Light strikes Benelli .22

Started getting light strikes with my Benelli MP95 .22 at a match today. Very frustrating. I blamed the cold weather, 40-ish degrees and too heavy of lube oil. Switched pistol to my trusty Ruger MkII but it was too late. I bet I dropped 50 points over all. Took apart the Benelli to see what the problem was. The shock buffer had a deep dent worn in it right where the recoil spring housing sits against it. This reduces the spring length, thus reducing the pressure holding the bolt closed. Bolt wasn't holding tight against the breech face, causing the light strikes on the rim. I'm using the "homemade" shock buffers out of key chain fobs as suggested in a sticky thread on this forum. The homemade ones do last longer then the Benelli OEM buffers, but still not long enough in my opinion. I doubt that I have 1000 rounds shot on this buffer. Has anyone come up with a buffer for the Benelli that will last longer, or is it a consumable item that needs replaced every 500 rounds? Thanks.

Then, I started getting failures to chamber on my Benelli MP95 in .32 wadcutter. Blamed it too on the cold weather. No back up gun, so I withdrew from the match. Come to find out, I didn't crimp the case mouth enough on my reloads, and the lip was catching. All in all, a bad day, but a bad day shooting is still better than a good day at work!

I have found that the buffers that Larry's Guns sells are good for at least 2000 rounds.  When I started to have FTF and light strikes after about 10,000 rounds and the buffer alone didn't solve the problem; I replaced the firing pin, recoil spring, main spring and extractor.  That solved all my problems and it's still working well today.

You can try one of the newer Larry's buffers.

Personally I shot the original factory buffer in mine past 75k rounds and replaced it with a older Larry one for S&G's that didn't make it through a brick before disintegrating . The original buffer is still serviceable but made a key fob one to try it out.

Been on a key fob for two seasons that seems to work fine so far.

I'd recommend a new recoil spring and keeping firing pin channel & bolt/breech face clean

Other than one broken firing pin, the only problems I've ever had with either of my MP 90's has stemmed from the use of Larry's buffers. They both run perfectly with key fob buffers. I change them out yearly just as a precaution but have never had any indication of that being necessary.

Strange. Maybe the "key fob" material I made buffers out of was softer than normal? As for the recoil spring, it has around 2k rounds on it, so it should be fine for a while I would think. The home made buffer gets an indent in it thus making the spring pressure weaker, then the problems start. I can flip the buffer over, and it works fine. Maybe time to look into a better material to make buffers out of. Does anyone know the durometer number of OEM buffers?

Mine gets the dent you describe too. Never seemed to be a problem. Every gun can behave differently. Maybe try a little harder material or just keep changing them out as needed. Whatever works! Seems like with winter coming on, these little rimfire problems  always start popping up.

I'm trying a little "experiment" with this recoil buffer. Just got home from shooting a 90 round training match. The experimental buffer I am using is made from a piece of 2 inch industrial rubber hose. Those two layer hoses, red-ish on the outside with a black liner. It's about 0.020 thicker then the key fob buffer, which had me concerned, but it worked flawlessly. Time will tell on it's life span. Worth checking into. If I remember I'll report back after 1k rounds. I'm also going to try it in my .32 Benelli. Who knows, I may be on to something?

Mike38 wrote:I'm trying a little "experiment" with this recoil buffer. Just got home from shooting a 90 round training match. The experimental buffer I am using is made from a piece of 2 inch industrial rubber hose. Those two layer hoses, red-ish on the outside with a black liner. It's about 0.020 thicker then the key fob buffer, which had me concerned, but it worked flawlessly. Time will tell on it's life span. Worth checking into. If I remember I'll report back after 1k rounds. I'm also going to try it in my .32 Benelli. Who knows, I may be on to something?

The experiment of the buffer made from industrial hose didn't work in my .32 wad cutter. Appears that this hose material is softer than the key fob material. Jury is still out on if it works in my .22. Time will tell I guess.