I worked very hard to get ahead this week so I could take today off. The weather was awesome all week and I have been hankering to try out some .44 Magnum loads for my as new Winchester 94 .44 Mag rifle I purchased a year ago, but never shot. Packed up my stuff and drove to the range. Great! had the place to myself. Set everything up, loaded three rounds, settled in on target and fired my first shot. Scope went from clear to 'looking through privacy glass'. Darn. Liked that old scope. Apparently one round of 240 JSP over a stout charge of 2400 was more than it had left.
Anyhow, I packed everything up and drove back home. Grabbed a new 3-9 power I'd been saving for another project and mounted it. Bore sighted it and took off for the 12 mile drive to the range again. Still nobody else there, so I set up again. Loaded, got one shot off then CLICK. Cocked the hammer again and bang. Chambered another round CLICK.
Looked at the fired case and everything was OK. Checked the tang safety and transfer plunger and they seemed fine. Let's try different ammo-CLICK, CLICK, CLICK, BOOM, CLICK.
Barely even a mark on the primers of the CLICK rounds. Tried factory ammo and NONE of it fired. Wasted an hour and 15 rounds of ammo. Time to give up and pack-up.
Took the Winchester straight to my local gunsmith. He was in and took a look. Diagnosed as an easy cheap fix- a bad/weak mainspring. Only problem he doesn't stock the new coil mainsprings, because he's never seen a bad one before. I went home and ordered a new spring from Wolff along with springs for several other guns as spares. Guess what- they are delaying shipping two to three weeks due to 'unprecedented sales volume'.
By this time it was 3:30 and I had three choices, try another gun at the range-NO WAY wasn't doing another 24 mile round trip to sacrifice another gun to bad karma. Mow the Yard- NO WAY. Take the wife and go get drinks and supper YES.
Anyhow, I packed everything up and drove back home. Grabbed a new 3-9 power I'd been saving for another project and mounted it. Bore sighted it and took off for the 12 mile drive to the range again. Still nobody else there, so I set up again. Loaded, got one shot off then CLICK. Cocked the hammer again and bang. Chambered another round CLICK.
Looked at the fired case and everything was OK. Checked the tang safety and transfer plunger and they seemed fine. Let's try different ammo-CLICK, CLICK, CLICK, BOOM, CLICK.
Barely even a mark on the primers of the CLICK rounds. Tried factory ammo and NONE of it fired. Wasted an hour and 15 rounds of ammo. Time to give up and pack-up.
Took the Winchester straight to my local gunsmith. He was in and took a look. Diagnosed as an easy cheap fix- a bad/weak mainspring. Only problem he doesn't stock the new coil mainsprings, because he's never seen a bad one before. I went home and ordered a new spring from Wolff along with springs for several other guns as spares. Guess what- they are delaying shipping two to three weeks due to 'unprecedented sales volume'.
By this time it was 3:30 and I had three choices, try another gun at the range-NO WAY wasn't doing another 24 mile round trip to sacrifice another gun to bad karma. Mow the Yard- NO WAY. Take the wife and go get drinks and supper YES.
