Original Spencer Feeding Problem

[G.W. Strong]

I am trying to get my original 1860/65 in 56/50 to feed reliably. I put one round in the tube and it feeds and extracts perfectly. The second I put a second one in it does not work. It appears the round behind it pushed the first round off center and it will not load. That may be my imagination. I am open to your thoughts.

[Herbert]

1873 ?.In original Spencers it is OAL cartridge lenth +bullet shape or a week or broken cartridge guide spring that can cause feeding problems

[G.W. Strong]

Sorry I mistyped  the 1873. It is an 1860 updated to 1865 configuration. I corrected it above.

[Eggman]

Yo George,
I have a reconditioned "hard core" Spencer with lots of replacement internal parts, I believe like yours. I also have struggled with feeding since beginning to shoot it in team matches the last two years. In the case of my gun, reliable feeding was attained using only 4 (four) cartridges - five or more being very dicey. When I load I point the muzzle up 45 degrees and use a continuous loading motion. The reliability was attained making the overall cartridge length 1.62". It would frequently hang up, the upper block lodging against the inside rear of the case being loaded at the longer length. Going any shorter you risk the forward edge of the upper block lodging against the nose of the following cartridge. Here are a few other possible fixes--
-- round the forward edge of the upper block slightly so it slides off the nose the the following round better (your stubby nose cartridge is likely not as well sloped as the originals were) (I did this).
-- Make sure the entire nose of your cartridges are well greased and slippery (I do this).
-- Use a harder lead so that the upper block does not bite into and catch on the nose of the following cartridge.
There are numerous other posts on this subject for you to check out. Good luck!

[Herbert]

Another problem that can pop up with replacment upper blocks is that the do not fit squar to the lower block,this is caused by the mortice for the leaver in the stem of the upper block not being square to the block,siple fix is to square it up with a file( the upper block shouls be able to rotate slitly to each side of the lower block when the action is compleet but out of the frame)if this is not the case the leeding edge of the upper block can become tight in the frame on the down stroke of the leaver and dig into the frame on the up-stroke causing jams (I have had this happen with old S&S center fire blocks so much that I atomaticley square the mortice before instaling the blocks(all but one needed filing)

[Snidervolley]

i ma currantly having the same problem (my loaded bullets have been jamming and it is leaving the gouge from block on the bullet nose / i must have made these shorter than last batch as i didnt have this problem before? hmmm ? maybe i spced out thinking 1.60 total length
ill have to check into it

[G.W. Strong]

Last night I made a bunch of different cases of different lengths. I found the cases approaching 1.7 inches Feed really quite well in my particular gun. These cases are longer than any I have used previously which all jam. Today I will make some longer cases still and try to determine an appropriate length for my Brass

[Eggman]

GOOD WORK GW!!!!!!