Romanian Model 1969 .22 Trainer-Feed Issues

[dearborndevil]

Does anyone out there have experience with the cheap .22 Romanian training rifles that were imported about 5-10 years ago. I was at a show, and snapped one up for the unbelievably cheap price. It's got pretty nice sights for a .22. But it doesn't feed worth a damn.

I've tried different brands of ammo, bullet weights, etc. I tried taking apart the mag and cleaning it. Nothing seems to help. I may try one of the newly manufactured Triple K mags.

Any suggestions?

[deth502]

hard to tell without seeing, or a more detailed explanation of the problem, but the first thing to look at if you are having trouble feeding from diffrent mags would be the feed ramp.

[phill]

We had one for a while and finally gave up. I think that there is a design flaw in the rifle or mag. Two trips to a very good gunsmith produced about 90% reliablity. Neat rifle but everybody seems to have some feed problem. Also maybe a difference in the ammo?

[wizzegun]

post your question here. http://surplusrifleforum.com/viewforum.php?f=17 They should be able to help.

[dearborndevil]

I finally got around to taking the rifle apart, and checking for any magazine feed issues. As it turns out, I didn't find any problems with the feed ramp or magazine. BUT....

What I did find, was a bit of a surprise. The way this rifle feeds, the cartridge head snaps out of the magazine, and under the extractor, moving at an slight angle as it does so. However, the firing pin keeps protruding too far from the bolt head, to let the extractor grab the cartridge head.

Later on, when I have time, I plan to clean out any crud from the firing pin channel, and polish up the firing pin, any surfaces it may drag on, and the bolt face. Hopefully, this should make for smoother feeding.

[dearborndevil]

Eureka!!!!

I took the bolt apart today, and thoroughly cleaned all the carbon build up off with Gumout. After a bit of light oil, the firing pin now moves as it should-and my feeding problems have vasnished.

I have a hunch that many of the feed problems being blamed on the magazine for this rifle are actually due to the bolt's sensitivity to crud.