The rifle is in! There is a touch of pitting on the receiver and the bayonet does not fit. The big uh-oh is the extractor isnt hooked into the magazine actuator (??) so it doesnt work the way it should.
Anyone know where I can find some instructions on disassembly? Or, for that matter, is this even something I should fool with before selling? Im confident I can do the work, with some disassembly tips, but if it wont impact the selling price much....
So now for the good! The bore is in great shape, the wood looks great all over, and the bayonet (thats in good shape) looks really nice on my trapdoor ;D
Pretty happy with this buy! Its a good feeling rifle..feels more natural than the trapdoor but maybe thats just me. Its a shame the magazine system was so funky.
Ill get it listed this weekend and let you guys know what it ends up going for.
Figured it out. The extractor has an extension which fits into the bar that actuates the magazine. The extractor is fastened to the bolt by a bar along the top. This bar has, what appears to be, a release lever on top of it.
The bar and lever are held to the bolt body with a pin. I simply drove out that pin and the whole thing came apart.
I gather the release thing is supposed to, well, release this assembly without removing the pin but I dont see how.
Anyway, with the extractor off, I simply placed it inside the magazine actuator bar and reassembled. Everything seems to be working fine now. Looks like someone else had it apart and just didnt put it back together correctly.
Nothing wakes ya up like taking tools to a multi-thousand dollar rifle!
Wait. Now it makes sense. The release lever must have been gummed up with 135 years of gunk. Now that its loosened up, the lever is easy to lift with just a fingernail and the bolt is a breeze to disassemble.
Hopefully someone, one day, will thank me for writing this down ::)
Sorry for the delay. I tested the magazine with a couple of snap caps. It works quite well though I can see it jamming pretty easy. Still, a very neat mechanism from a design standpoint.
Here's some pics of the bolt disassembly.
Step 1: Make sure the magazine disconnect is in the forward position. Step 2: With a really thin blade screwdriver, get under this little lever. Step 3: With the release lever in the upright position, the connector can be lifted up. Step 4: With the connector lifted up, the extractor can be lifted off the bolt and out of the magazine bar. Step 5: Withdraw the bolt from the rifle completely by holding the trigger down and pulling the bolt out.
That's all there is to it. The Forgotten Weapons video on this firearm says he found some directions for disassembly and he referred to them as "scary." ::)
The only thing even a little scary about this is the fact you're working on a $3,000 rifle...of which maybe only a few hundred exist. Other than that, this is no more complicated than any other rifle.
