1900 shooter - update on the "shooting"
Over the last two weeks I've had the new, old girl out for several range sessions.
Each time, firing and ejection were fine, but re-chambering and toggle closure were problematic.
The toggle closure is an inherent problem of the leaf mainspring of the 1900. The leaf just cannot apply any "extra" margin of closing pressure by design, so anything that interferes causes a failure to chamber or close.
Potential trouble spots are the lubrication, chamber cleanliness, ammo sizing, magazine, and of course the leaf spring itself.
There are or were at least three variations of leaf spring, varying in leaf thickness. The spring is of two leaves with the hook at the top and the two leaves riveted together near the top; one leaf has a bent to engage the hook near the bottom of the frame. Leaf Thicknesses were in mm: 0.77, 0.9, and 1.0 (approx), in addition the 1902 carbine used an auxillary spring in the fore arm to aid closure.
After a good clean and lube, the problem persisted. So I changed springs, twice; the problem persisted.
You may recall that the breech block had been changed from the 1900 type to a 1908 type, so today I started looking at the toggle train for problems. The entire pistol is in fine tolerance, minimal friction , and smooth as can be; no obvious problems with friction or binding.
Study the mechanism some more, just not enough "pressure or pull" to close the toggle when stripping a round from the magazine. A full mag is worse, the last two rounds work fine.
Try more and different magazines, three types of ammo. Same problem.
Study more; ah-ha- light bulb goes off; 1900 has different S link(the 1900 link is shorter) than 08; but this toggle still has the 1900 toggle link- no there was need to change the S hook, but it "looks" the same as my P 08.
Pull out book, study some more, dang! the folks who changed/repaired the breech block and/or during refinish, they changed the hook!!!!
Find a 1900 hook, straighten it out, as it was pretty sadly warped; install- check closure.
Yes! Finally an assertive close. Ok, I need one more trip to the range to confirm, but I do think the piece is fixed now and as it should be.
So after one more test; I'll report again and post pictures of the difference in the "S" links!