Wow, it's been a long time since I've posted in the forums!
I have an old Star Lancer .22 LR pistol that I acquired back when I was in the Air Force, stationed at Cannon AFB in Clovis, NM. That was over 50 years ago!
Myself and several other friends would go almost every weekend to an old, dried-up riverbed to shoot up a few boxes of .22 LR. This old gun has had THOUSANDS of rounds through it.
My wife has several .22 handguns of her own, including a Ruger MK-IV, and a Heritage Single-Action revolver, but we both still enjoy firing this old relic.
About a month ago, I had it at the range, and halfway through about the 4th or 5th magazine, it just quit going, "Bang!" After a few times of manually re-cocking the hammer, I ejected the round, and found NO strikes on the rim! I removed the slide and manually pushed on the back of the firing pin, and nothing was coming through the breech face. I surmised that the firing pin had broken. When I arrived home, I took the slide apart and confirmed my suspicions. The front part of the pin that strikes the rim, was broken off. This is a picture of the old firing pin...
My wife can't stand for any of our guns to be out of commission, so she kept after me to get a new firing pin and fix the Star. I found several places on the net that listed the firing pin for the Star Lancer, but they were all, "Out of Stock!" except for one - Bob's Gun Shop. I ordered one from him, and it shipped the very next day, and I had it three days later.
Yesterday I tried to put the new firing pin in the slide, but I was unable to get the retaining pin in all the way. It would go in just a little, then bind on the bottom of the groove of the new firing pin. Nothing would move. When I tried putting the old firing pin back in, the retaining pin went all the way in, and the firing pin moved freely. I checked the measurement between the two arrows pictured above, and found the old one measured .0855 in, and the new one measured .1127 in. That explains why the retaining pin wouldn't go in all the way.
I took out the Dremel and used a very small carbide burr, and ever so gently took very light scraping cuts in the bottom of the cutout. Measuring after every cut, I tried to insert it when I reached .0978 in, and the pin went in just fine and the firing pin moved freely. After completely reassembling the slide, I loaded up a magazine with 7 rounds. Outside in the back yard, 7 shots fired flawlessly!
I'm very happy with the new firing pin, and the pistol is 100% fully operational again!
Life is good!
Hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving...
Harold