caryc
.375 Atomic
Posts: 1,040
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Post by caryc on Aug 11, 2009 14:07:09 GMT -5
Anybody see the recent Myth Busters episode about the SKS free floating firing pin? There's no spring on the firing pin so it's free to float back and forth in the bolt.
The myth was that some gangsters had some SKS rifles in their car with an outrageous sound system that caused the firing pins to vibrate and set off the rounds in the guns.
Well, they could not get a fired round with a sound system but they set up four rifles with some C4 within about 6 feet. When the C4 blew one of the rifles did fire a round.
This got me to wondering whether the firing pin was still free to float against the primer even with the safety on? Having no spring to keep that pin away from the primer doesn't seem like a very good system to me.
They also did the one where the guy blew off half his thumb with a .50 cal handgun by having his off hand thumb up where the gas escapes between the cylinder face and the forcing cone.
This one was actually pretty neat. They used chicken parts for fingers and the gun blew the heck out of the chicken finger. They showed a good slo mo of what the gun did. I didn't doubt the picture that was floating around on the net but they proved it was certainly possible.
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Post by the priest on Aug 11, 2009 14:54:09 GMT -5
Cary,
That show aired originally a while back. (and yes, I still watched it again last night) The revolver was a Smth .460 IIRC. The actual photos of the guy who whacked his own thumb were posted here about three months ago. Interesting episode.
The little bit on the SKS was interesting,...but scary. I hope one of the guys here who owns one, looks, and chimes in about the spring and if one is part of that system.
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hoss
.327 Meteor
Posts: 716
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Post by hoss on Aug 11, 2009 15:20:56 GMT -5
Its true.. no spring on the SKS firing pin. And the pins are SQUARE too, which makes them prone (so I'm told) to stick and slam fire.
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caryc
.375 Atomic
Posts: 1,040
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Post by caryc on Aug 11, 2009 18:10:09 GMT -5
Its true.. no spring on the SKS firing pin. And the pins are SQUARE too, which makes them prone (so I'm told) to stick and slam fire. Evidently someone makes a safe firing pin for the SKS because they showed a replacement pin with a spring on it. So, I'm wondering how many SKS rifles were made with those springless firing pins and if any are still being made that way? |
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caryc
.375 Atomic
Posts: 1,040
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Post by caryc on Aug 11, 2009 18:23:57 GMT -5
the priest,
I don't know if they mentioned the caliber of the handgun on the show. I just mentioned .50 caliber to indicate one of the big ones.
Personally I have no real interest in double action hand cannons myself so I don't know one from the other.
I was just sitting reading one of the "trail" books by Ralph Compton. Just discovered his stuff from the library. Having read all Louie L'Amours stuff I've had to look to other sources.
Anyway in the "Goodnight Trail" they mentioned one of the herd owners being armed with five weapons on him and his horse. One of them was the Colt revolving carbine. Some of the hands were talking about it not being such a good weapon because of the forcing cone to cylinder face gap. They referred to chain fires and catching ones shirt on fire and that's why they preferred the Colt revolver.
I think the writer blew it there because the Colt revolver would have the same problems. He did not mention the one problem that I'd always heard with the gun. That was the fact that one could not fire it like a regular rifle. You had to keep your off hand in back of that cylinder face because of the escaping gasses and the possibility of chain fire with your hand in a bad spot. At least I'd always heard that was the biggest drawback of that gun. It was just too awkward to use safely.
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Post by the priest on Aug 12, 2009 0:50:15 GMT -5
maybe he was talking about the 'new' colt revolver with cartridges? those old carbines are pretty neat. with the amount of powder those hold, iirc about 60 grains, i'm sure they'd get dirty quick and bind if not for the big gap.
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enigma
.240 Incinerator
Posts: 10
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Post by enigma on Aug 23, 2009 0:33:52 GMT -5
the priest, Anyway in the "Goodnight Trail" they mentioned one of the herd owners being armed with five weapons on him and his horse. One of them was the Colt revolving carbine. Some of the hands were talking about it not being such a good weapon because of the forcing cone to cylinder face gap. They referred to chain fires and catching ones shirt on fire and that's why they preferred the Colt revolver. I think the writer blew it there because the Colt revolver would have the same problems. He did not mention the one problem that I'd always heard with the gun. That was the fact that one could not fire it like a regular rifle. You had to keep your off hand in back of that cylinder face because of the escaping gasses and the possibility of chain fire with your hand in a bad spot. At least I'd always heard that was the biggest drawback of that gun. It was just too awkward to use safely. Interestingly, the Colt Revolving Carbine was the first repeating rifle adopted by the U.S. Army. The tendency to chain-fire led to a disability among soldiers referred to as the 'Colt Pension,' when they lost part of their non-firing hand. A simple solution was to lower the loading lever and hang onto it with the support hand. The 'Colt Pension' was supposedly one major reason why the U.S. Army waited so long to adopt a metallic cartridge repeating rifle - no Ordnance officer wanted to be the one to repeat such a serious mistake! I don't know if that part is true or not, but I can certainly believe it. |
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Post by dougader on Sept 10, 2009 17:26:29 GMT -5
I can believe the part about escaping gases from the cylinder gap doing terrible damage. I was trying to clear a bound up S&W 686 for my brother-in-law and was really concentrating on keeping the muzzle pointed in a safe direction.... I was working the trigger and hammer and didn't pay attention to where my left hand was when I was finally able to cycle the action. My pad of my left finger was resting against that cylinder gap and it was split from the top of my finger diagonally down near to the first joint of my finger. And it went all the way to the bone.
At first it just looked like a little bloody bird bath there on the end of my finger. No pain at all for the first few seconds or so. Then the bleeding stopped, the heat of the gases probably has cauterized the wound as well. Then the pain started. Excruciating pain driving from the woods where we were shooting to the emergency room for cleaning and stitches.
S&W paid for the ER visit and bought the gun back. Something about a recall where their 581, 681, 586 and 686 revolvers could bind up when fired with full power ammo.
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