Today, I took the FG42 out to the range for the first time this year. As with each of the previous four range trips, I took 100 rounds to put through the rifle. So far, I had yet to actually get 100 rounds through it without something going wrong. Well, today, I came the closest yet with 99 out of 100. I had one failure to extract but the bolt cycled and tried to load a live round into the back of the spent casing still in the chamber. The live one was destroyed (we'll see it in a bit) and the rifle jammed of course. I removed the magazine, pulled and held the bolt to the rear, dumped out the live round and eased the bolt closed onto the spent casing in the chamber. The rifle locked up too tight to charge by hand but placing the charging handle on the edge of the table and pushing lightly unlocked the action and the spent casing was extracted. So, I had 99% reliability this time. That's acceptable to me. Less acceptable to me is the fact that the rifle is still locking up once warm if I let the bolt close (as in easing it, not letting it fly) on an empty chamber. However, today it wasn't nearly as bad as earlier trips. Maybe it's wearing in. I haven't sent it back to SMG to address this problem because I'm testing it. I want to see whether it will self correct or not. If it's still locking up, however slightly, when I finish my tests at 1000 rounds, I will be sending it back to SMG in an effort to see what can be done. So, to date, I'm at 396 rounds fired. Today was also the first time out with the new and 5 Rockwell points harder sear. The trigger pull is still very long and heavy but it's smooth. There are marks on it after 99 rounds but I don't feel any ratcheting so they may just be normal metal to metal marks. More rounds will tell the tale. Time for some pictures.
After the range but before I started ripping things apart:
I fired 38 of the first 40 rounds at an actual target. One of the 40 was the previously mentioned jam and one was at an object in the berm (I like shooting dirt). Of the remaining 60 rounds, 20 were fired at stuff in the berm by a friend who happened to show up and the other 40 were fired by me....again at stuff in the berm. It's no target rifle but then I never expected it to be:
A better trigger would help. I better shooter behind the trigger would help too!
Here are what 9 random spent casings and the destroyed round ended up looking like:
All 99 rounds were 1969 dated Portugese FNM surplus. It's considered to be the best 8mm surplus ever imported. Almost all cases ejected consistently at about 45 degrees and landed about 9-10 feet away.
The blue locktite on the scope rings is holding just fine as is evidenced by the screw heads still aligning with the pencil index marks:
So I might have that problem solved.
As usual, we'll be looking at wear areas so that we can see the ongoing progression from new to 1000 rounds. But this time, I also took some pictures of stuff dirty and after cleaning so that you can see what to expect fouling wise after a range trip.
We'll start with the muzzle dirty:
After cleaning:
The gas block and piston fouled:
I didn't take pictures of them clean...oops!
The bolt and carrier removed prior to disassembly and cleaning:
These next few pictures show you how much the grease spreads around but on the parts it's been applied to but doesn't sling around all over the place:
Firing pin yoke. Notice the small piece of brass from a spent casing stuck in the grease:
Locking lug:
Other locking lug:
Bolt face:
Firing spring guide and other side of firing pin yoke:
Disassembled showing firing spring, firing pin, firing spring guide, and yoke area of bolt carrier:
And after cleaning:
Inside of bolt:
Inside of bolt after cleaning :
Normal wear in cam slot. The darker grey looking area is actually bright bare metal but the lighting makes it look dark:
Wear areas on firing pin yoke. Front left:
Right rear:
As noted in earlier posts, SMG says that this is perfectly normal.
Firing pin and firing spring guide. They're finally starting to look nice and worn in:
Rifling for no other reason than I haven't shown it before:
Breech/trunnion area dirty. This also shows some wear on the sear after only 99 rounds. Again, the trigger isn't ratchety so I'm not worried about that yet:
After cleaning:
You have to periodically clean the breach and trunnion because the bolt lug locking recesses are up in there and it gets funky but it's almost impossible to get to because it's up in there deep. What I do is CAREFULLY spray some Brake Cleaner in there and flush all the gunk down the barrel. USE THE LONG STRAW ATTACHMENT so that you are squirting a stream rather than a mist and go with small bursts. You don't want to get that stuff on the wood because it will strip the finish right off on contact. The Brake Cleaner liquefies the grease and lifts the carbon fouling too. After you are satisfied that it's clean enough, dab a cotton rag down in there to soak up any remaining Brake Cleaner. This method of cleaning the quick, easy and effective.
About grease. I've posted it before but I'm posting it again. I use Swiss Automatenfett. It comes in little plastic tubes with a screw lid and a brush in the lid. It came in the dirt cheap (as in cost NOT Quality) surplus Swiss cleaning kits for the STG57 that were all over the place just a few years ago and can still be easily found with minimal searching. This stuff is absolutely top notch Quality (it's Swiss so of courst it's the best) and just a little bit of the stuff goes a long way. I have a lifetime supply and love it. It doesn't break down with age or use and it stays where you put it. Here's what it looks like:
I use it on lots of firearms, not just the FG42. Get some....you will NOT regret it.
Last are a couple more shots of the sear:
You can clearly see marks in the middle of the face but it's smooth (heavy but smooth) so far. I really do hope it holds up. If this one doesn't, I will send the rifle back to SMG prior to 1000 rounds to see what they can do. I can live with the locking issue until 1000 rounds but a scratchy ratcheting trigger is a deal breaker for me. I'm not spending 75 cents per round if I can't enjoy doing it. We'll see.
That's it for today's range trip. I'm hopeful..........
See you soon.