As I posted previously, I recently re-worked my .45 Tennessee rifle. After final reassembly, I checked the gun over and everything seemed to be in working order. Yesterday I took it to the range for it's post-rework rechristening. I loaded powder and ball and set the rifle in the bench rest for priming. The cock was on halfcock and the set triggers were unset. I primed the pan and closed the frizzen and BOOM! Fortunately, the rifle was safely pointed downrange. Unfortunately, my middle finger caught a major portion of the vent blast. I don't know what my finger weighed before, but it's now about a grain heavier from all the imbedded bp particles.
At first I thought the rifle was expressing its displeasure at having been reworked, given that I'd never had any mechanical problems with it before and, especially, it's choice of fingers to violate. Upon examination, it was obvious that something had changed in the trigger/sear relationship so that neither the halfcock nor fullcock would hold properly with the triggers unset. Set, they both held and functioned normally. Tonight I'll dive in and see what the problem is.
I'm posting this as a cautionary tale. I've had this rifle for many years and shot many, many rounds through it without a single malfunction. But obviously something has changed even though I did no deliberate modifications to the trigger assembly, its inletting, the lock or its inletting. When I tried the rifle after reassembly, the half and fullcock seemed to be working normally, but the jar of the frizzen snapping closed was enough to drop the cock. If you do any dissasembly, especially after significant modifications, THOROUGHLY check out your firearm before using it. I should have treated this as an entirely new rifle and given it a thorough going over, but instead I assumed nothing had changed. Obviously, that wasn't true.
Now...do I have to pick these little buggers out of my finger or will they work themselves out on their own?
At first I thought the rifle was expressing its displeasure at having been reworked, given that I'd never had any mechanical problems with it before and, especially, it's choice of fingers to violate. Upon examination, it was obvious that something had changed in the trigger/sear relationship so that neither the halfcock nor fullcock would hold properly with the triggers unset. Set, they both held and functioned normally. Tonight I'll dive in and see what the problem is.
I'm posting this as a cautionary tale. I've had this rifle for many years and shot many, many rounds through it without a single malfunction. But obviously something has changed even though I did no deliberate modifications to the trigger assembly, its inletting, the lock or its inletting. When I tried the rifle after reassembly, the half and fullcock seemed to be working normally, but the jar of the frizzen snapping closed was enough to drop the cock. If you do any dissasembly, especially after significant modifications, THOROUGHLY check out your firearm before using it. I should have treated this as an entirely new rifle and given it a thorough going over, but instead I assumed nothing had changed. Obviously, that wasn't true.
Now...do I have to pick these little buggers out of my finger or will they work themselves out on their own?
