When I got my conversion I had it set up for a bias towards extraction. I get about 1 in 10 rounds that doesn’t want to feed right. How do you ‘tune’ the extractors b the rim and feed smoothly? I understand that it might reduce extraction strength- making extraction with a dirty chamber or an unfired round more difficult. I figured it might smooth out, it it really hasn’t changed.
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Tuning 40x extractors
- Thread starter FromMyColdDeadHand
- Start date
The round feeds from below right?
And in order to be caught by the extractor onto the bolt face it needs to be lifted there.
On my Quad I softened the extractor corner from below.
Hard to explain. But take your bolt and try to feed it a round from below and you might encounter resistance.
And in order to be caught by the extractor onto the bolt face it needs to be lifted there.
On my Quad I softened the extractor corner from below.
Hard to explain. But take your bolt and try to feed it a round from below and you might encounter resistance.
jelrod did the conversions on my CMP 40X & 40XB actions, but then I barreled them after he sent them back to me. He explained that he'd done just the most basic tuning on the extractor & pusher, since there's really no way to final tune them until you've fitted a bbl to the action to test the feeding & extraction/ejection. I went too far with needle files on one or both of the extractors on these rifles (it's been several years ago & I don't recall for certain now) in an effort to get them to feed more smoothly, so had to buy new parts from Gun Parts Corp. and start over. Removing the extractor & pusher was a PITA on both these rifles, and after ruining the OEM parts, I tended to stop working on them once I'd gotten to the point where they'd feed reliably. Neither of mine ever fed quite as smoothly as my V-22s, but they extracted/ejected reliably, and the accuracy of both the bbls I did for the 40XB (Lilja titebore & Krieger) are as good as all three of my V-22s (two Kriegers I chambered& fitted, and a Bartlein on the 3rd V-22 purchased as a bbl'd action), so I feel that 40XB feeds smoothly enough to avoid damaging bullets. But, mine won't extract a loaded round, while all three of the V-22s will (unless it's SK Flatnose).
What are the keys to tuning the extractor? Is it mainly on the ‘hook’ side to smooth the bottom edge to facilitate the round coming up? Are the springs tweaked? How do you even get the extractors out?
Fortunately for me, Jonathan Elrod was patient & generous enough to spend the time on the phone with me to pretty well explain how to remove the extractor & pusher. You have to manage to wriggle a thin screwdriver blade (something like a jeweler's screwdriver) between the rear of the extractor & the spring-loaded plunger that pushes them forward. If you can get the blade on the tip of the plunger & push it back enough to create some clearance between the screwdriver blade and the rear of the extractor, then you can push the front tip of the extractor towards the center of the bolt (inwards, as it would have to move to put more pressure on the rim of a cartridge); if you've got enough clearance between the screwdriver blade & the rear of the extractor, it will pivot inward, and the 'foot' of the extractor will pivot out from the rear of the slot. If you pivot it out far enough, it'll fall free. I'll tell you in advance though that it's really easy to have the screwdriver blade slip off the tip of the plunger, and if it does, the plunger & spring will fly off for parts unknown - and good luck ever finding those tiny little parts if you let them get away from you....ask me how I know that. Best bet is to hold the bolt body in a good vise, with the bolt nose angled down, towards a soft backstop - like a wadded-up light colored bath towel - so when (not if) a plunger takes off, it'll land in the towel instead of ricocheting off across your shop. It's easier to put them back into the boltnose than it is to take 'em out, but you've still got to be extremely careful not to let whatever tool you're using to depress the plunger slip off the plunger. I bought a 4pc set of picks at the local auto parts store and used a couple of them to depress the plunger, as they're a lot easier to get into position behind the extractor than a screwdriver. Downside to using the picks is that they're sharp, and if you're not careful, you're liable to wind up poking a hole in your fingers with one. I got the K-Tool brand, set# KTI-70070. Maybe I'm over-emphasizing the difficulty of the job because I've got some arthritis in my fingers, and find it awkward, difficult, or sometimes darned near impossible to do some jobs involving small parts. But there's no question that working with removing & re-installing 40X extractor/pusher sets isn't exactly a piece of cake, even for a young whippersnapper with no physical impairments. V-22 parts are ever so much easier to remove & install, partially because VGW uses shorter springs with less tension than the original Rem 40X parts. At any rate, good luck!
As far as shaping the extractor & pusher, part of what's needed is a slight radius on the underside of each part where the cartridge rim slides up from the magazine. These parts were never designed to work in a repeater, keep that in mind. However, it's rather easy to go too far when trying to visualize the radius you need for smooth feeding (it's actually more like just breaking the sharp edge of the bottom of the parts), and if you go just a little too far, you've ruined the extractor, and will have to order in another one and start over - the same can happen when shaping the pusher. As difficult as it can be to remove these parts (see my previous reply), it discouraged me from taking a tiny little bit off at a time, then testing to see how it worked by re-installing them. Patience is a huge virtue when doing a job like this - it's very likely that you'll need to remove & reinstall them several times to get smooth feeding & reliable extraction/ejection. It would help if you've done this sort of work before, so if you're used to tuning a 1911 extractor, you would have a leg up on this job. I will say though, that after you've tackled the job of removing the extractor/pusher a time or two, at least you know what to expect. It doesn't really get a lot easier - you just learn by making mistakes how to avoid making the same mistake again. If you're like me though, you just find new ways to screw-up....lol Seriously, plan on removing & replacing these parts at least a couple of times, in order to get the rifle to feed smoothly and still have reliable extraction/ejection. Wish I had good before & after photos of the parts to post - that would prove the truth of the old saying that a good picture is worth a thousand words.
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Thanks! I was messing with the extractors in the plungers tonight luckily I wasn’t successful enough to get the extractor out of place and risk losing the plunger in spring.
Why don't people that take this kind of stuff apart do it INSIDE a clear plastic bag.
Learned that a long time ago after having a Gold Cup sear depressor spring depart and land on a brown carpet. Got lucky and found it after a couple hours. Ordered 2 spares, but never used them because I used a clear plastic bag after that. JMHO
Learned that a long time ago after having a Gold Cup sear depressor spring depart and land on a brown carpet. Got lucky and found it after a couple hours. Ordered 2 spares, but never used them because I used a clear plastic bag after that. JMHO
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Because I can only hold my breath for so long before I fog the inside of the bag, duh...
