carries the firing pin ... bolt, slide, whatever you want to call it ... and check for either an accumulation of crud, some kind of metal parts or the like like wire brush bristles that have fallen into the action, or damage which would keep the pin from traveling clear forward.

2) Is the gun misfiring with ammo .. either brand or batch .. that it was recently reliable with? Typically rimfires have to be headspaced by the thickness of the rim. If you've changed ammo, either brand / load / or even a new batch of something you've used before, you might have thinner rims so that the pin isn't impacting the rim with the same force because the cartridge is able to move forward a bit into the chamber.

3) Check the face of the "bolt" and the face of the barrel for crud that could be increasing headspace if it does not compress enough.

Tom

Mine went to hell in the handbasket too,, cleaned,lubed to perfection but just stopped working,,hanging in the shed! fini,,

Wanna trip it?

Maybe trade for something minor if I can find it?

When you eject a mis-fire is there a solid dent in the rim of the casing or just a light dent or no hit? I have many 9422's and never had an issue. Well I take that back. I picked up a very nice conditioned example really cheap at a gun show. It wouldn't cycle or fire well. I opened it up and someone had either spilled beer or pop in it. It was a gummy mess. Took a couple hours to clean up and it worked perfectly.

So here’s what I found, after going through cleaning out the bolts and action, replacing the firing pin, I found that the junction of the lever and the finger lever arm had developed some slop, so it wasn’t pushing the bolt fully into battery. I expanded the metal on the finger lever arm and have tightened it up, we’ll see tomorrow if that gets it to fire consistently. Thanks for the ideas.

Waterrat, I had another buddy up here that said the same thing you did about his, then there was this one. We also have another one that hasn’t missed a beat yet, but pulling the lower out and checking the arm for slop is an easy check, if there is any slip back and forth, it most likely isn’t pushing the bolt fully into battery. Will verify results and post.

After pulling the finger lever arm and expanding the metal (placed on an anvil and flat face punched it to stretch or expand the metal to tighten the fit) it is back to working 100%. It may loosen up again, but this got it going again.