Well, I’ve been breaking in the new gun…with the emphasis on breaking. First, the small things – the rear sight pin had to be staked as it kept trying to back out. Then the front sight screw had to be loctite-d down to keep it tight.
Next I installed a set of Altamont rosewood target grips. These fit my hand perfectly and look gorgeous. But when I reinstalled them after cleaning the gun I stripped the grip screws. They only insert into the frame by a few threads and since they are of a much softer metal than the stainless it’s easy to strip them. I ordered a set of stainless replacement Hogue screws and that fixed that problem.
For several hundred rounds it worked like a sewing machine and just ran beautifully. Then I started having problems with the bolt cycling. I spent several hours disassembling the gun and knocking off rough edges with needle files and 600 grit sandpaper. Eventually I got the bolt assembly moving nice and smoothly through the receiver, but still saw the problems with it hanging up. I finally tracked the problem down to the hammer pin. The hammer pin on the MkIII is held in place by the grip, but the aftermarket Altamont grips I installed have a bit too much space in between the grip and the pin. Eventually after enough rounds the pin backs out and causes the hammer to hang up enough to keep the bolt from cycling properly.
I fixed that by adding a small rubber bushing between the grip and pin. It holds the pin securely and isn’t visible without disassembling the grips. Next up a few hundred more rounds…
I was trying some different ammo as I wanted to eliminate the ammo as a source of the problem with the bolt cycling. Eventually I ran into a new problem: a few “stovepipe” failure to ejects. I chalked this up to either the ammo or the fact that the gun was dirty after having a few hundred rounds through it since I’d last cleaned it. But after cleaning the gun and trying it again I got more FTE’s. Eventually, after one round I saw the extractor spring hanging halfway out the bolt.
On examination I realized I’d lost the extractor and along with it the extractor plunger and I’d also ruined the extractor spring. Yay. As of now I’m waiting for a new extractor from Volquartsen. I’m hoping this will solve all the current problems and I can get back to shooting. In the meantime, just to be sure I’ve rounded the edges of my magazines as in this tweak: http://xavierthoughts.blogspot.com/2008/10/mkii-magazine-tweak.html
At this point the gun has had over a thousand rounds through it, and it is exceptionally accurate and fun to shoot. I’m pretty convinced that once I put it back together I’ll have resolved most of the issues. We’ll see!
