Thanks for the update Tony.
You know me.....these things lead me to questions and I have two regarding working with the 1/2 moon pin. Should you not wish to answer, I understand.
In talking with a couple qualified folks everybody understands they require more spring. Any thoughts, generally, how much more you ended up at ?
Lastly, have you seen improvement to go with any ?
I would love to answer your questions with an answer I felt comfortable offering. But the truth is I can't.
When I started messing with these crescent shaped pins I ground the shape by hand. Which is another way of saying no two were exactly alike.
I used springs Tim Miller and I bought from a spring maker in Kentucky. They are the same thickness as the Pepper springs and start out 2.300 long.
After about three days of being installed in the bolt they are about 2.180 long.
Pepper springs don't seem to lose so much length so fast.
These springs would give me fail to fires about 1 time out of 10. To fix this I added spacers about .080 thick to the spring.
I shot the rifle that way for awhile and really saw no real improvement.
Then Di Orio came out with his crescent pins. They were EDM machined therefore very uniform. Of course I had to have them. He installed them in my bolts and I was off to the races.
Well I thought, I started getting FTFs and once again I added spacers. This took awhile but I finally got them to working. But again, I saw no real improvement.
Then Di Orio received his new springs that was to cure the FTF problem. I finally got one and installed it.
Feeling really good about the whole thing and not having time to really test I headed to a big match and immediately had case head penetration's.
Firing pin went straight through the case head and black crap filled my chamber causing havoc with accuracy. Not to mention cleaning.
Next target I went to my back up rifle which had the same setup. About the third shot penetrated the case head just like before.
Not too happy on the ride home. Back to the drawing board. I went back to my old springs and used spacers of different thicknesses to fix the problem.
I didn't mention changing the firing pin fall. I did that too but it messed up my trigger function/feel.
So I put the trigger back in time and those problems went away.
Yes, a hell of a lot of trouble, and no I can't honestly say it has paid off. But at this point the rifles are shooting and I ain't going back.
TKH