Hi guys, new to the board and new to gunsmithing. The gun Ill be working with, at least for now, is the Bryco model 59 9mm. Dont reply yet, read on. A friend of mine bought it and as it turns out, it wont fire. Well, I guess not since the working tip of the firing pin is gone. Hardened steel with virtually no radius at the bottom of the striking tip, no rigidity in any of the parts Ive looked at so far, Im not surprised it broke. Anyway, my friend goes to throw it away and find the guy who sold it to him. I had to at least try to fix it, and after several minutes he agreed to let me take it. I'm currently out of work due to disability, but I was gainfully employed for 20 years as a machinist with tool and die work being the bulk of that. I have a small, but not very well equiped machine shop at home now, because I just love to make chips. Machinery-wise I only have a lathe, but I have a milling attachment for it, so I can do anything if Im willing to take the time. I havent been doing anything with any of it for months and the idea of some gunsmithing really sounded fun.
What I have is a Model 'Bryco 59' 9mm. The safety is missing, save a tiny chunk of gnarled up plastic that doesnt engage anything and the firing pin is broken. Besides that, all other defects seem to be generic and unavoidable with guns made by these folks. Its been an interesting couple days reading about the horrible reputation these weapons have. Honestly, Im a bit scared at the idea of shooting it after I get it to the point where it will shoot, but I think this is probably a good thing and will likely discourage me from cutting corners.
So, obviously I want to fix the safety and firing pin, but I also want to heavily modify the other problem areas on the gun to see if I can actually make it worth more than nothing, which is about what its currently valued at. I purchased the only drawings of it I could find from Numrich and searched high and low for any other drawings or documentation on the gun. Even after watching a couple of youtube videos on breaking it down I still cant tell how this safety is supposed to work. Im not ordering a new safety for it, btw, Im making one. Im only doing this because I want a fresh project and this is just right, so dont bother telling me that a safety is only $7, I know. Can anyone point me to a picture or video or book that will shed some light on this gun's action? I want to make some changes aimed at rigidity. I also want to change how that bar coming off the trigger interacts with the cam. Both the cam and the other part are loose and the area of contact is tiny. Its no wonder to me that they go off without pulling the trigger during unloading. That is another reason why I want to make a custom safety, so it can be on while unloading. Where the sear engages the notch in the firing pin I want to rework and slightly modify for it to get a better grip since those parts were designed to fit and work together within a fairly small envelope, yet the manufacturing tolerances seem so wide open that the accumulated slop between them makes it easy for the sear to slip loose or the firing pin to not catch at all when it cycles or you try to cock it. With this weapon Im not even exagerating when I say I cant possibly make it worse.
Well, thats the high points. Im sure Ill think of some other stuff later, but for now thats really all I got. I really need help finding any documentation that may be out there so I can try to suss out how this action is intended to work. For I can tell for the most part, but not entirely. For instance, how the cam engages that piece from the trigger(whats it called?). Im not terribly concerned with how the safety is supposed to work, though I would like to see because the one I have has a metal tab protruding from the frame that says 'SAFE' and I cant imagine how a safety lever would go over it and I dont see this tab on videos of this gun being tore down, so Im pretty curious. The safety is definitely going to be modified and custom, so like I said, Im not terribly worried about how its was intended to work.
For those who are thinking it - I did try to register at the actual Bryco-Jennings-X-X forum and it would not accept my gmail address. I could not find a reason for that, though only two possibilities seem likely. Either this is stop new registrations for some reason, or its the fact that gmail is basically an anonymous service, well, it can be if you want it to be. I only found one other person who posted about this same issue and said they accepted the email issued by his isp. That was really all I needed to hear for me to decide that they must have a problem with anonymous email services.
Thanks for reading, Ill post pics soon.
What I have is a Model 'Bryco 59' 9mm. The safety is missing, save a tiny chunk of gnarled up plastic that doesnt engage anything and the firing pin is broken. Besides that, all other defects seem to be generic and unavoidable with guns made by these folks. Its been an interesting couple days reading about the horrible reputation these weapons have. Honestly, Im a bit scared at the idea of shooting it after I get it to the point where it will shoot, but I think this is probably a good thing and will likely discourage me from cutting corners.
So, obviously I want to fix the safety and firing pin, but I also want to heavily modify the other problem areas on the gun to see if I can actually make it worth more than nothing, which is about what its currently valued at. I purchased the only drawings of it I could find from Numrich and searched high and low for any other drawings or documentation on the gun. Even after watching a couple of youtube videos on breaking it down I still cant tell how this safety is supposed to work. Im not ordering a new safety for it, btw, Im making one. Im only doing this because I want a fresh project and this is just right, so dont bother telling me that a safety is only $7, I know. Can anyone point me to a picture or video or book that will shed some light on this gun's action? I want to make some changes aimed at rigidity. I also want to change how that bar coming off the trigger interacts with the cam. Both the cam and the other part are loose and the area of contact is tiny. Its no wonder to me that they go off without pulling the trigger during unloading. That is another reason why I want to make a custom safety, so it can be on while unloading. Where the sear engages the notch in the firing pin I want to rework and slightly modify for it to get a better grip since those parts were designed to fit and work together within a fairly small envelope, yet the manufacturing tolerances seem so wide open that the accumulated slop between them makes it easy for the sear to slip loose or the firing pin to not catch at all when it cycles or you try to cock it. With this weapon Im not even exagerating when I say I cant possibly make it worse.
Well, thats the high points. Im sure Ill think of some other stuff later, but for now thats really all I got. I really need help finding any documentation that may be out there so I can try to suss out how this action is intended to work. For I can tell for the most part, but not entirely. For instance, how the cam engages that piece from the trigger(whats it called?). Im not terribly concerned with how the safety is supposed to work, though I would like to see because the one I have has a metal tab protruding from the frame that says 'SAFE' and I cant imagine how a safety lever would go over it and I dont see this tab on videos of this gun being tore down, so Im pretty curious. The safety is definitely going to be modified and custom, so like I said, Im not terribly worried about how its was intended to work.
For those who are thinking it - I did try to register at the actual Bryco-Jennings-X-X forum and it would not accept my gmail address. I could not find a reason for that, though only two possibilities seem likely. Either this is stop new registrations for some reason, or its the fact that gmail is basically an anonymous service, well, it can be if you want it to be. I only found one other person who posted about this same issue and said they accepted the email issued by his isp. That was really all I needed to hear for me to decide that they must have a problem with anonymous email services.
Thanks for reading, Ill post pics soon.