It probably just needs a good cleaning.

I can't help you with the sight,but you might try Remington.

 

Can't help on the sight- rifle has been in production for several years and several changes- check w/ Remington.

Re: Feeding- your rifle has a "floating chamber". When it gets gunked up, does not float. Wearing safety glasses, use Gunscrubber spray or the like with the spray extension tube. Or just take action out of stock, remove bolt, dunk in a tall can of solvent and let soak a few hours, muzzle up.

 

c3shooter, post: 1794024 about the Remington 552 having a dirty Floating Chamber had me wondering what is that?
So after looking at a several on-line gun part sights and pageing through a couple of very old Great Western and Numrich gun part catalogs, I was unable to locate the floating chamber mentioned in the c3shooter's post.
Was it used on a older model not in the parts catalogs.
Actually the parts diagram spells it out in black and white.
Remington 550 and 550-1 .22 autoloading rifles used a variation to enable a .22 short to make a .22 long rifle strength recoil spring compress enough to operate with shorts. The floating chamber incorporates a seperate inner/back part of the chamber. There is a slight gap/ring in the .22 long rifle length chamber that is located right at the case mouth of a .22 short cartridge. A bit of the short's gas bleeds off into this ring and this acts on the sliding rear portion of the chamber to increase the blow back force on the bolt face. Thus the weaker cartridge can still propel the bolt back with enough force to compress the heavy recoil spring. They do get dirty though and cause malfunctions if allowed to stay that way.

The most popular method is to simply install a recoil spring light enough to operate with .22 shorts. The .22 long rifles and longs will actually "over" operate the spring. Some manufactures incorporated rubber or plastic buffers at the back of the receiver to help absorb this force from the longer/more powerfull rounds. The modern Remington 552 uses such a buffer.

c3shooter was Correct that Remington did produce a floating chamber semiautomatic .22 rifle.
It just was Not the Model 552.


https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.rimfirecentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=186081&amp=1

When you consider using a lighter weight recoil spring and a easily installed hard rubber buffer instead of machining a floating chamber insert.
The cheaper alternative seems Remingtons viable cost cutting method to a semiauto that is capable of reliably cycling .22 shorts.

 

You seem to have a picture of the correct rear sight in your post. They used two different rear sights a steel one and an aluminum one. But those two sights are interchangeable. Yes the screw on rear sight for the 500 series 22 rifles will work. $20 to $30 seems to be the going price.

 

Thank you for the replies, I thought when Remington started using a certain style of rear sight they pretty much used it on all their models of rimfire rifles.
My main concern was buying a $30 rear sight, and eventually the 1.5 weeks it takes to get it to OTZ that the holes would be off.

 

I just finished cleaning her out, the lube itd been lubed with mixed with spent powder residue and little glittering metallic crumbs that look allot like Remington Golden bullet plating.
Lots of crud on bolt and the ejector.
It function tested by hand on bench ok, rounds cycled through the action flawlessly.

 

Id been gone a week for work and finnaly had a chance to try out the old 552 Saturday afternoon.
That morning all the sight parts were in.
Who woudda thought a single sight screw was $6.90??
And Id had to buy two.

Well got it out to try it and found it had issues.
Chambering the first round went without a hitch.
Pulled the trigger and click, cleared the round and checked it (had a good firing pin dent) chambered the second round and it shot as it should, the third round was a dud (striker dented as well) funny how the particular federal rounds I had were not firing.
The 2 rounds out of 7 went off.
the rest was clearing duds from the action.
The last round wouldnt eject after it wouldnt go off.
I brought it home and managed to eject the dud without resorting to a cleaning rod.
All the while we were there, the mosquitos came out and chewed on us pretty good.
Next time I will bring a couple different brands of New ammo instead of a partial box of mixed rounds.

 

Resurrection or more like continuation of 552 issue

Well Its now fall time here in Arctic coast Alaska, grass is turning its vivid fall colors, our coastal willows are turning gold, our summer only had one day it was in the 90's and for the rest of July and August it hardly went above 60°F, most of it cloudy and wet, various projects have kept me busy this summer, still many to finish before snow sets in (north slope had snow two weeks ago).
The Free Remington 552 is sitting there in the corner gathering dust and I know to fix its ailemnts its going to involve using my brain, I could learn the hard way and just buy parts till it works but my father always stressed trouble shooting before foolishy throwing money away.
So I did some googling of Remington 552 jam's and other cycling issues.
60% discussed bad ammunition.
In my case I had a mixture different ages of Federal bulk, CCI blazer and Remington Golden.
So was it ammunition? I have my doubts.
For it to choke on almost all of them I suspect its something with the rifle the ex-camp gun most likely had seen harsh environment but Im skeptical that its worn out, Id be surprised if it'd seen as much rounds through it as a run the mill 552 plinker that chewed thrugh several bricks would have , but what could its ailment be?
Burrs?
Quite a few posts on different forums about nicked up bolt guides , boogered firing pin's with burrs even on the on the hammer, some posts about wobbly hammer causing side binding, still others on dirty and worn sear notch fit, and then there was this odd post that seemed to jump out at me reguarding a misassembly that can cause all sorts of mayham.

Gun Hub forum post by nctorberson Feb 02, 2014*· reply #4

Quote: 'disconnector is above the small lever that allows hammer to cock before the trigger resets. It must be below it'

http://gunhub.com/rimfire/58339-remington-552-speedmaster-firing-issues.html

That got my attention and now Im all fired up to tear that thing back open to check it again, according to gun hub there was a posted photo but that is only viewable to Gun Hub members.
It'd cool to see that photo, but I think I will just forge ahead with that scant advice and check it out for myself.

Rex just may have to take another look at that disconnector.

 

Good luck,Rex. My old 76 model 552 runs like a machine with anything I feed it,I just keep it clean.

 

Well I opened it back up and did find some minor burrs on the bolt guide thatd been there a long time, I lightly touched them up using some swiss files I have, there is a faint firing pin booger on the chamber rim as well (the cause of sticking cartridges) of which I will eventually have to burnish out☆. and the disconnector arm was above the lever like posted in the Gun Hub posting, So far I hadnt had a chance to take it outta town to try it yet.

☆ http://www.brownells.com/gunsmith-t...ools-supplies/handgun-tools/chamber-tools/22-chamber-ironing-tool-prod8869.aspx

 

Well I had it appart again, all the nifty stuff didnt really help.
Looking at the trigger group Id noticed it was really clean for such a old rifle, before Id gotten it, someone must have gave it a detailed cleaning.
I had the trigger assy in my hand and Im studying it and It finally dawned on me.
The end of the disconnector was missing!
It was broke off clean as a whistle right where its stamped, running my hand over it I never knew it till I looked closer at some on-line images.
Man that was a downer Id missed something soo obvious.

 

Well last night I dropped out the trigger group and using some tools was able to drive out the stepped diameter pin that secures the disconnector in place, funny thing is that pin is staked in place and I used a punch to drive the staked part past the steel washer used as an anvil to stake the pin end against as the trigger housing is aluminum.
Since the old disconnector was also below the sear, I made sure to also place the new one below the sear as well.

'Quote: 'disconnector is above the small lever that allows hammer to cock before the trigger resets. It must be below it'
http://gunhub.com/rimfire/58339-remington-552-speedmaster-firing-issues.html'

Since today is pretty stormy so will put off shooting till the weather clears up.

 

The blazing flaw that been staring at me since I photographed it Nov 11, 2017!
It has not broke, but it could!

 

Well living in town can be a real drag, if you want to test your .22 you cant just step out the door and fire a few rounds to check function.
I brought it out 3 days ago, loaded ten rounds and cycled the first round, which jammed, the second as jammed well, the third chambered and failed to fire (very shallow firing pin ding)
As I cleared the rounds Id save them for reloading, loading jamms was quite common.
I did get it to fire, then it would fire another round that cycled into the chamber normally.
3 times the bolt did not fully come back enough to cock the hammer (lots of drag and burrs) after firing.
After I got home Id let it set for a bit before starting in on it.
I found the ejector was dragging on the bolt pretty bad, the fireing pin movement seemed to not be too responsive so removed the fireing pin and retainer pin and used a copper wire probe to clean out the ejector inlet on the bolt body, also the firing pin inlet on the bolt body.
I noticed a ring of compacted carbon on the bolt body face where it impacts the back side of the barrel.
With q-tip and tooth pick in Hand Id decided to scrape out any collected carbon snot built up in the back end of the barrel.
WOW! I never realized just all those machined dips and worls that Remington had machined in there with a ball shaped mill bit.
This looked like a dremel tool had run rampant, but all is part in guiding a round into the chamber.
Long story short, I stoned the sides of the fireing pin, removed the burrs from hammer hits, cleaned off the sharp corners on the ejector that had been dragging and cleaned up the cuts in the bolt the ejector rides in, and even stone some tool mark's down on the nose of the hammer so it would re-set easier.

 

Well I had a chance to take it out last Sunday.
Id spent some time, stoning off burrs on the bolt and ejector, I used some metal polish on the bolt and ejector and cycled the it till my aluminum dummy rounds, fed through without a hitch
Id brought along a brand new box of federal .22 Lr std velocity rounds.
I shook out 10 rounds from the box and stoked the tube magazine.
On cycling, I drew back the bolt handle and let fly the first round, it jambed on chambering.
Unfortunately I didnt have my camera to show the way it jamed.
The case rim had not fit up on the bolt face and it sortta stalled out with bullet nose low, bit Not tipped down at a sharp angle, and the case rim fed about 3/4 the way up into where it should sit on the bolt face, and resulting low rideing cartridge is what got caught up.
Im guessing I need to clean the, gummy boogers inside the inner magazine tube may possibly be part of it, the cartridge lifter spring feels stiff, BUT is it really stiff enuf to work smoothly?

Loading jams happened 6 times out of the 10 rounds loaded.
Then after some light firing pin strikes, I reloaded the six that didnt, feed, jamed or failed to fire.
Of those only one didnt cycle through and fire (had 5 consecutive rounds load, fire, eject as it should)
Im pulling the trigger/lifter for another bout of studying.
Those dummy rounds are pretty sweet for function testing the cartridge feed system.

 

Well living in town can be a real drag, if you want to test your .22 you cant just step out the door and fire a few rounds to check function....

Sure you can, you just shoot indoors.

Set up an Apple box full of old newspapers, back that with off-cuts from a couple of glue lam beams.

Put on your hearing protection, crank the stereo to 11, with some thrash metal on, and fire away. If you have a kick-*** stereo, you can get away with firing wad cutters from a 41-mag indoors. Specially if you have a basement.

Just don’t do prolonged sessions, or do it at times your neighbors are likely to be asleep. It gets kind of dicey, when the cops beat on your door for the noise complaint, and smell the gun smoke.

 

I would clean the heck out of it, then try another brand of ammo. I haven't had much success with Federal .22 working in some of my 22s.

 

Well opened it tonight and gave it another looking over.
Could it be that 47 year old magazine spring?
For now I will run a cleaning rod with a patch down the inner magazine tube.
If im feeling my oats I'll remove the mag tube cap pin and give that old spring a tensil stretching to boost the rounds going to the lifter.
I removed the trigger group and left the bolt assy in place, I cycled the bolt which seemd to drag a little, what could cause this resistance?
What drags when moving the bolt by hand might really be a problem when the bolt is traveling in recoil during the firing cycle.
Looking over the trigger.
I found a pretty sharp wire bur on the edge of the lifter arm made during the shearing process while making the part, taking my knife wet stone I rounded off that sharp shear edge.
Also looked over the part of the artridge lifter that glides against the bolt.
Stoned off the sharp stamp/shear edge of the lifter and hammer that ride against the back face and underneath the bolt.

The bolt assy had 3 things going on that needed checking.
The slot on the bolt that the lifter rides on, the Back side the bolt that rides along pushing down the hammer to cock.
The left side of the bolt slots that the ejector rides in that had been debured had a portion of a pin sticking out (extractor spring guide pin) in the bottom of the ejector grooves that I could catch my swiss file on, that drag would slow down cycling and could create loading jams, especially while the recoiling bolt is sliding back, the blunt edge of the ejector edge was catching a good bit on the protruding pin so ran the swiss file over that portion of protruding pin (extractor spring guide pin) sticking out in the ejector way..
I stoned off the sharp edges on the cartridge lifter arm nose and along the top edge and the ejector groove, even the hammer where if "Side Loaded" sharp edge "Could" possibly contact the side the bolt face, a few strokes of emery cloth in the back end the bolt in the milled slot that pushes the lifter and hammer down got a little shineing, not mirror polish, just knocking off the tops the milling marks.
Also noted some wierd boogerd up area on the bottom of the bolt that came from the factory (done before hardening) so rubbed it a few times on my knife sharpening stone to see if I could even it up some and cut down any drag when the bolt cycles that bolt hard under recoil.
Only firing the rifle will I be able to tell If any of this slicking the sharp corners made much impact.
Before Id taken this 552 out last time, I used my brand new A-Zoom action proving rimfire dummy rounds to work through the action (flawless)
So I hope I fixed that rimfire choking on rounds jamming as they load up in front of the bolt face.

 

Well I shot it again, till it quit because I reloaded a dud and jammed the round in the chamber.
Tonight I used CCI Blazer .22 long rifles Id bought a couple months back, out of the 10 rounds loaded, and 7 went off but only after messin with it, reloading the ones that jammed as they wouldnt chamber or there was a click as I pulled the trigger but no firing pin mark!?
And then I had some the firing pin struck but never fired.
One thing that did happen that was odd was the when a round did fire the action filled with powder smoke, there was smoke coming out the action bar slot, out the bottom up front and out the trigger opening, I dont recall ever seeing gunsmoke comeing such odd places before.
Im thinking I'll try a different brand of ammo as the Federals at least went off.
So I ran a bore brush in the chamber and am thinking I may have to replace some springs.

 

The firing pin strikes look like the cartridge was hit plenty hard enough, though the one shell looks like it had very, very light strike on it also.

"One thing that did happen that was odd was the when a round did fire the action filled with powder smoke, there was smoke coming out the action bar slot, out the bottom up front and out the trigger opening, I done recall ever seeing gunsmoke comeing such odd places before."
That is worrisome.

 

Yeah That got my attention as well.
I spent as much time as I could trying to watch how it was feeding.
I mark it up as old springs and economy ammo.
The Federals Id used before at least acted like a .22Lr should.

 

Well It took a while, but Im happy I did budget in a couple new springs for the 552 project.
The bolt return spring was a surprise!
The new spring was 1.5-2" shorter than the old spring!?
Ok That was strange but makes sense, the fellow that had this .22 refinished it and then tried to make it work.
He must have streched the bolt return spring thinking it had weakened when the nose was busted off the disconnector and causing troubles.
And if that old camp gun ever sat for any great length of time sitting with a few rounds in the magazine tube that magazine spring might have taken a set over all those years and not push the rounds into the lifter like it should, causing my empty chamber problem.
That and a over powered bolt spring might mess with a cartridge Not feeding.

 

Fresh out of the package I had a tangled puzzle, untangling the new mag spring.
Well I finally found my small pin punch and started in on drifting out the magazine tube cap pin.
When the old magazine spring was finally out on the bench, I set the new spring along side the old one to check mag spring lengths.
The new spring was more than a tad bit longer almost 14" longer.
Stuffing all that New mag spring back in the magazine was a challange, till I figured how to capture the few coils at a time till, I could stuff it all in.
Like stuffing 7 pounds of crap into a 4 pound container.

 

Well It has been quite a winter.
In six weeks we had 17 blizzards.
I thought Id hop on my snowmobile and motor out a town to function test the 552.
After a couple detours and finding towering snow dump piles in all the usual outlets out on to the lagoon, was challanging finding a out the way place to test the rifle.
Kids out sledding on the bluffs, snowmobilers all over the place.
After 10 minutes of motoring around I found a nice out the way place.
Man it was Cold!
Was about 15°F
Those unheated handle bars are cold!

I stoked up with some CCI Blazers.
I topped up the tube magazine and cycled the action chambering a round.
It fired as it should, the next trigger pull was a metallic click.
I cycled the action thinking it had not chambered a round and had a jam as the live round remained in the chamber (ftf) and when I cycled the bolt Which did not extract the live round it fed a next round double stacking (caused by bolt manipulation) this jamup caused some troubles.
(Extractor issue?)
The dud round at times wouldnt extract.
Shook out the double feed jams and chambered the next round, which fired, the next a light strike and another double feed jam, chambering another it didnt fire either!
The dud rounds were not extracting and the next was plugging the works, except they were good rounds just not getting struck as hard as it should.
I did get it to fire 2 shots consecutively as a semi-auto then it went back to sometimes firing and mostly jambing.
I figured I had enough information to work with and picked up the fired rounds and FTF struck rounds for further study at home (was getting dark and was 18°F)
All the while my daughter was shooting cartridges from the same box in her Keystone Arms Crickett rifle without any problems (so not a cartridge failure).

I took photos of the firing pin struck cartridges and the fired cases that ejected just fine (discharge asst ejection?)

First I think I will try getting it to fire every time a round is chambered.
The fired rounds eject fine, its problematic getting it to eject live rounds that didnt fire.

I dissembled the 552 and looked over the bolt, then removed the firing pin and noticed it had a wierd reverse bow to it that Id noticed before.
After a google image search of the Remington 552 firing pins, I see that it was slightly bent (sorry no photo* forgot)
Placed the firing pin on a straight edge Yes the pin was really bent! (How was it bent?)
Using my axe head as a flat metal anvil and my small ball-peen hammer, I managed to straighten the firing pin to match the Google image after a few taps (FirePin Earmarked for replacement)
Thinking how the bow on the fireing pin changed how the pin impact away from the outer case rim, strikeing the case further away from the rim twards the cartridge center away from its priming compound.
Using the ballpeen hammer to dress up the fireing pin tip a little by draw it out some lengthing it a tad.
Then used the honeing stone to slick the sides a bit, and dress the tip just a bit.
Reassembled the .22 and drew back the bolt, it appeared the bolt didnt retract fully.
I had not tried to dry fire because my adjustments to the bent firing pin might have well put it out of specification, creating further problems like peening the chamber rim.
Dissembled and looked at the bolt buffer, observing metal buffer insert was peened and had burrs(sorry no photos)
I used a knife hone stone, utlising the coarse side, stoned even the buffer surface the bolt impacts, then worked off the sharp burrs.

Funny how Id assumed that wierd sprue like bend was normal, assuming it was supposed to be that way.
I would never have imagined a stout looking .22 fireing pin would be bent.

 

Rex- you are correct, and my apologies. The "recoiling chamber" was used in the Remington 550 and 550-1. https://www.remington.com/sites/default/files/Model 550.pdf

The 552 uses the buffer. I made the mistake of thinking that the system that worked for years on the 550 would be carried over to it's successor, the 552. My bad.

 

That had me looking for a while, but I have to thank you c3shooter!
I now understand in more detail how the Model 552 is supposed to operate using .22 S-L-LR cartridges.
The rubber buffer soaks up the added recoil of the stronger recoiling cartridges.
And since this was an Alaskan camp gun, I could imagine how resiliant that Rubber Buffer Pad was like at -30°F (hard as a rock)
One would just be asking for something to break.
And the metal to metal contact of the buffer takes a real beating.
Since I hadnt photographed the battered damage to the Buffer, I drew the rounded impact area the bolt had been beating on in sub-zero temps.
The parts list names the Metal Bolt Buffer, Product #: 80190
and the Rubber block as the Buffer Pad, Product #: 1564840.

 

Rex, I know how much wear and tear Alaskan winter temps put on ordinary materials- have been in the field at air temps of -60 just a little ways North of Fairbanks. On skis. Towing an ahkio sled. Rubber and plastics act..... strangely. Slammed car door one really cold morning, and all my weather stripping shattered and fell off on the ground.

If you do not plan to run shorts thru your Speedmaster, you might think about getting a stouter spring, and save some wear & tear on the rubber buffer pad.