John B sent me a donor bolt, hammer and firing pin and I have ignition again. It doesn't use inertia and I don't know why it didn't occur to me but if it round can drive the bolt and hammer back it can certainly start by driving the firing pin back. Paul was right, my extractor was broke. Looking a a picture at Numrich Arms verified that and the one John sent was good. I still can't extract short CB's after firing and have to remove those with a knife blade but that's only if you lock the bolt down like you are supposed to with Shorts. If I don't lock the bolt, the round clears the chamber on its own and the bolt slams down on it stove piping it which is to be expected considering they have no real power. If a CB can drive the bolt back the length of its case then I'm sure a genuine LR will fully extract itself. When you pull back on the bolt, you are pushing the hammer back via the bolt thus forcing the firing pin to remain in its full forward position and if the extractor is the least bit weak it will push the case out. I might buy a new extractor for it if it ends up being a problem. Maybe polishing the chamber a bit might help with manually extracting a fired CB but I'll play with it a bit first.

I've never really cared for that extractor design, but it's a very common one so others apparently do not share my opinion. It's good to hear you're getting it sorted out!

Really scrub out that chamber. That can substantially assist iffy rimfire extraction. Had such a problem with a NICE Win 47 that suddenly couldn't reliably extract as well as a Rem 12CS. Clean the chamber and voila!

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Sincerely,

Hobie