Need help with Wise Lite Gen 2 M53

[radar645]

Hello again
I have been out of the country for awhile on a much anticipated trip to New Zealand. Now I'm back home and before I left I shipped my Wise Lite M53 back for repairs. I wanted the gun to run in 308 and was not having any success. The gun kept bending the hammer and trigger pins. This resulted in the sear not holding the hammer back when I released the trigger. After I returned home I called Wise Lite and they said they had successfully converted the gun to 308 charged me a fee and shipping both ways which wasn't cheap.
Anyway I 'm all excited to try the gun out , load up a belt pull the trigger one shot and then the same problem all over again . The hammer not held back by safety sear. I called Wise Lite and they said high pressure was pounding the gun. So I said but I thought you fixed it and what did I pay for ? They said they ran 60 308 rounds through the gun and it functioned Ok. It sure didn't work for me . I complained so they sent another whole trigger grip stick out. My question now is where do I proceed from here.
If in fact I'm getting too much pressure and I'm pounding the gun.
What steps to do I take to reduce the pressure and stop the bending of the hammer and trigger pins. Or is high pressure the real problem or a defective trigger group ?
Can I start with a stock MG42 recoil spring and shorten it until I arrive at a happy medium ? Or do I start by opening up the standard 308 MG3 booster and muzzle cone.
I believe they are 11mm please correct me if I'm wrong. Any and all help is greatly appreciated, I just want to get this gun to run correctly. And can't afford to be shipping it back and forth to Wise Lite without any results

[JBaum]

I'm not following your problem very well.

Please explain what "high pressure" means, and while you're at it, explain how it is that shortening the recoil spring will reduce it. It seems to me that less recoil spring will make the bolt run rearward faster. How does that help the hammer? And I thought it was the disconnector that holds the hammer back. Where does a sear come in?

Does your MG3 booster have a nozzle inside it? I didn't think they did.

[Der Alder]

A shorter spring would make it worse, if the gun is over gassed which is what I'm assuming they mean. The MG3 type flash hider/booster being one piece is not adjustable, it should be good for NATO spec .308 ammo.

If I were trying lessen the gas/recoil I would go back to the older 8mm type flash hider and use a larger nozzle to lessen the gas pressure. You could also try a longer recoil spring to help dampen the recoil, but make sure the the spring when fully retracted.

That said it sounds to me like the hammer is most likely in need of modification. I'm betting it is bottoming out when its being reset, thus bending the pins.

[radar645]

I apologize for using the incorrect term. Yes it is the disconnector typed this in a hurry last night .
Thank you for the reply Der Alder, your post makes a lot of sense. What I meant was starting with a full size stock spring and reducing a link at at time . The spring Wise Lite sent me was not full length it has been cut.
But I really like what Der Alder said it sounds to me like the hammer is most likely in need of modification.
I'm betting it is bottoming out when its being reset, thus bending the pins.
Also switching to the 8mm booster makes sense.
Thank you all for your response, I will keep you posted

[Der Alder]

The thing with the WLA semis is their receiver length varied during their production run. Some of them used full length recoil springs that had extended receivers, some did not. I have an early WLA M53 (one of the first 25) and it receiver was close in length to the original spec, but of course later that changed.

What I would do is just like any semi build on one of these guns, set it up to run as much spring as possible, but you need to take care as not make it too long. You do not want the spring bottoming out on itself, which is bad as it defeats the buffer. What I do is (with the gun unloaded) pop the cover and pull the charging handle back all the way (you may need a helper), take a flash light while holding it back and see if the spring is completely compressed and holding the B/C from going back as far as it should, if so take a coil off. Do this as much as it takes till you get it so its as long as it can be without fully compressing on itself. This is as much spring as you can run. Also get a new spring if you don't have one. Its amazing how much longer a new one is compared to an old one out of a kit.

I've found too both the WLA and BRP AR15 grip set ups need to be adjusted on most of these semi guns. Either the hammer face needs more radius to keep it from binding against the B/C and or the tail of the hammer can be too long and it slams hard into the disconnector causing everything from broken pins to doubling.

As for the old style booster nozzle I've seen .308 run with as high as 11.5mm dia orifice size, but over that size and they can become single shots, at least in my experience (not enough pressure). The bigger the hole the less the pressure. The .308 round usually needs 10-11mm. The MG3 type you have using nato spec .308 (M80) should be fine, which is why I think your problem is with the FCG.

Like I mentioned, I'd bet the hammer needs tweaked

[ww2gunz]

Mr D.,

Since you want to slander my company, lets tell both sides of the story. WLA has spent over $1500 in repairs to your M53 in "Warranty" work. Only because you lied about never modifying anything on your 8MM M53. Well, your posts tell a different story. In your own words "Now I need to work on the 308 conversion, the gun runs perfect using Romanian 8mm steel case ammo." You took my kindness for weakness but I thank you for teaching me a valuable lesson in business. I charged you 3 hours shop time to properly install your .308 Conversion so you could retain your 1 year warranty, which is now voided. No reply is necessary from you in this thread. No threats please. WLA has retained every email exchanged between the two of us. Sorry it came to this, and good luck in your ventures.

Joe
New Owner of WLA

[Der Alder]

I take it "Mr D" as the Wiselite representative calls him is the OP?

I have no dog in this fight other than being a WLA M53 owner circa 2007 and a home builder of several semi clones of this type. I don't know either party involved here other than trying to help someone that felt he was out of options trying to get his new gun to work.

Still wondering why his gun like so many Wiselites are breaking and bending hammer pins? (I have figured out why BTW), but you would think "completed and tested guns" would not have such problems. Ammo issues (pressures) are one thing, FCG pins bending and breaking are quite another. Any explanation from Wiselite on this?

I know this is a common occurrence on these semi WLA M53's as we have helped many Wiselite owners that come to these boards out of desperation to fix their guns (along with other issues). My own WLA M53 did the same thing breaking pins which is why after modding the hammer I installed KNS pins which are stronger like BRP uses.

I learned much about these guns from fixing all the out of spec parts on my WLA M53, though I still need to cut the front end completely off and bring it back to proper spec as its a 1/4" too short (Going by German manual specs) which leads to burrs in the bushing from the bearing slamming into it. I did get the firing pin and hammer issues fixed myself though, as so many of us have thanks to the kind help of so many here. In fact I learned enough fixing my WLA M53 that I it gave me the confidence to start build my own MG42/53/3 clones.

So i take it by the above post that WLA charged his guy 3 hours to "convert" to .308? Really? I know in my guns this "conversion" means popping out the barrel, swapping to the MG3 bearing, screwing a MG3 flash hider on, pulling a pin out of the top over and feed tray and installing a .308 type; a whopping 5 minute tops for me...this took 3 hours? Unless you decided to install a MG3 recuperator, which would mean trimming his grip support and installing a new lower buffer plate, I'm not seeing 3 hours.

And he says his gun is still bending hammer pins and not resting (by the sounds of it). Call me rash, but I'm guessing he would not be here asking for help if his gun worked properly and the trigger was resetting properly, something WLA evidently failed to fix if that is still occurring...correct?

Radar, if you still need help getting your gun to work you can PM me.

[roadrunner]

I don't see the op's original post rising to the level of slanderous. On the other hand, calling him a liar is another thing entirely. It's a shame they couldn't work this out. "Mr.J" should consider working on his pr skills.
Certainly doesn't appeal to me to patronize his company.

[radar645]

Hello Everyone
It's been a while since I've been on the board . Had to step back and set my Wise Lite M53 semi-auto a side and take a break from it. Well just returned today and had not seen the post from Joe the New owner of WLA. First off it never was my intent to slander his company . I was only stating facts. When I called him I told him I was having problems with the trigger group even while using the 8mm set-up. He stated that he had not worked on converted 308 caliber guns but was doing some research on it and was sure he could get it to run. Why he got so angry is beyond me. He did ship out a new trigger group which failed right away after 2 shots. He stated my warranty is voided. That's funny because he told me if I paid him to get the 308 conversion running I would retain my warranty. To tell you the truth he can keep his so called warranty I always ended up paying him for every little thing in the book. Any gun problem I have had in the past, which has been very few I paid to ship the gun, the manufacturer paid the return shipping. And I agree 3 hours to change over the gun and then test the gun was outrageous.
Since I shipped him the gun already set-up in 308. Anyway I currently have a very expensive boat anchor in my opinion. I have been looking at the trigger group that was shipped and I agree with DerAlder that the pins keep getting bent. Can anybody help me with what maybe out of specs with this gun. Any help is greatly appreciated since my so called warranty is voided. PS I have tried installing titanium pins with no luck.

[Der Alder]

Sorry for taking so long to get back to you on you question. I've been off the boards a lot lately and just noticed your question and PM. On your bent/breaking hammer pins on your WLA, it was a common occurrence on many due to the semi auto AR base conversion. What caused it on mine was the fact that the grip stick was positioned too high causing the hammer to sit too high putting a a lot of stress on the pins. That and WL welds a plate along the bottom of the carrier which smooths it, but adds to the hammer clearance issue. WLA made a lot of revisions during the run of M53's and addressed this as they progressed ( I assume). Mine was one of the first 25 made BTW. I'm not sure what they did so far as revision later on or with their new builds, but I would think they would have cleared it up by now.

I see Apex must have bought out some of the WL parts including semi grip sticks.
At any rate, Apex lists two types grip sticks as spare semi parts which are made by Wise lite:

"Short trigger box" "These grip housings have a shorter (vertically) trigger box, and will sit higher in the machine gun."
http://www.apexgunparts.com/mg42-m53/mg ... w-usa.html

"Tall trigger box" "These grip housings have a taller (vertically) trigger box, and will sit lower in the machine gun."
http://www.apexgunparts.com/mg42-m53/mg ... -5625.html

If you don't already have one, I would try a "tall" grip stick assembly. which would place your hammer lower and perhaps relieve some of the pressure on the pins that keep breaking.

Alternatively you could do what I did, upgrade your AR hammer pins with with a set on KNS non-rotating pins which are made of much higher quality steel than average AR pins like these:
http://www.brownells.com/rifle-parts/re ... 13801.aspx

Last but not least you could take some material off your hammer, placing more of a radius on it and remove some of the rear "tail" that slams down placing stress on the pins. After I reshaped my hammer, its tail and installed the KNS pins I never had any more trouble with breaking pins. I've done the same with 4 other M53 semi build with the others using BRP parts and have not had a pin break again.

Here is a pic of my modified hammer BTW. Note too that I removed a small amount off the top of the disconnector hook so the hammer doesn't slam into it as well.

Before (note the radius and tail and top of DC hook):

After my mods:


As a matter of related interest here is a pic of some of my semi modified bolt carriers. Far left was my first WLA, second is a WLA I got from Apex, 3rd is one I modified using a BRP kit and 4th is a BRP 2nd design. Note the flat bar WLA welds to the bottom of their B/C's. This helps to make them smoother, but again it adds to the hammer clearance issue. Which is why on the B/C I modified myself I cut a smooth shallow channel for the hammer to glide down, much like the BRP design with its own hammer channel. I've never had hammer pin breakage bending or hammer issues with the latter too.

[radar645]

Thanks Der Alder
I really appreciate the info, and the photos. This gives me a starting point, not sure if I have the tall grip frame or not, but at least now I have some where to start, Thanks again and I will keep you posted.

[42rocker]

Some very interesting info in this thread. Several folks have had problems with hammers and had to adjust, well here is a nice pic and also some comment on bolt carriers.

Later 42rocker