Anyone had this issue?

My Tikka all of a sudden started having light primer strikes. Plenty of flawless rounds through it before now with good dents on the primers. I'll add pictures of the primers later (cases are at home), but it looks just like what you'd expect a light primer strike to look like.

My questions:

- What is the silver piece in the first picture? Looks like it is a stop for the firing pin.
- What else could cause the firing pin to stop short? On the last picture, you can see how far the pin goes when the bolt is out of the gun. When the bolt is in the gun, the pin sticks out past the shroud just a few thousandths. To me, this looks like just about the right amount to cause the kind of strikes I'm seeing. But I'm not sure what's causing it other than possibly the firing pin stop having moved?
- Third picture is just showing how far the pin sticks out when the bolt is out of the gun and the pin is released to fire.

The silver thingy is your sear. I'd suggest dismantling that bolt and checking for gunk inside the bolt body and the front edge of the firing pin.

And the spring too.

I did that yesterday on this very bolt. I told Brad I've seen more than one Rem 700 pins and springs covered in grease, which attracts dirt, and makes a nasty paste. This pin and spring were barely dirty, and still had a light coat of oil on them.

They are CCI 400 primers, also, so a good primer for sure.

The light primer struck primers looked to be flush with the case head, so they're not in too deep.

I was stumped with it yesterday, as well.

Same ammo or different ammo. factory or reloads? Short ammo can cause light primer strikes.

CCI 400 are a good primer and not as thick a cup as some of the other choices.

Just sayin it might not be the gun

thought a little more since it is CCI 400 primers I guess reloads. Still could be ammo on the sizing, doubtful but could be. Primers not seated fully can cause light strikes as the primer is seated by the firing pin but nor enough energy to seat the primer and dent it.

Well if that's the sear, then it can't be what's stopping the pin from full forward motion.

I don't believe it's a headspace issue. I took some of my fireformed brass that had good dents in the primers and loaded new primers and it was a little tough to close the bolt and the primers fired but still had fairly weak impacts (but a little better than the FL-sized brass I was trying to shoot with, as expected). So it definitely seems like the headspace is the same, but something is keeping the pin from going all the way forward. My only concern is that I have about 400 rounds of ammo loaded up for this gun and if they start messing with headspace, I'm worried it might affect how the gun shoots those loads. FWIW, it did this with both my loads and Chad's loads and has shot fine with both until now.

Last night, I sprayed the bolt with brake clean and worked the spring and still no improvement. It was hard to see down inside the bolt in detail, but I didn't see anything that would cause the pin to hang up.

I called Beretta today and they said a 2-week turnaround time and they'd have it fixed up for me, but I was hoping to have it fixed on my end without them messing with it if possible because I don't want them to render my 400 rounds of ammo useless. But if that's what has to happen, then at least it sounds like it would be quick.

It was reloads. Some of Chad's and some of mine. Both shot great in the gun until yesterday.

The one big win yesterday was getting my daughter out on the range with her new stock for the 10/22. I got the ATI folding/collapsible stock because all of the factory stocks are much too big, and this one really fits her well. She was loving it. Even with the Tikka issues, it made the day worthwhile to see the smile on her face and listen to her tell my wife how much fun she had.

Forgot to mention that Jason pulled it apart yesterday and we couldn't find any grease/gunk/etc. Nice to know how easy it was to pull the tikka bolt apart.

Bad/weak spring?

I don't know anything about thw Tika trigger, but on some triggers an overtravel adjustment set too tight can cause the sear to fall sluggishly. If you've fiddled with an overtravel adjustment, it might be the cause.

I don't believe Tikka has an overtravel adjustment. If they do, I haven't knowingly messed with mine.

Certainly possible...unfortunately not fixable by me.

Could the firing pin be dragging on the rear guard screw?

Good question - I'll check on that tonight.

Looked over the bolt yesterday assuming the problem was there, but I'm going to take the action apart tonight before I go to the trouble of sending it in.

Brad, check to see if your rear action screw is dragging on the bolt. On that bolt, that square back part of the firing pin contacts the rear action screw. I have had to sand some off of those back screws before.

That would make sense. This was the first time I've shot it since re-assembling and it could be that I over-torqued it and just pushed the screw in a hair too far. I think I was using 50-60 in-lbs as a torque range (screwdriver set to 55) if I remember right.

Should be easy to tell. I'll just take the action out of the gun and see if I can tell a difference in how far the pin goes up under the back of the shroud. It's a pretty obvious difference between this one and my CTR.

You could just turn the rear guard screw back out a quarter of half turn and see if the peoblem goes away.

I torque action screws to 65 in/lbs in synthetic stocks. You're on the right track, but like I said, the screw might be pushing on the bolt. Sanding disc on a grinder will remove a little at a time.

Thanks guys. I'll provide an update when I get home here in a bit.

No dice after backing off the rear action screw.

I’m gonna take my CTR outside and try to compare tonight after the kids go to bed, but if I still can’t figure it out then it’s going back to Beretta tomorrow.

I can suggest ONE MORE check. Use something like the eraser end of a pencil and press down on the sear and keep pressure on it, and pull the trigger. The sear should fall freely and with no binding. If the sear falls easily then I'm all outa guesses.

Well things have gotten weirder. When I said “no dice” earlier, I had just backed out the action screw until it was past flush. Later, when I pulled the action out entirely, the firing pin was fully firing. Ran 3 primed cases through and all of them fired and primers looked great. As soon as I put the action, back in the stock, it stopped working. Then when I pulled it back out, the bolt got really hard to raise after firing. Feels like it’s binding against something. And now it doesn’t seem like there is anything I can do to fix the binding and the firing pin still short strikes when the action is in the stock. Really odd.

My CTR bolt short strikes when it’s in the Varmint action/stock too.

I've had to do some file work, inside McMillan and Manners stocks to get things to clear. It wouldn't surprise me if a file might solve your problem. The trick is where is the problem area?