My first time with the Lehigh conversion
 

I got my conversion in the mail yesterday and decided to give it a whirl.
It seemed different to be using 209 primers as I have been occupied with my Whites and older Knights and haven't used a 209 primer in almost two years. My poor disc elite was feeling neglected.
I think I am one of the last knight disc rifle shooters to get the conversion. The main reason I bought the conversion was to get away from the full plastic jackets. They are getting more expensive and harder to find locally. Also I might want to give the bh209 another try. I had good ignition with the fpjs but man the cleanup of the breech area was a bugger with that powder.
For this first time I used triple 7 2f powder and a W209 primer.
At first I was getting a bit frustrated because ignition was unreliable. Sometimes it took two strikes to set off a primer and a few of the primers never did go. It drives me nutz when I am shooting and I never know for sure if the gun will fire or not. This went on for the first seven or eight shots. Then I started being more aggressive with how I closed the bolt. This was easy because I was getting pi$$ed. Then the ignition got reliable. For the last dozen shots I had no ignition problems. I don't know if it was me being more aggressive in closing the bolt or if things were just getting broke in. Have any of you experienced this with your Lehigh conversions.
The breech area of my rifle stayed really clean. I never wrapped my scope and I was unable to find any powder residue on it. Accuracy was good as it always has been in the elite. I was pleasantly surprised at how easy it was to load a bare primer. I need to tinker with it some more. If I can be sure of the primers going off I will be really happy with this conversion.
Art

I never had any primers not go off with my conversion, and I shoot the Winchester W209 primers. Also I noted how clean things are.

[quote=flounder33;3797282]Sometimes it took two strikes to set off a primer and a few of the primers never did go. It drives me nutz when I am shooting and I never know for sure if the gun will fire or not. This went on for the first seven or eight shots. Then I started being more aggressive with how I closed the bolt. This was easy because I was getting pi$$ed. Then the ignition got reliable. For the last dozen shots I had no ignition problems. I don't know if it was me being more aggressive in closing the bolt or if things were just getting broke in. Have any of you experienced this with your Lehigh conversions.
Art[/quot

Normally but not always the problem when this occurs is tht the secondary safety has vibrated forward not allow the firing to fully extend. Turn the secondary safety all the way to the rear... tight. I actually put a dab or doo of bp grease on the threads to keep the safety from vibrating forward...

I thought of that Pete and I did check that. I am wondering if the manufacturing tolerances of my gun/bolt are a little extreme.

You could always tear the bolt apart and clean up the firing pin, make sure the knob is unscrewed all the way and test with just primers on the back deck.

The bolt and firing pin are spotless.

Alot talk about getting a crush fit using the Lehigh conversion and Win209's. Did it feel like a crush fit when you closed the bolt?

I am gonna be ticked if mine acts up when it arrives!!

The fit was plenty tight enough to prevent blowback but it was not difficult to close the bolt. I wonder if I need to find the right sized little washer to put in where the primer goes to make it stick out a little further and get smacked harder by the firing pin. I am not saying I'm not happy with the setup I just need to figure out how to make the ignition flawless. I think the difficulty is that not all the Knight rifles are the same.

I forgot to ask... were the primers going off?

If not what type of depression were you getting on the primer face.... Is there any evidence that the hammer was hitting the primer.

It would be awfull tough for the gun to be so far out of tolerance that the primer would not go off... it might be dirty but the primer should go off.

Other thoughts....

Put the gun together, but remove the primer adapter...

Close the bolt and drop the hammer, either by puling the trigger as you push the bolt handle down or just pull the trigger. You should now be able to look in the bolt opening and see the hammer protuding out of the bolt. It should almost but not quite go inside the column/primer pocket of the breech plug.

The other possible promblem.... remove the hammer assembly from the bolt... Follow the firing pin back to where it attaches to a inverted cone.... this cone must drop into a simular inverted cone in the fact of the breech plug for it to extend completely. Often this cone in the BP can become caked with carbon not allowing the hammer to drop all the way...

Just searching, but the chances of it being the BP are remote, it is possible it could be the vent liner if it is not clear and open...

Like I said just reaching for thoughts....

I have no problem saying that for you...

Now we just need to figure out why...

He is one more experimant that would tell me tons.... but go in the garage or outside to do it....

Remove the bolt.... remove the primer adapter... Insert a primer in the BP... keep the gun pointed down... Install the bolt without the primer adapter.... close the bolt and pull the trigger....

That should tell you a whole bunch right away... Nothin will happen except the primer going off and it will be a bit noisy.. and of course when you open the bolt and pull back the primer will stay in the BP until flick it out....

I would love to see a pic of the depression on the primer that would let me know a lot.... again assuming the problems you were having were because the primer was not goin off...

Let me know....

The problem is that when the primer is seated it is too far away from the firing pin. I get a slight indent but not enough of a blow to set it off every time. Maybe my gun is too clean or maybe when you wrap your breech plug with tape like you do it sticks out further.
Art

This should not be the case... if you are only getting a slight dimple it is the reach of the hammer... and also if you were to use a Knight BP it would not dimple at all as the Knight BP is shorter than a Lehigh.

Do you have another Knight bolt in the house you could try?

I will try to get a picture to show you what it might look like with out the adapter...

Give me a few minutes.....

There is no way to extend the reach of the hammer once the secondary safety is turned out as far as it goes.

Pete, if you look at my first post you will see that the last shots I had no problem. Maybe I was just too gentle at closing the bolt at first and I will have better luck kind of slamming it down. I'm a pretty gentle guy you know.

Well... mostly yes you are right, but you can by partially disassembling the hammer assembly... but I do not suggest that.

Actually I did read that and take note of it... but that only reinforced my thoughts about it being a bolt problem...

Do you have a second bolt in another gun?

I usually don't use tape or grease when shooting at the range. I don't think thats the problem.

Obviously the bolt needs to be all the way down. Now that you started watching that the problem could go away. And there always a chance the plug is wrong. And you could have a barrel that's threaded to deep. My LRH Elite is that way.

Grouse45

Tom confirm for me... even though your barrel was threaded to deep to keep the action clean, you were still able to shoot? correct? It would not seat in your BP causeing it to be dirty, but I still thought it shot???

Am I wrong?

Pete, thank you for sending the pictures, they were helpful in this discussion.
I went out to the shop. First I installed the breech plug and put a spent cap on it and fired. There was a little space, the safety did not quite bottom out. Not near as much leeway as on your mhc but that shouldn't matter as long as it didn't bottom out. I then removed the breech plug and reinstalled the bolt and dry fired. Again, the firing pin did not extend out as far as yours did, but it extends out far enough to do the job in my opinion.
I have come to the conclusion that by being too gentle in closing the bolt I wasn't seating the primer all the way into the breech plug and then part of the force of the hammer blow was spent seating the primer and then not enough force was left to fire the primer. Just like when a #11 cap does not go all the way on a nipple it can take the hammer one blow to seat it and then it goes off on the second strike.
Anyway, that's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Art

You might be right Grouse. Maybe when I was being gentle in closing the bolt I wasn't pushing the handle as far down as it can go. I will watch that in further testing.

I have to spend some time with the family tonight now that my son is home. Tomorrow I am going to mess with it some more. I will probably just fire primers because that is all that is necessary. It may have all been operator error on my part, Time will tell. I know this will work.
Art

Yes, it did fire.

flounder33

From your description, there might be one other possibility... the hammer assembly may not be turned all the way in... it could be out one revolution or out one thread????:confused:

I went out to the shop this morning and just fired primers. I closed the bolt gently, I closed the bolt hard. I tried 6 shots each with 3 different types of primers. The conversion worked flawlessly. As hard as I tried I could not get it to misfire. I don't know what happened yesterday, maybe my elite and the lehigh just had to get acquainted. All is well now.
Thanks for the help everybody, especially sabotloader.

I know it sounds odd but they do kinda need to run through a few cycles before they like each other. Mine only took about 12 primer tests and a little cleaning and reassembly for everything to work perfect in two of mine. One was my fault for not getting the breach plug tight enough. The other was fine after a total cleaning and reassembly.

BTW use caution in a crush fit, It is possible for it to go off during the crush, I haven't seen it often in a DISC but in a SAVAGE it is semi common if its too tight after a head spacing mod. My Extreme had a loose trigger assembly and it caused a few issues one day but its fine now.