Gman

Thanks, Tanker. The spring seems to be OK when compared to a new one I bought last year. However, while rotating the firing pin by hand and working it back and forth in the bolt, I did find some binding. I then checked the firing pin for run-out using a case gauging tool that I have. I found the forward half of the firing pin to be bent causing the pin itself to wobble about an eighth of an inch which caused the binding. I can only guess that this was caused by someone using high powered ammo instead of M2 ball - or maybe the pin is, in fact, too long. Using my bench vise to support the lower half of the firing pin I was able to straighten it out by hand. Run-out now measures zero. I'll try it out at the range tomorrow. Happy 4th to everyone. Semper Fi

I've reloaded for mine using various types of powders and 168gr. Hornady A-Max bullets. I have yet to match the accuracy of the HXP ammo I got from the CMP. My advice is to go Greek - HXP.

I experienced this with Ugly Betty two days ago. I went back to an old thread so we can keep all of the information together. Upon disassembly, I found that the firing pin ring (part #77A) which keeps the firing pin spring in place was loose and had slid backwards and jammed causing the firing pin to stay at its most forward position. I reassembled the bolt, firing pin, and locking cam with the fp against the stop. What I found was as the bolt is rotated by the locking cam the firing pin starts to protude from the bolt face. I'm sure this is what caused the second bang. I put the ring back into position and crimped it into place. Seems OK now. I hesitate to call this a slam fire as others have in similar cases because the bolt was closed and at least partially locked. In my opinion, a slam fire is one that occurs out of battery (Garand-read about it, M14-saw it happen). The way Mr. Johnson designed his action, this will not occur. I found that even with the firing pin held at its most forward position, it does not protude through the bolt face until the bolt is closed and is being locked into place by the locking cam. This underscores the importance of not shooting your rifle without the bolt stop in place. To quote from the Johnson instruction manual, Section II, paragraph 2e, ". . . By camming action of the firing pin stop, the firing pin is not in a position to strike the primer of the cartridge until the bolt is closed." BTW, I got the old gal down to under 1" MOA at 100 yards! She's a great shooter.

I've only been reloading for a few months and still learning - and there is a lot to learn. First, I have to agree that military brass is stronger than commercial. While trying to develop a good load for my Johnson earlier this year I was shooting different types of used military brass as well as some brand new Remington brass that I had full length resized (now I know better than to do that). The loads were the same in each: 46.4 gr IMR4895 behind a 168 gr Hornady AMAX. My groupings were not going well with the mil spec brass so I loaded a shiny new Remington. That was the last round I loaded that day. Oh, I forgot to mention that I was using my chrony at the time. Anyway, the last bullet went through the chrony at 2662 fps, the case tore apart in the middle leaving the front half in the chamber while the back half was jammed sideways by the bolt. Thankfully the bolt didn't cycle fully and try to jam another round into the chamber. That's how I learned about the importance of headspace and why you should resize your cases to fit your particular chamber. The lugs on this rifle had been hammered pretty badly (hunting loads?) so I had them cleaned up and polished by a gunsmith. He advised me that the headspace was right at the no-go point. One thing I was trying to accomplish was to see how much the brass stretched. This led to my purchase of an RCBS precision mic, p/n 88324. If you reload you probably should have one. For comparison purposes I have measured before and after firing some milsurp brass to see how much it grows. In this rifle, the brass I shot before the bolt was dressed grew about .006 on average. After the bolt was dressed the brass grew about .010 on average. That, coupled with my full length resizing caused the case to fail, in my opinion. I have since replaced the bolt with another that looked practically unused and my cases now grow only about .005 which is right in the middle of the ANSI specification. I've attached a couple of photos of the mic with loaded ammo inside to illustrate what many of you know already: some commercial ammo is headspaced a little short while military ammo is a little long. The Winchester round is about -.002 under the minimum ANSI spec of 2.0487" while the HXP is .002 over.

Now for the final chapter. I got Ugly Betty back together and took her to the range a couple of weeks ago. As I wanted to just check her out, I started on one of our short distance ranges - only 70 yards. Loaded and shot one at a time to she if she would cycle properly, then two or three at a time. It took about five rounds for her to clear her throat (had one short cycle with an FTF). After that, she performed flawlessly. I tried different brands of ammo and found that she is partial to the Greek HXP from the CMP. As I shot, the groups got smaller and the last five rounds surprised me. Especially coming from a nearly 70 year old rifle with iron sights using 37 year old ammunition and my old eyes. The 70 yard target is attached. I was at the range again last week but didn't have time to put a bunch of targets out so I decided to plink at the steel target we have set at 400 yards (I think it's about 36" square). So I set the sight to 400 meters to see how high it would shoot. The first shot - clang. I couldn't believe it so I shot 12 more - got 11 out of 12 hits. When I have more time, I'll set some paper out to see what kind of groups I can get at 400 yards. She may be pitted and ugly, but the old gal is a sweet shooter with a trigger pull smooth as butter.

Per the Johnson "Instruction Manual" you need to take care when removing locking cam from the bolt so that the firing pin stop doesn't drop out of the locking cam. "This can best be accomplished by keeping the cam and bolt assembly upside down during the operation." As noted above a clip was installed on later models. My A series doesn't have the clip but my B series does. See picture below.

Thanks, Gonzo. But that was not the worst of it. Although I couldn't see it at the time, the buffer tube assembly was rusted and would not compress due to rust. My first thought during disassembly of the rifle was that the main spring buffer tube screw was going to be a booger to get out since my other one took two days of effort using penetrating oil. As it turned out, the screw threads contained the only grease in the entire rifle. The screw came out so easily that I almost fell out of my chair. Here's what it looked like along with the spring:

Here's an update on the rifle if anyone is interested. I'll try posting some pix. This was an estate sale and the father had apparently stored this Johnson in his (damp) basement for 20 years rather than with the rest of his collection. From the pix posted on GB it didn't look too bad and if you stood 3 feet away, it looked OK. However, under bright light and up close it was quite a different story. The bottom line - do not store your guns in a basement. After scrubbing with quad 0 steel wool and wearing out a brass brush there was a lot of improvement but some rust was still visible. Due to all of the pits on the metal, I named her Ugly Betty. The good news is that the old gal doesn't seem to have seen much use. The bolt face still shows machine marks nearly all the way around and when I took the bolt out, inserted it into the barrel locking bushing and rotated it 20 degrees by hand, the bolt nearly locked up tight. So that made me eager to shoot her. Well, I got the parts I needed from Mr. Scott, put her back together, and took her to the range last week. Turns out that Ugly Betty is quite a shooter. So she is a beauty on the inside. After getting the barrel hot, I could see oil coming out of the pits left by the rust and as you can see in the 2nd picture the rust was beaten down but not out. My research led me to Brownell's Oxpho-Blue. I coated the barrel with that a couple of times and you can see the results in the last picture. This stuff is great. It eats the rust and coats the area with a phosphate based coating.

Thanks, Mr. Scott. I've been through the recoil tube about six times with a shotgun brush attached to my drill. Got most of the crud out - just see a little roughness in a couple of spots that need work. I'm using WD40 to clean/lube/flush as that's all we used on my M-14 when I was in the USMC. By the way, I mailed you a check today for the parts we discussed. Thanks to everyone for their advice. I'm using both the brass brush technique and the lubricated 0000 steel wool and the steel is cleaning up nicely - even changed the reciever from black to the greeninsh park that I thought was gone. The yellow numbers on the rear sight even re-appeared. The butt plate might be a lost cause as the rust is thick here. I've gone over it numerous times with only a small improvement. Gary

Thanks, Butch. NO naval jelly it is.

ArtR, That's interesting. I did not remember reading that the bolt catch was a later development. Thanks. This rifle's trigger group has the grooves for one and the bolt catch from my other rifle fits perfectly. By the way, this is an A series rifle. M48Tanker, I appreciate the info. I was already thinking about using some quad 0 but hadn't considered a lubricant. Regarding rust removal, I wonder if anyone has had any experience with naval jelly and if it would cause any harm. Looking at Wiki, it might be a good way to go. Gary

Well, M48Tanker, that was my second Johnson. I just couldn't help myself because it did look OK in the pix. However, it doesn't look as good close up. Apparently it was stored in a very damp location. In addition to light rust on the surface, the main spring was rusted into the tube and the butt plate is very rusty. I finally got the spring out and I'm working to restore the rifle to it's former glory. I've written an email to Mr. Scott to see if he has a replacement spring, magazine pin, and bolt catch assembly. Yes, someone had allowed the bolt catch to fall out and disappear! I haven't heard from him yet, so if anyone has a bolt catch, or extra pin, just name your price. Now for the good news. The bore has excellent rifling and the barrel fits more snugly than my other one. The bolt looks like it has seen little use and the locking lugs are nice and square with very little wear. Can't wait to get it back into firing condition and see how she shoots. By the way, great pictures. Your new wood looks purty. Gary

Hi Pete, I've also got a B prefix model and after re-centering the whole rear sight assembly my peep is still half way to the edge. Saw a video of a guy shooting his Johnson on YouTube and when he put his rifle down his sight was most of the way to the left. Maybe they all do it. Regards, Gary