Smith carbine problem

[wcameron]

Since the last national, I've had trouble opening the breech of my Pietta Smith. It opens fine when un loaded but is VERY hard to open with a cartridge in the chamber whether fired or not. Any ideas?

[Lou Lou Lou]

Try filing a bit off the mouth off the case. One pass with the file and retry

[Lou Lou Lou]

I assumed metal. Is it plastic?

[wcameron]

They are plastic cases.

[wcameron]

Hey I just cut off about an eighth if an inch from one of my plastic cases. It worked like a charm. I never had problems before with these cases. They've been shot several times. Do they stretch after being shot? I wonder if a shortened case will fire? I'll try a couple tomorrow.

[Lou Lou Lou]

Try 1/16 see if that works also

[wcameron]

It looks like there is lead build up at the breech which is keeping the cases from seating properly. I tried scraping it out but couldn't do it so I used my Dremel to taper the mouth of the cases to bypass the buildup rather than cutting them off. It worked very well but I have shoot a few rounds to check it out. I don't know how the build up happened or how to get it out. Anyone had this happen before?

[Lou Lou Lou]

Talk to John Bly or another gunsmith. Might need to have throat smoothed/reamed

[george7542]

I would slug your barrel and make sure your sizing your rounds properly. To large may lead to the leading you speak of.

[ms3635v]

The Pietta Smiths seem to have an inconsistency in bore sizes. Judging from the four that are being used on our team there seems to be a disparity in bore sizes, i.e. .503, .505, .507 and .510. One team member had Bobby Hoyt line his barrel at .518" and it shoots great.