Hiya folks--
I've been lurking on this board for a couple weeks. I love the discussions here. This is the 1st post I've initiated.
A little bio--growing up I loved plinking in the woods with my pellet and BB guns, but I just recently bought my first "real" gun. I figured I just wanted something politically incorrect and fun, but not a lot of cost, so I bought an SKS. Well, as soon as I walked out of the gun show with my SKS in hand, I knew I had to have more guns. I'm saving up for an AR-15, but that's not the point of this message.
Since I'm rather new to firearms, I have a couple really basic questions.
Rifle 1:
When I take my SKS to the range, I'll chamber a round and 8 times out of 10, when I pull the trigger, I get "Click" and it doesn't fire. So I eject the round and look at the primer, and it's not dented or anything. I can even reload the same cartridge, and it fires no problem. This only happens in the first round of the day; after that, the gun fires reliably. What's going on here? Is this something a gunsmith should look at, or is it more likely caused by my cleaning methodology or what?
Rifle 2:
I recently bought a brand new Marlin 70PSS. This is their semi-auto .22 "take-down" rifle that you can detach the barrel for a compact carrying package. I'd say, every 50 rounds or so, after I fire it, the bolt will try to close and will lodge the spent casing between the bolt and that front of the ejection port. Is this acceptable, or should I take it back to the store and tell them that it's under warranty and I want it repaired? Sometimes, what also happens is that I will fire the rifle and the next round fails to feed into the chamber, so I pull the trigger and get a "click." So then I open the bolt and it turns out the next cartridge didn't get fed, but I can see on the bullet that it has been scratched a little bit by the bolt travelling over it. Again, this happens every 50 rounds or so. Are these Marlins just unreliable by nature, or should I take the gun back and tell them to repair it?