I'm having a shotgun issue

Jon3830 · Oct 26, 2017

I have an old h&r 88 single shot 12 gauge that I have replace every part in and it still won't hit the primer hard enough on some shells. Tonight I have narrowed it down to winchester xpert shells I have tried 4 different loads and it's like it's not hitting the primer hard enough, I can shoot a hundred of my reloads or any of the cheap stuff and it works every time. Anyone have any ideas because the only thing I can come up with is to make a longer firing pin.

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deerwhacker444 · Oct 26, 2017

Maybe a dumb question, but the firing pin is good, not cracked or broken?

Is there any possibility that it's been apart before and someone put the wrong pin in it?

Jon3830 · Oct 26, 2017

deerwhacker444 said:
Maybe a dumb question, but the firing pin is good, not cracked or broken?

Is there any possibility that it's been apart before and someone put the wrong pin in it?

The old firing pin broke a few years ago so I put a new one in it a few weeks ago.

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jbrentd · Oct 26, 2017

I have an old single shot JC Higgins 410 that had a similar issue. Here's the text from an old post on Shotgunworld that describes how I fixed it. I figure a copy/paste would be a lot easier than trying to remember the steps it took to fix it. Just thought I might share in case your shotgun has a similar design.

...I got to looking at the parts and how they all work. The shape of the mainspring plunger allows is to do two things. First, the top half pushes the hammer forward. Second, the bottom half pivots the hammer back as a part of the rebounding safety.

Not sure why, but in my case, the rebounding action was starting too soon...preventing the hammer from striking the firing pin hard enough. When I would cock the hammer, put my finger on the firing pin and pull the trigger, I would barely feel it against my finger.

So, I took a stone to the edge on the lower half in an attempt to remove some material and keep it from rebounding too soon. After putting it back together, I think it might actually work. When I dry fire the gun against the tip of my finger , I can definitely can feel it now and can also hear a much more audible metal on metal impact from the hammer hitting the firing pin. Hopefully, this is the last time I have to put that mainspring back in.

Jon3830 · Oct 28, 2017

The one on the left is my reload the one of the right is factory, the higher quality shells don't fire. If it's winchester it doesn't go boom all the other brands seem to work so far along with my reloads. The ones that don't work in this gun seem to work fine in my other guns, I even shot a win supreme double mag out of this dude and fired like it should. I'm starting to lean towards the win. Xpert shells just have hard primers.

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