The firing pin will often drag on the rear of the extractor - as a result
of being released before the gun is fully locked, this will cause the gun
to jam, or the gun will fail to ignite the primer of the chambered round
(momentum has been soaked up by the firing pin striking the rear of the
extractor). This will also cause the firing pin to become blunted,
or it will taper at the top side.
Areas that wear + cause this are:
Sear Trigger
Firing Pin
I have found that if the auto sear does not positively engage the firing pin, this will cause the firing pin to be released before the toggle is fully locked (and the round in the chamber) causing the aforementioned rear extractor strike. Bending the sear spring (carefully) can fix this problam, as can swapping the firing pin with one from another lock (I found that 2 non-functioning locks were "fixed" by simply swapping their firing pins, they mated more positively with the opposite locks sear). The timing of the auto sear can be adjusted by bending the auto sear (similar to timing a Browning 1919 - by bending the trigger) - in order for the sear to release later (needed when the gun fires before the toggle is fully locked) the tail of the auto sear needs to be bent up. When a gun fires sluggushly due to late timing, the tail of the sear can be bent down. Of course other problems occur when the trigger/cocking arm bearing surface wear (this is the primary sear) - the trigger becomes largely passe, and the gun fires whenever it pleases--again, swapping triggers or cocking arms between locks can solve this problem. Anyone who is a competant gunsmith may fix these problems by welding/re-machining the bearing surfaces, but that is above + beyond the scope of this page (I am an amateur).
Another problem I encountered was a weak firing spring - this problem
is detected by unreliable/weak primer strikes. I don't think there
is much that can be done about this - Mr Naess at Black
River Militaria , and Dolf Goldsmith (pob 791870, San Antonio TX 78279)
do this, the service is 40$ from Mr Goldsmith, and 30$ from Mr Naess, both
include the spring being hand-fitted to your lock.
Boosters -I have used an MG 08 (type 24 booster).
First, you might ask me -- Why use an 08 booster on an 08/15? My answer
being, I'm broke, and 08 boosters cost 75$, 08/15 boosters cost 350$++
. AND.... in Dolf Goldsmiths "The Devils Paintbrush" there is a picture
of an 08/15 with an 08 booster on it! Authentic.
The 08 booster can be used by threading the interior of the piston
(with a tap). In order to stop the gland packing from collapsing
into the waterjacket (as the 08 barrel is thinner than the 08/15 --at the
muzzle end), take a stiff, heat resistant rubber washer, and slide it onto
the barrel - before the booster or any gland packing material has been
added. After the washer is seated correctly, pack the gland with
Teflon string (TFE string, available at ACE hardware), use copious amounts
of marine axle grease to help the seal.
--
Belts: Vickers belts are available + cheap - being made for the .303 cartridge they are too tight for the 8mm round. To soften them up, I soaked them in Motor oil, and left them out in the sun, wrapped in a towl for a few days to bleed out excess oil (they no longer grease you hands, and don't attract a great deal of dust). I load my belts by hand - belt loaders are being made by DH Melton, and are also available from Omega Arms (below). When loading the belts for the first time - I found it necessary to push the 8mm round up to its midsection to loosen the Vickers pocket to the point that it wouldn't bind the gun. When I first shot the gun with Vickers belts, the gun bound up on the belt, the reason was, I had only seated the round so its tip lined up with the top of the tab.
I did use Browning belts when I first started shooting the gun, and
they did work well, but I beleive the fusee spring tension was set at a
higher tension, so that the gun didn't mis-align the rounds - at most the
toggle needs to be slapped every once and a while if the spring tension
isn't right.
Making your Maxim Water tight:
You will need TFE (teflon) string (or the original asbestos cord, rether
hard to find AFAIK), and some high temperature grease. ACE hardware
has these - expect to pay about 1$/pk of string, and about 7$ for more
grease than you will use in a lifetime (for this purpose).
To seal the rear of the waterjacket (trunnion area), wrap two turns of the TFE string in the barrel groove. The String can be fixed by slightly overlapping the tail end of the string, and packing it tightly with a screwdriver - this packing job has lasted a year, so far. Before the barrel is replaced, liberally grease the area around and including the string (the greatest diameter in front of the brass ring) with the high temp.grease. Replace barrel.
Once the barrel has been replaced, to make the muzzle water tight, wind
the TFE string around the barrel - I use 4 turns with the MG 08 booster,
less with the 08/15 muzzle gland. Cut to length. Once I have
the correct length cut, I remove the packing and liberally grease it with
the high temp. grease. I then replace it. Some oil may be applied
to the barrel area, to aid with lubrication - then the muzzle device (booster,
gland etc.) may be replaced. Do not, crank down on the muzzle device too
much, this will cause excess friction, and the gun will jam. Check
that the internals can freely reciprocate.
Now my chemistry colleagues may disagree with my interpretation of
this, and I haven't looked at any density tables to cross check my theory,
HOWEVER, I'll go out on a limb. After a long burst (100...
200+ rds) the TFE string may swell, causing the gun to bind - resulting
in sluggish and irregular firing. To fix this, simply loosen the muzzle
device (yes... check its unloaded) and cut a couple of inches off the string,
regrease/lube, replace the device, and GO FOR IT!!!
Belt Loaders
Omega Arms offers the above loaders for 195$ (my outdated price sheet) - specify for maxims.
DH Melton also makes these, and the price is 215$.
There are original Maxim loaders out there (somewhere..... ) price,
last I knew was 450$, I'm sure its increased since then.
08/15 Assault drums cost about 850-1000$ these days - I paid 1000$ for my (incomplete) gun. Purists will wince at what I am suggesting here -- modifying MG34 50rd drums to work on the 08/15. The MG 34 drums cost about 30$ - the hour (at minimum wage... I am a graduate student!) it took to modify the drum, and 1.50$ of materials brings the total cost to about 40$ (rounded up). The 08/15 feedblock has a hole above the belt feed pawl rails - I think it was for the attachment of the "rain cover" - but I am not sure, it is 1/8" in diameter.
To do this conversion I made two brackets out of 0.05" steel. The distance from the drum to the mounting hole of the bracket is 0.511". These brackets were pop-riveted to the drum - the back of the pop-rivets were ground off.
The drum works reasonably well using Browning belts (the fussee spring tension must be adjusted for the browning belts to line up correctly) - but I haven't been gutsy enough to cut up any of my Vickers belts. A jpeg of the drum being used in the 08/15-note the Browning belt:
Mounts: 08/15s can often be found missing bipods - and although they were originally issued as "LMG's" and I have cobbled together a sling - these guys get heavy, and hot QUICK! I am planning to attempt making a bipod, but until then I am using a Bren tripod -- again bought from Don Bell at Omega Arms . The modifications I made were making a front bracket out of (gasp) plumbing pipe. I strap the waterjacket to this bracket with an old belt (pic above). The rear bracket is a block of aluminium with a slot milled out for the rear of the gun, and a hole for the stock mounting bolt. The T+E is attached by drilling a hole in the base of the Aluminium block, with a crossbolt securing the mount. Much more sophisticated front and rear mounts were made by a friend (the same guy making the boosters)- here are some pics:
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