Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Gunsmithing Help with extractor

I barreled a rifle for a friend, an obscure European
single shot with an extractor designed for a rimmed cartridge well we went rimless and the extractor is giving me fits.
It simply pivots on a pin so I removed as much as i could so it will load not easy mid you and once fired the case swells above the web as it should it will not slide by the extractor
Hoping for ideas please

Interesting- I just shelved a Valkyrie/99 project for a totally different reason. My first thought on this one, which appears to be purely kinematic, is to create some slop and spring load against it. I don't see any way to cam or link it to drop at the end of its rearward travel. Raising its pivot point and moving it forward could accomplish the same effect, but that luxury seldom exists once the arm has left the drawing board.

A side view of the extractor might trigger additional ideas if you have not already reinstalled it.

sam

I’d probably build another extractor in case it didn’t work out.
But I’d built one with clearance for the body and a spring loaded plunger with a chisel shaped end inset into the bottom of the radius.

I’m trying to recall but I know another single shot used that system for rimless cartridges.

It would probably take some fiddling with angles and engagement depth on the plunger but with a little time I bet you could get it working.

You're gonna have to remake that extractor. You have abunch of filing to do.
Either that or figger out how to make some .224 Valkyrie brass grow a rim.

That pre-war Weirauch action was designed completely for low pressure rimmed cartridges such as 8.15x46R for example. Is the steel up to snuff for containing a high pressure cartridge like the Valkyrie? Dunno, but I've read less than encouraging comments in the single shot hive over the years calling that into question.

That extractor is not unlike an old Martini extractor, all of which also were intended for rimmed cartridges too. (Personally I would've religiously stuck with a rimmed cartridge. The "customer isn't always right!") But what's done is done and how to make it work.

There was a guy named Bob Snapp who made a specialty out of converting Martini rimmed extractors to function with rimless cases. He's gone from the scene but his stuff is out there - maybe Google can scare up some images? Essentially he removed the "rim snagging" portion of the extractor and milled the back face of the extractor to accept a thin slider that was spring loaded and contoured/fitted to fit neatly into the case rim. (A thin mortise must be cut to contain the slider that only allows it to move vertically and not fall away.) When closing, the slider was forced down out of the way as the cartridge was seated and the breech block closed, and when everything was in battery the slider was pushed up by its spring to seat neatly into the case groove. Opening the action, the extractor pivoted back (with the slider still firmly in the rimless groove) taking the empty with it. Removal by hand of the empty case, and insertion of a fresh round too, forced the spring loaded slide down out of the way - it was only when everything was in alignment and being closed up that the extractor slide snapped into the groove.

You have to strike a fine balance for the spring pressure - strong enough to keep the extractor firmly in the case's groove while all the work is being done, yet soft enough that finger pressure can easily overcome it when inserting or plucking out a cartridge.

The rimless extractor on Miroku Browning/Winchester single shots is a similar concept too, if you can lay your hands on one to examine.

Other single shot designers solved the problem by using simple hook extractors fitted at the side of the chamber that had a cam operated pivoting motion to position the hook into a rimless case groove. Still others employed hook extractors made of spring steel that snapped over the rim and into the groove. The Ruger #1 extracto is kind of a blend of that.

At the end of the day there's a reason single shots were darned near entirely all chambered for rimmed cartridges in the pre-war era....