Help with Buckmark fail to fire - light strikes

[BruinGuy]

Any Buckmark experts here? My Buckmark Camper is experiencing frequent failures to fire and the cause is clearly light strikes. I've tried multiple types of ammunition so it's not ammo specific.

The buffer still looks okay, so what are the thoughts on making it reliable again? Replace the buffer, or the firing pin, the spring, or should I just replace the whole captured assembly?

I appreciate any help from my fellow Buckmark owners...

[Izzy43]

Any Buckmark experts here? My Buckmark Camper is experiencing frequent failures to fire and the cause is clearly light strikes. I've tried multiple types of ammunition so it's not ammo specific.

The buffer still looks okay, so what are the thoughts on making it reliable again? Replace the buffer, or the firing pin, the spring, or should I just replace the whole captured assembly?

I appreciate any help from my fellow Buckmark owners...

I am not a BuckMark owner but light strikes are light strikes in any firearm.

1. Be sure the action is clean, in this case the area where the firing pin resides and lightly oiled.
2. Is firing pin bent, damaged, burrs or worn?
3. Depending on how many rounds have been thru the gun, the spring could be weakened.

If cleaning/lubrication doesn't fix it then I would replace both the spring and firing pin.

[tal3nt]

^^^^^yup. Inspect the parts. If nothing looks broken, replace the spring.

[Manolito]

How is the head space?

[pennys dad]

check for a bent/kinked spring, also make sure there is no goo on the pin

[Wolfhound9k]

start with a thorough cleaning... sometimes gunk can cause the striker to not hit cleanly and you'll have light strikes

[ojisan]

Assuming (ahem!) everything is clean and nothing is broken, replace the plastic block that pushes the recoil spring back.
It also holds down the front of the firing pin.

[BruinGuy]

Thanks for all the input. When it started having problems, I gave it a very thorough cleaning and brushed the chamber well, since I'd read that could be a problem. It passes the "plop" test (rounds drop in and fall out of the chamber freely). I cleaned the opening for the firing pin with a brush, and the firing pin looks okay (it's not chipped or deformed), but I didn't take the captured assembly apart. Head space should be fine, since it was working fine and only recently started having issues, and all the screws are tight so nothing is backing out.

It seems from what everyone is saying is that it could be gunk in the firing pin assembly (I have put a few thousand rounds through it) or the firing pin spring, or the pin itself (it could be worn down) or even the plastic assembly. I think I'll start by trying to taking apart the firing pin assembly and cleaning it out. If that doesn't solve the issue, since these parts are relatively cheap I think I'll try to replace them one by one and see if that solves the issue.

Thanks for the input everyone - when I get it running smoothly again I'll report back!

[TACCOM3G]

New gun? Old gun?

Pull the firing pin out....it may be broken. I have a Buck Mark that is 20 years old.....LOTS of rounds thru it and it started to get FTF's.....the firing pin had given up. I got a new one from MidwayUSA (as well as a bunch of other misc. spare parts for it) and she's running good now.

Tim

[Bastard]

are you using the stock barrel, specifically do you have a tactical solutions barrel on it?

in MYexperience with MY Buckmark the light strikes are usually attributed to that top strap coming loose. if the front screw comes loose the whole assembly will ride high and just barley nick the top of the round, not enough to make fire.

there are tricks for making sure that those screws don't come loose.
(plumbers tape & blue loctite)