Extractor digs into bullet when loading, HELP!

[Walter]

Hello all,

I have a newly acquired Armi Sport Spencer carbine in .45 Colt. I am new to the Spencer so I am not familiar with the mechanism. The problem I seem to be having is when I attempt to chamber a round the extractor digs into the nose and/or side of the bullet shearing off a sizable piece of lead. I have to be aggressive with the lever to get it to chamber the round. I use ammo that is of the same size as the solid aluminum dummy rounds sent by Armi Sport with the rifle. Is the extractor suppose to be in the way? If so might the problem be caused a too sharp an edge on the extractor? I have used two types of bullets, one that is quite flat and one that is some what flat. Also the aluminum dummy rounds sent with carbine hang up as mentioned. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Walter

[Herbert]

This is more likely caused by the leading edge of the upper  block cutting into the lead.If you slitly round the sharp edge off this should fix the problem

[Walter]

Thanks Herbert, but I can actually see the extractor cutting into the lead.

[Herbert]

If your Spencer has the Lane type extractor it should not dig into the lead as it acts as a cartridge stop to only alow one cartridge at a time to move forward ,if it is diging into the bullet the extractor will need reshaping slitley,if it is the early AP Spencer twin extractor type, the right hand extractor needs a bevell on the leading edge.My 44 Russian carbine had this trouble when I first got it ,putting a bevell on the extractor was part of the fix.How hard are the bullets you are using,very soft lead can be a problem somtimes

[Walter]

Herbert, I do have the Lane extractor. I did remove the sharp edges. Not much help. Extractor is made of very soft metal. The lead used in the bullets was cast from wheel weight lead. Jamming isn't caused by the extractor alone as sometimes it jams without touching the extractor. Also, when the cartridges come out of the magazine they veer to the right and rest on the right side of the extractor. I don't know if this would cause any problems or not.

[Herbert]

Have you rounded of the sharp edge of the upper block ,to me this seems to be the problem(when the block is closed it should slide over the folowing cartridge and push it back into the magizine without marking it)I have never worked on the 45 colt Spencer but the couple of 44-40s I worked on did benifit from slitly lowering the height of the cam

[Walter]

I did slightly round the upper edge of the block and it seems to have helped some.

[Sgt. John McAfferty]

Howdy Walter,

I had the same problem in my new Spencer 44-40.  I noticed and fixed a couple of things.  First the magazine follower was sticking slightly, so I removed it and took a small burr off the follower.  Second, EVERY screw on the rifle was loose.  I took everything apart, lubed it with Ballistol and then, using blue locktie, screwed everything down tightly.  This solved the problem.

One more thing - when you lever the Spencer you have to use force.  If the lever is moved at all gently, the round will hang up and the extractor will bite into it.  I'm not saying to try to take it apart, but there is much more force required to make everything work properly.  I learned this by trial and error.  Spencers are not Winchesters.

Just my .02.  Good Luck!

Sgt. John

[Jobe Holiday]

Even on an original Spencer you have to work the action very quickly or you will experience the same problems.

J.

[Herbert]

With the right cartridge OAL and every thing properly shaped and de bured my Spencer feeds smooth slow or fast,you can hardly tell you are chambering a cartridge.I did this by copying the shape of a original Spencer cam and re shaping the Lane type extractor so the rifle could handle a longer cartridge OAL of 1.65 inches

[.56/50 Iron]

Good evening!  I finally got back here after a long absence and am catching up on the reading. I posted a lot about the problems I had getting my replica .56/50 Spencer carbine functioning and the jamming of the ammunition during the loading cycle took some time to figure out. In the end, it all came down to bullet hardness. Pure lead is a waste of time. Wheelweight metal works sometime but is generally also a waste of time. Linotype or metal of similar hardness turns the tuned up little Spencer into a lightining fast carbine! All the little tweaks that were suggested in this thread I tried and in the end they all helped, but man, its the bullet metal. Use hard metal. I did hours of research on the cartridge and nowhere did I find any comment on the bullet hardness. I would assume that they were soft metal as most of the Civil War government slugs were swaged to form as that was the only way quantities of bullets could be made. Squeeze them to shape and that took soft metal.
If you look way back in the archives you probably can find my work. Got a lot of help from the fellows here. There is a fellow in Austalia (Herbert?) who probably remembers what I did as his comments guided some of the things I was doing. I will check back
.56/50 iron

[Two Flints]

Hello SSS,

The easiest way to read 56/50 Iron's posts on his Spencer feeding problems is to click on his alias, which will take you to his profile page.  Scroll down to the bottom of the page and click on Show the last posts of this person and this will take you to his many post regarding the bullet and feeding problems he is making reference to in this thread 

Two Flints