Magazine feed trouble in Rom M69--FIXED!
This weekend I decided to do some work on my Romanian M1969 trainer. I shot it last weekend and it shoots quite well, but it has never fed from the magazine worth a darn. Read on for a long description of how I fixed the magazines to make them work in my rifle!
I mentioned before that when I got it, the whole barreled action was loose in the stock and I could feel it shifting while working the bolt. Never gonna shoot well that way, so I bedded the action (a couple weeks back). Yesterday I free floated the barrel forward of the chamber area (large diameter section).
I also looked into the feeding problems. I watched the feed area while carefull and slowly working the bolt. It was obvious that the magazines (one original and one Taiwanese) usually were not seating far enough into the rifle, so the bolt was overriding the top cartridge. I could see that the magazine catch was not actually touching the bottom of the mag's "stop bump" when the mag was physically into the gun as far as it would go. So if I slapped the mag in, it would generally stay "up" long enough for a round or two, but would inevitably slide back down. In addition, the Taiwanese mag's "stop bump" was too small to seat the magazine reliably at the same place each time.
My solution was to build up the BOTTOM side of both magazine's "stop bump" so that when the magazine was inserted fully into the gun the magazine catch would actually be touching the stop and helping to hold the mag up and into the gun. I considered using JB Weld for this repair, but thought it might wear to quickly under use (the mag catch would be riding over this addition each time it is inserted). Instead, I sanded off some of the black coating and soldered a lump of solder onto the bottom of the stop (and also on top of the stop on the Taiwanese mag to build it up). I then fit them exactly by filing the solder into a new shoulder for the mag catch to grab. Lastly, I filed away some of the top of the original mag's stop so it would go slightly farther into the gun.
Pic: original mag in foreground, Taiwanese in background
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Looks like hell, but in the shop it is working 100% now. Can't wait to try it at the range and see how that floated barrel shoots!
Rob
I mentioned before that when I got it, the whole barreled action was loose in the stock and I could feel it shifting while working the bolt. Never gonna shoot well that way, so I bedded the action (a couple weeks back). Yesterday I free floated the barrel forward of the chamber area (large diameter section).
I also looked into the feeding problems. I watched the feed area while carefull and slowly working the bolt. It was obvious that the magazines (one original and one Taiwanese) usually were not seating far enough into the rifle, so the bolt was overriding the top cartridge. I could see that the magazine catch was not actually touching the bottom of the mag's "stop bump" when the mag was physically into the gun as far as it would go. So if I slapped the mag in, it would generally stay "up" long enough for a round or two, but would inevitably slide back down. In addition, the Taiwanese mag's "stop bump" was too small to seat the magazine reliably at the same place each time.
My solution was to build up the BOTTOM side of both magazine's "stop bump" so that when the magazine was inserted fully into the gun the magazine catch would actually be touching the stop and helping to hold the mag up and into the gun. I considered using JB Weld for this repair, but thought it might wear to quickly under use (the mag catch would be riding over this addition each time it is inserted). Instead, I sanded off some of the black coating and soldered a lump of solder onto the bottom of the stop (and also on top of the stop on the Taiwanese mag to build it up). I then fit them exactly by filing the solder into a new shoulder for the mag catch to grab. Lastly, I filed away some of the top of the original mag's stop so it would go slightly farther into the gun.
Pic: original mag in foreground, Taiwanese in background
Looks like hell, but in the shop it is working 100% now. Can't wait to try it at the range and see how that floated barrel shoots!
Rob
