[jackthoreau]

I am presently looking at a Mossberg hammerless bolt action 320k single shot 22 for sale at a used gun store. I am cautious because I once owned a Revelation/Savage/Mossberg singleshot 22 of the same action as the Mossberg 320 and the firing pin broke almost on every other shot made. What a lemon that gun was! It became modified to unfireable condition and donated to a HS drama teacher for a prop. Before getting rid of the gun I had inquired about the problem with a friend who examined the rifle.This person told me that it could be that the movement of the firing pin can't handle the heavy slam of the hammer behind the bolt. In order to move the firing pin forward, most or all other bolt actions use a spring moving paralel to the pin, the springs laways being coiled around the same axis as the bolt. The hammerless bolt 22s use a heavy internal hammer to strike the back of the bolt and hit the pin. This guy claimed not to be a firearms expert but he figured that because the bolt assembly was somewhat loose on lockup, their was a lot of play as the hammer hit, tweaking the pin while forcing it forward, and therefore the pin couldn't handle the strain and snaped. It was a long piece of metal that slid out of the chamber when I opened it. I would get it replaced and it would happen again and again! I am hoping that the 320k actually may have a different style , more in-line type hammer rather than what that old revelation 100 had.

I see the reasoning behind the hammer being too much force breaking the pin, but auto-loading rifles and shotguns use the same hammer striking the rear of the bolt, and I haven't heard of constant firing pin breaks with these weapons. Maybe the pins are stouter on these auto loading shotguns and 22s. Could my issues with the revelation model I had be only a problem with the one rifle, or is this a common problem with these hammerless boltgun 22s? Also, are these a regression away from standard bolt action accuracy? I only ask because they definately don't lock up as tight as the standard coil spring stiker fired bolt action. They are like taking a semi-auto 22 design like a 1022, and making it a maunaly operated gun. My feeling on these guns as far as the firing break, is similar to my friends. The standard 1022 type semiauto has a bolt that moves back and fourth but it does not rotate. I feel that since the bolts don't rotate, the internals like the firing pin and extractor are fitted tighter inside the bolt. Since the hammerless bolt needs to manualy rotate to operate the action, the extractor and maybe also the firing pin as well is losely fitted in the bolt. I see it flexing as it is being hit by the hammer and pushed forward thereby breaking.

I am not eager to buy this mossy gun because I feel the pin problem is truly very endemic to the type. As for the accuracy issue, I think these guns can be accurized just as easily as a 1022 can be accurized, though I may be wrong on this also. If the barrel doesn't have a lot of support, it may be problematic. I would like comments on these guns and would like to especially hear from those who may have had the same issues with theirs.