Need help with my new 121

[sfisher]

I just purchased a 121 fieldmaster that was manufactured in 1949. When I first got the gun it would not load a round. I broke it down and cleaned it up real good, then it would load and eject so I took it to the range.

First shot and the empty would not extract, I had to pry it out. Several more shoots and the same thing. Brought it home and cleaned some more and the same thing happened. But I had some .22 long 710 fps with me so I tried them and they would extract and eject.

Brought it home and cleaned it some more, went back to the range and the same thing. I started with long rifles 1200? fps and they wouldn't extract, went to longs 710 fps and they extracted. After I shot 50 rounds of longs I tried another long rifle and it extracted and ejected. Tried a few more no problems, went through 2 magazines of long rifles and 95 percent extracted and ejected so I figured problem solved.

Brought the gun home cleaned it real good, next time I went to the range, same thing all over. It will extract and eject longs and shorts, but not long rifles, they stay stuck in the chamber.

I have been told that maybe it was dry fired a lot and has burrs., but I don't see any, and I lightly touched a file up around the edges of the chamber any way. The edge of the chamber does have a few nicks at about 12 o clock.

I have also been told that maybe the previous owners shot a lot of shorts and the chamber just needs scrubbed real good. I put a bronze brush on a cleaning rod soaked it in hopps 9 and the other end on my foredom and went in and out of the first 3/4 to a inch of the chamber and scrubbed it down real good.

I still get the same thing 99 percent of all shorts and longs extract and eject. Only about 5 percent of all long rifles will extract and eject. sometimes if I just have one round loaded when it gets stuck, I can rack it back 3 or 4 times and it may grab it and pull it out and eject it.

So what do you think, do I need to keep scrubbing? do I have bore damage? maybe my extractor is week? what do you think. I really like this rifle and I want to hang on to it, but I want a gun I can shoot.

Please help, Thanks Steve

[sfisher]

PS also I just purchased a 22 chamber iron from brownells to try on it next week.

[admin]

I would have said the same thing about many shorts, have you (I assume you have) taken a real good look into the chamber? The 121 is STILL the absolute best pump ever made still to this day, I would want it to work too!

[sfisher]

The chamber iron fixed my issue. It was a easy fix, I just had to buy the right tool.

[lowgun]

What is this chamber iron you describe. I am looking for a 121 mechanic because my gun will not lock into battery. It fires OK unlocked. Any ideas?

[sfisher]

I am not a gunsmith but if you look on Brownells you will see a chamber iron. What happened to my gun was that it had been dry fired so many times that a little piecs of metal was protruding into the bore from the fireing pin stricking it so many times. The chamber iron helped to make it near perfectly round again. Hope that helps. Steve.