Been having a pretty busy time, and so much fun with the Uberti...not
I bought 100rds of S&B factory 158gn LRN ammo as I couldn't see me finding time to cast and load ammo right away.
Loaded up ten rounds to see how nicely it cycled. It didn't.
First the lever was jammed closed. Flipping the rifle around in various directions while tweaking the lever finally got it to open...and then it wouldn't close.
So I unloaded the mag and stripped the guts out of it, everything except the barrel and mag tube.
- Uberti Model 66 Parts.JPG (208.25 KiB) Viewed 6428 times
The Model '66 rifle has a toggle linkage on each side of the bolt. The left side linkage was missing the middle pin (part # 106) so the two toggles were hitting against each other in various positions according to the whim of gravity. I did think of leaving out the left linkage until I could get a pin but I realised that these two linkages when fully extended are all that keep the bolt in battery (similar to a Luger). So I got my dealer to chase me up a pin. I also went hunting online and found short-throw kits which include both linkages and the lifter arm, so I ordered a kit. Then I discovered a guy on Ebay selling two pairs of new linkages in Queensland. So I bought those as well! All three arrived today.
I stripped it again and installed the short-throw kit. The lever works fine but the lifter doesn't go up or down far enough to feed cartridges. When I have some time I can probably look at it to determine if it just needs tweaking or if it's just wrong.
So I tried the set of linkages that have the pins welded in, but they don't fit on the pins in my rifle. Luckily, the final set are identical to my originals so I dropped those in. Function test was good.
Load ten rounds up to check feeding.
First round failed to extract so I now have a live round in the chamber, a live round in the lifter right behind it, and an action that now can't close, and with a full mag tube (to unload, the lifter has to be down to allow the rounds to come out the loading gate). The bolt has to travel forward as the lever closes to allow the lifter to drop. Strip the bastard out again, including punching the pin out that keeps the striker attached to the bolt. That gave me enough room to draw the live round out of the lifter and into the action so I could then push the lifter down and get the round out of the chamber, and empty the magazine tube as well.
Reassemble once more for yet another feed test. You really need to cycle this thing like it's disposable, and it's only ever going to shoot these ten rounds. It needs a run-up to function, trying to run it gently is just hard work. And trying to catch the brass is not viable either.
Okay, possible progress as it dumped ten rounds all over me. I repeated this three times successfully. Maybe it's finally worth walking up the paddock.
I don't like the sights at all. But I put the first five rounds on the chicken at 40m with three hits, very impressed with that so far. I went back to 100m to the bench to see how it drops, but the front bead is bigger than the half-scale ram, not much fun there. Near as I can tell the trajectory is not unlike the .22LR, both dropping around 220mm at 100m from a 40m zero. Now that I finally have it running I can put some time into finding out how it shoots, and whether I can do anything with the sights. As I'd hoped, recoil is virtually non-existent.
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I also finally received the Williams peep sight with target knobs and installed it on the Norinco. I've put over 200rds through it at 40m trying to zero it as well as I can offhand, but it looks very promising. Once I have it zeroed at 40m then I can start determining how many clicks are required at 50m, 75m and 100m to keep a dead-on hold. I've put a scope on the Henry and at 100m off the bench it's not quite as capable as the Norinco - about 70mm groups with CCI Std Vel. The trigger is horrendous with some creep and a 1.8kg break. The Norinco breaks at 1.2kg. Another annoyance is that the butt stock and forend are both loose. The butt stock wiggles up and down as if there's a pivot in the middle of the action, the forend moves fore and aft about 1mm. I'm sure I can shim both, when I find time but combined with the trigger, I'm staying with the Norinco, for now at least.