Rio 30-30 Fail to fire

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Re: Rio 30-30 Fail to fire

Post by Centaur 1 »

Well Tuco, you've definitely given me other ideas to look at. From what I've seen Rossi uses mostly MIM parts and they install them as cast, everything inside the rifle has sharp corners. When you compare against Marlin parts it's obvious that Marlin takes steps to remove sharp edges either by hand or at least a vibratory shaker. The fact that they never touch these MIM parts only serves to magnify any mismatch of tolerances, perfect example is your hammer/cross bolt safety interference and the bolt block/firing pin jams. I won't have a chance to look at it today, need to fix the brakes on my Cherokee, but I'll check my gun tomorrow. Thanks for the heads up on where to look, I appreciate it.
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Re: Rio 30-30 Fail to fire

Post by Centaur 1 »

Well I finished working on the car so I gave a look at the firing pin with and without holding the lever tightly. When I cycle the action the rear firing pin protrudes nicely from the back of the bolt, but if I pull the lever up tight it's easy to see the pin move upward. Then I tried moving the firing pin forward by pushing it with a small punch. When I'm not holding the lever the firing pin moves, not as smoothly as I would like, but it does move. If I hold the lever closed the firing pin doesn't budge unless I push really hard, the bolt block is definitely binding it up. If I pull the trigger while holding the lever tight, the firing pin does move forward. I think what's happening is the hammer is using all of it's strength just to overcome the binding, and when it hits the primer there's only enough momentum to dimple the primer. Then when the hammer is recocked without cycling the action, the firing pin is already resting against the primer and the gun fires when the trigger is pulled. It's obvious that I need to correct the binding issue, but common sense tells me to go slow to avoid removing too much metal from the wrong spot. I'll give an update when I figure out what the proper fix is.
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Re: Rio 30-30 Fail to fire

Post by Archer »

You know both you guys need to write up this binding problem in writing and send the letters directly to Rossi. They might monitor the forums but this is something, both with the safety intercepting the hammer when in the off position AND the firing pin binding up when the lever is closed that needs to be pushed into the production and QC departments pronto.

The shop I hang out at has two Rios, one in .30-30 and another in .45-70.
I'm going to check them out next week and see if the problem seems to be present.
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Re: Rio 30-30 Fail to fire

Post by Tuco Ramirez »

Centaur 1 wrote:Well I finished working on the car so I gave a look at the firing pin with and without holding the lever tightly. When I cycle the action the rear firing pin protrudes nicely from the back of the bolt, but if I pull the lever up tight it's easy to see the pin move upward. Then I tried moving the firing pin forward by pushing it with a small punch. When I'm not holding the lever the firing pin moves, not as smoothly as I would like, but it does move. If I hold the lever closed the firing pin doesn't budge unless I push really hard, the bolt block is definitely binding it up. If I pull the trigger while holding the lever tight, the firing pin does move forward. I think what's happening is the hammer is using all of it's strength just to overcome the binding, and when it hits the primer there's only enough momentum to dimple the primer. Then when the hammer is recocked without cycling the action, the firing pin is already resting against the primer and the gun fires when the trigger is pulled. It's obvious that I need to correct the binding issue, but common sense tells me to go slow to avoid removing too much metal from the wrong spot. I'll give an update when I figure out what the proper fix is.
If you decide to tackle this yes go very slow. Lot of tear it down and put it together. An easy start is shim the main spring and see where that gets you. Some use small washers to start with. I still think just replacing the spring may be a better approach.
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Re: Rio 30-30 Fail to fire

Post by Tuco Ramirez »

Archer wrote:You know both you guys need to write up this binding problem in writing and send the letters directly to Rossi. They might monitor the forums but this is something, both with the safety intercepting the hammer when in the off position AND the firing pin binding up when the lever is closed that needs to be pushed into the production and QC departments pronto.

The shop I hang out at has two Rios, one in .30-30 and another in .45-70.
I'm going to check them out next week and see if the problem seems to be present.
I am sure Rossi is well aware of the issue. Its a roll of the dice for them. How many folks will send it back vs how many do like I did and tackle it themselves. My main focus was anything that put the firing pin in a bind or restricted the force of the hammer. A person may be able to over come these restrictions with a stronger main spring. Yes I do need to do a full write up with photos like RD always does. A picture is worth a million words. Trying to just explain something to someone who has no idea what you referring to is hard. I have tore this thing apart so many times I see it in my dreams..... :lol:
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Re: Rio 30-30 Fail to fire

Post by Archer »

Don't assume they know.
I've found problems with things before that I'd assumed were known by the manufacturer and once the problem was pointed out a solution was out in a matter of days.

On the other hand as an engineer I've had suppliers tell me their stuff was perfect until we had them fly halfway around the earth and demonstrated to them that the tooling and alignment jigs they had provided were impossible to use in a repeatable fashion. On first face to face meeting and describing the problem I was told it was impossible and we obviously didn't know what we were talking about. 10 minutes after examining the issue on the airplane the same man turned to me and told me I had described the problem exactly.

It may be they aren't listening but it might be they haven't found the problem because of how they do the testing.
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Re: Rio 30-30 Fail to fire

Post by Ranch Dog »

Even if you throw reputation out of the window, I would think you could save millions of dollars that would have been spent on customer service alone by simply monitoring issues discussed in these forums. Surely that is the baseline point of a customer service department, to identify problem areas that can be corrected in manufacturing. It is a means to an end. The more effective CS is at finding the cure, the smaller CS gets. That is the savings for the organization, the near elimination of CS service through manufacturing.

I think posts or letters that detail specific issues and their cures would be worth their weight in gold to a manufacturer.
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Re: Rio 30-30 Fail to fire

Post by Tuco Ramirez »

Arch;

If you are right than RD's post after yours is a Homerun.... I will take your advise and put something together and send it to Rossi after I have whipped this problem(s) like a rented mule...... :lol: And I will whip it, there is no doubt in my mind on that score!!
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Re: Rio 30-30 Fail to fire

Post by pricedo »

Kit guns at rock bottom prices was the Rossi marketing paradigm for years.
I actually enjoyed fixing them.
I can fix anything if I have access to the parts I need.
I'm not even asking BrazTech to give me the parts just sell them to me at a reasonable
price even though parts that were defective out of the box should be free.
As you can see I'm a push over and very easy to deal with.
If BrazTech announced that the restricted parts policy was discontinued I'd buy a 92/45 LC tomorrow.
As long as they sell me a decent receiver and barrel I can fix just about anything else they throw at me.
But without parts my hands are tied.
I will NEVER by another BrazTech product while the restricted parts policy remains in place.
Check Davidsons. The Rossi RG is more expensive than the Marlin 336 now.
Rossi guns are no longer cheap and because of the restricted parts policy are in many cases no longer fixable.
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Re: Rio 30-30 Fail to fire

Post by Tuco Ramirez »

Well after many hours of working on my RG 45-70 and countless hours researching possible causes I am happier than a game rooster in a pen with nothing but hens....... :lol:

I could not sleep last night so I decided to shim the hammer main spring. I used a single washer about a 1/8" thick. By placing the washer behind the spring but in front of the hammer spring adjusting plate. I loaded up 30 reduced rounds this morning and waited for it to warm up a bit. I removed the butt stock and operated the hammer back and forth to see how much the spring compressed. The was room to compress some more so I determined how much space I had to shim. A single washer caused the main spring to compress fully.

Around lunch time today I fired the 30 rounds without (1) failure to fire. Indentation on the primers was excellent. I will feel better after I run another 30 rounds through it but I am confident my FTF nut has been officially cracked. As soon as possible I intend on replacing the hammer main spring. I am going to try a marlin spring because I have no intention of sending the rifle to Rossi because of their ridiculous restricted parts policy. Hope this helps those folks who have struggled with the well documented FTF issues with the Rio Grande model rifles.

I will say for those folks that are and have struggled with FTF issues the modification to the hammer main spring is not a fix all. It may be masking other problems. You should utilize the process of elimination starting with headspace, checking the bolt to see if anything is restricting the firing pin and don't forget about the cross bolt safety. In the fire position the hammer should not be pushing the safety out to the left due to contact when the hammer passes it.

Hope this saves someone the frustration I went through. In the end there was a positive effect for me because I had to learn the overall operation of this firearm.
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