Bad gun bought on Gun Broker

[Joseph Scott 0]

I was sent a barrel and bolt from a gun bought on GB. It does not extract and cycle. I found that the bolt had a Remington 8 operating handle installed, the lugs had been heavily battered due to only engaging on 1/2 of the lug faces. Also the metal cam behind the front roller was deformed and preventing the roller from turning. Firing pin spring was incorrect(too heavy) and the collar was loose, out of place. The chamber is pitted and cases stick even with a good bolt. The sales pitch was that it worked fine. Buyer can not get satisfaction from seller and GB could only cancel his account. After much work, I repaired bolt and it works with a good barrel. However the barrel chamber has many fine pits which I have not been able to hone out yet.

I have seen several guns with Remington handles installed but never examined one. The Remington engaging pin is not centered and has been ground on one side to make it go into the hole. I am not sure if this is why the bolt didn't close 100% and battered the lugs. If you see such a handle installed, examine the bolt rear faces carefully and test fire a new gun ASAP, so as to return it immmediately. Oh yea, front sight is filed down excessively. In my opinion, internet auctions are not a good place to buy a Johnson (or any gun).

Different problem is a operating handle which had so much Loctite installed to hold in the disc that it froze the center pin. Hope these comments help our general knowledge of Johnsons.

[Black Tom 0]

Guys,I have a Rem. model 8 and a JSAR. The operating, or bolt, handles on each are similiar but not identical.

The handle on the model 8 is 5/8" in length and on the JSAR it's 3/4" in length.

These measurements were made with a ruler and actual micrometer measurements would be different, but they're close enough for govt. work.

HTH,

B.T.

[sinker4 0]

Any pictures of the bad gun from the Gun Broker add. This person will be selling on other sites and should be on a watch list.

[Joseph Scott 0]

I don't know the name of GB seller. I have seen lots of Johnson's for sale that the seller knows nothing about and probably bought it just to resell. He may have just repeated condition statement from whomever first sold it.

I finally figured out what hammered the bolt. The Remington handle lets the bolt rotate too much, so much that only 1/2 of lugs engaged. It also hammered the metal next to the front roller and stopped rotation. I got the barrel to work with another bolt but not with the one I tried to repair. In my opinion, a Remington operating handle should NEVER be used on a Johnson.

[M48TANKER 0]

Does anyone remember this "bad" Johnson....I definitely don't want to buy it. M48TANKER

[roverboy 0]

I remember one Johnson On GB that had a wierd filed sight. Its probably not the same one though. I do remember seeing one on there that had the rear sight turned backwards. It was also drilled and tapped. Oh and it was at the top of the price heap too.

[Barry in IN 0]

Thanks for pointing this out. As many times as I've seen Remington Model 8s, I never thought about how similar the bolt handle looked. But now that it's been brought up, they sure do look alike and I could see that one could be passed off as being for a Johnson or maybe even legitimately confused.