Broken Steyr Pistol Blues

If you follow the Twitter and Facebook accounts of Olympic Pistol you know my troubles: my Steyr pistol is broken. The worst of it is that it is broken because of a check-up , not a repair, not a fall, a fricking check-up. 

In theory, there was nothing to be done, then it was greasing the o-rings, then it had to be checked more thoroughly… I paid €65 to the “gunsmith” at Reflex Shooting for the checkup (plus the extra stuff I bought) and left with the gun to test it at the range.

When I arrived to the range a day later and signed up for my club’s monthly competition this is what I had to face. First I noticed that the gun was very hard to cock: 

And then that it would not fire most of the times. It just dry fired: 

As you can see in the videos, what happens is that the cocking lever comes back, it does not stay put, and so it dry fires. 

Possible Reasons?

I did a lot of Internet research, posted on Facebook and Twitter, asked in TargetTalk, and even contacted Steyr, but did not find a solid answer. 

The Steyr engineer said that it was probably the canon that was badly placed, but I removed it and it kept on happening.

The good thing I learned from him is that I can send the gun directly to them bypassing the intermediary, which should be faster. As I’m in the EU, I can send my air pistol by post. He could not give me an estimate of time and price though. 

Another plausible reason may be over lubing, but I found out after I sent the gun for repair to the importer, so I can not check.

Servicing and Repairing Myself?

What I really want to do is to learn how to do the check-up myself every year, to be able to do some maintenance and minor repairs by myself to be more independent. 

The reason why I went to Reflex Shooting is that I did not want to have to go through the importer to send it back to Steyr for the check-up and not see my gun in at least three weeks. But at the end is what I’ve had to do (and spend another €150). At least it will stay in the shop, so the time should be a bit shorter. 

Unfortunately we love and practice a minority sport. This means that there are few people dedicated to it, professionally and as amateurs. It is very hard to find knowledgeable and experience people around with whom to work and learn. 

For those that live in the USA, there may be a possibility of learning with the American Gunsmithing Institute, but they won’t deliver outside of the country.

If you can help me learn, I would really appreciate it. 

Next Steps

1. Pray; 
2. Cross fingers; 
3. Find broken guns and try to fix them myself (send me yours if you are OK with its terrible fate at my hands); 
4. Buy a backup gun?

I will update you here when and if my gun comes back (there’s a postal strike hanging over my head).