browning – Fox’s Projects

[FIXED?] Browning BL-22 misfires

Next to some other issues that I have with my Browning BL22 is that it very often misfires. And after a lot of thinking, trial and error, I think I have found the issue.

Remember the post about the little plate that came loose? The misfires are related to this as far as I have been able to figure out. There is a locking block that locks itself via this little plate. (I think i see wear on that block as well). Since it looks like the original plate is hand-made, I think somewhere in the process, someone did a very sloppy job.

OBSERVATION: The bolt is not sitting snug in its place when a cartridge is loaded. This cause the hammer to push through the play first and with the little energy that is remaining, the firing pin is being hit. This is causing the rimfire cartridge not being struck hard enough and thus causes a misfire.

The original plate is 20mm long, 10mm wide and 2mm thick.

I decided to print a few plates in two different lengths, 21 and 22mm. I know the prints are not exact, but this is close enough. 22 mm was way too long and the lever would not close. 21 mm was too long as well, so I decided to sand it down, little by little. If your lever does not FULLY close, do not force it shut and fire a live round! Your bolt may NOT be locked!

Ignore the 20mm one, not sure why I printed that one!

Eventually, with A LOT of assembling and disassembling, trial and error, I found out that the plate should be 20.15mm long. The size may vary per rifle, so keep that in mind.

I colored the piece of metal to make the scribe lines better visible, started measuring and scribing. I then used my desktop belt sander to gradually sand it so size. It is not hard to do but do wear gloves as the plate will be hot.

Look how nice the new plate fits snugly into its place. I temporarily glued it in place and went to the range to see how the rifle behaved.

The first 5 shots went without any problem. The next 5 produced 1 misfire and the next 5 were almost all misfires. What the heck happened??

Well, what happened is that I underestimated how much force is put onto the bolt and I had not harden the new plate.

Look at that dent! I did not expect that to happen, but this also points out to never underestimate the force that is put on the bolt.

So what to do now? Well, make an exact new one and harden it! The latter will have to be done later. Enjoy the photos and once I have hardened the plate and tested everything, I will post a follow-up.

[FIXED] Browning BL-22 Bolt Fault

the inside of the action of a browning bl22 rifle. — The inside of the action of a browning bl22 rifle. The insert can be seen in the “roof” of the action.

It is the second time that I have to fix this issue where the trigger fails to release the hammer.

Symptom: The lever is not closing completely and then you cannot pull the trigger.
Cause: There is a small piece of steel in the “roof” of the action that has come loose and slides forward.
Fix: Fix the steel insert in its place, now with a much stronger adhesive. I used Loctite 648 this time.

Okay, first you need to make everything super clean and free of grease. Then you sand the slot with some fine sanding paper first as another cleaning step and then you use a coarser sanding paper to roughen up the surface.

looking inside the action housing of the browning, you can now see a thoroughly cleaned out slot where the insert goes into. — Look at how nice and clean that has become 🙂

Next, clean the insert thoroughly and use fine sanding paper first, then coarser paper.

this is the insert of the browning rifle that has come loose. when it does this, the lever will not close and you cannot pull the trigger. — The cleaned insert.

I chose for a stronger loctite this time, because I want to wait with more intrusive ways to affix this part. Have I noted that this part should never have come out in the first place? It’s not even noted in any parts list…

one can now see two green drops of loctite in the roof of the action housing. — Maybe this grade of Loctite is good enough. If not, then we go back to the drawing board.

There, all fitted together and now I will give it plenty time to dry and cure. Was briefly pondering about heating it up, but that’s a bit of a weird thing to do with glue as you can also often use heat to undo glued together parts.

and everything is now assembled again. the insert is now back in its place and will hopefully stay there — Will it stick?

I’ll go try it out tomorrow with some beefy ammo. I bought CCI EX Stingers that will yeet the nope with 1640 feet per second. If that breaks the glue bond, I’ll have to figure out another way to affix the insert.

Fixing an issue with my Browning BL22 (Lever not closing)

Update here: https://3xn.nl/projects/2024/08/01/fixed-browning-bl-22-bolt-fault/

After cleaning out my Browning BL22 and replacing some springs, I experienced an issue with the lever on a regular basis. I took it apart again, checked everything, only to have it re-appear again.

Then I noticed that a small plate in the roof of the rifle’s action housing had come loose. After some investigating, I deduced that this was a part that should not move around. Especially since I discovered that I could visibly see the plate when the issue occurred and by pushing it back, I could resume shooting. Another pointer was, that this particular part does not occur in any parts list.

The plate itself, which does not appear in a parts list.

This is how it looks when the plate has moved then then causes a lockup:

So I decided to use some Loctite 242 to lock the plate in place and now time will have to tell whether this works or not.