I broke a firing pin retaining pin and bent the firing pin today.  It seems like the hammer was getting stuck on the firing pin as it is heavily marked around the largest collar.  I was getting a lot of failure to feed and I assume it was becuase of this.  I have a new firing pin on hand and a new retaining pin but I don't want to trash the new one in the same way.  Any suggestions?  

By the way, I was slow firing and holding the trigger back until the action cycled, not that is should matter but I have heard of the pin catching when shooting very fast.

As always, any help greatly appreciated.

Check you bolt immediately if not done yet. Sounds like broken bolt, IMO

MN

The Bolt looks ok, no real problems, but the firing pin is bent near the collar and the retaining pin is broken in two.  I could only recover one of the retaining pin pieces.

Call Rock River, or Bushie, or DPMS (your choice) and order a new hammer, specifying that you want the "new" style without the notch in front. The notched kammer and cutaway under the firing pin carrier is going the way of the Dodo Bird, 35 years later than it should have. While you're at it, if you've got the spare bucks, get a new bolt carrier w/o that cutaway.

I'm guessing you have a Colt.  What mods have you done to it?  Hows your disconnector and spring....

Actually, it's all Bushmaster parts except for the lower and barrel.  I think getting a new hammer would do the trick.  Meaning a hammer that isn't notched.  Actually, you could probably just trim/grind a little relief on the B.M. hammer as is and get it working fine but for the small price (around $13) I would just assume not do some kind of home brew setup and buy the new parts to make it work right.  It must have been hitting with some force as that retaining pin snapped in two pieces!
Thanks for the replies.

Scroll down on this link.It explains your problem. [url]http://www.ar15.com/forums/announcement.html?b=3&f=66&id=185[/url]

Right, based on Tweak's notes it looks like you had an M16 firing pin rather than an AR-15 firing pin.

Not always an M16 pin, sometimes just the hammer sitting too high. Often seen on home trigger jobs. Can also be a short (distance from pin hole to sear face) trigger.

Second time for this pic this week.
[img]http://photos.ar15.com/ImageGallery/Attachments/DownloadAttach.asp?iImageUnq=19405[/img]
AR pin on left.

Thanks for the link Redbone.

It is a AR-15 firing pin, I checked out that picture before posting and think the hammer is just a tad out of spec as the upper functioned fine before the B.M. parts.

Thanks again.