Vintage High Standard Flight King

M

merbeau

New member
Hi

I have an old High Standard Flight King Deluxe 12ga with 28 inch barrel and modified choke and ventilated rib that was one of the first firearms I purchased in 1968. I placed one of those adjustable pads on the stock to obtain the correct shooting alignment and went to the trap range to have some fun.

After about 200 rounds the shotgun would not fire. Several people told me that the trigger was probably bent; the gun was not made for high volume shooting. If I am correct High Standard stopped making the shogun sometime in the early seventies so parts are probably an issue.

Does anyone know if there is a replacement trigger that is better quality or should I just place in the gun safe forever.

Robert
 
I don't know what the exact problem with your shotgun may be but Numrich shows a lot of parts available for the Hi Standard Flight King shotguns, including the triggers if that is your real problem.

Some of the shotgun pros will be along shortly with more information as to what to look for that may be causing your problem but it seems the parts are available.

Good luck.
 
High Standard made some of the best pumps, and worst semi autos, of all time. I suspect your gun just needs a good cleaning. What genius deduced it probably has a bent trigger? You have a very good pump. Go to Numrich and look at the schematic. If you don't have a clue, take it to a decent gunsmith. Probably cheaper than buying the wrong parts.
 
Parts

Thanks to all that replied to my thread.

A little more history:

I did some reading and this particular pump seems to have a fine reputation for being very good (as some of you have already pointed out). The first gun club that I joined years ago only had a trap range. I started out using my Browning 16 gauge but the club had a policy of hulls hitting the ground were club property so I needed an alternative. I went to a fairly large gun store. The manager suggested the High Standard so I purchased this pump and shot it one season before going off to college. So the shotgun does have some rounds down the tube.

I was able to strip the gun down following a video that I found on Utube and gave the gun a good cleaning. I did not do anything with the trigger mechanism other than pull it out of the frame after removing the side pin. I then reassembled the shotgun and the cycling was fine, however, the gun still would not fire when pulling the trigger. I do not think it is a firing pin issue. That looked fine.

I will probably take it to my local gunsmith for evaluation.

I looked at the parts website provided and it does seem there are parts available although the aluminum trigger assembly is sold out.

Thanks again

Robert
 
There are two broad categories of "gun does not fire" issues.
#1) the empty gun does not go "click" when the trigger is pulled
#2) the gun goes click when empty, but does not go bang when loaded.

While the end result is the same (no shot fired) the reason for this, and the parts involved can be quite different between case#1 and #2.

Take the gun to a gunsmith, let them figure out what is wrong. That's one of the things they do.

Flite Kings were regarded as solid "working class" gun, fine for function, with finish better than bargain guns but not quite up to the big name makers standards. My brother had a 20ga when we were teens. It worked fine.

There are some nicely finished Flite Kings around, but it was a more "economy" class gun than Winchesters and Remingtons.
 
Problem Identified

Just got back from the gunsmith and the trigger was indeed bent not allowing the sear to release the firing pin. Like 44 Amp indicated they were a good bargain back in its day and had good reputation but were not made for the amount of rounds fired for a sport like trap. The smithy said I probably fired more rounds in one year than the most people would fire in a lifetime. So I had him bend it back and it will go back into the safe.
 
I have worked on I don't know how many of those, and their J.C. Higgins cousins, and I have never ever even heard of that problem before in my life.
I used to shoot with a guy, and he was mainly into trap. Had a High Standard pump with a stuck on cheekpiece. He shot that thing every week for years and never had a single issue. I suspest maybe the heat treating on your trigger was sub par or someone buggered it up trying to adjust the pull. I would get a new trigger and never have a concern.
 
Trigger

I purchased the shotgun used in 1970 so I am not sure if anyone played with the trigger mechanism or not. The gunsmith showed me a business card he found in the stock with another gunsmith's name and a date of 4/20/69 written on the back so it may have been worked on previously. Perhaps the gun had an issue and was the reason it was sold or traded to begin with. When I purchased it the gun was in great shape and was reasonably priced for a teenager making $1.10 an hour minimum wage. Most of the searches that I have conducted all seem to point to the aluminum housing as an issue along with other related problems.

I took the trigger assembly out and looked at the trigger. One side of the trigger is definitely thinner than the other. There are two etch lines like someone perhaps sanded the part down and buffed it out leaving small indentations. It may have been faulty from the factory or someone worked on it and it took some shooting for the problem to show. I ordered a new trigger from Numrich.

Additional research

Found a picture of a model very similar to mine and the trigger stands away from the back of the trigger guard whereas mine is almost inside the guard. I would guess this was worked on to reduce the trigger pull?
 
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Update

Found a replacement trigger on the Numrich website and it was not to terribly expensive - paid 20 dollars for it. The new trigger arrived and it was installed. Definitely looked different than the one that was in the shotgun. Took it to the range and test fired it. No problems. Then I shot one round of trap without any problems. So it appears the trigger was indeed the issue. Thanks to all for your comments and suggestions.

Best as I can determine the shotgun was manufactured in 1966 and (to me) seems kind of interesting that 47 years later a problem shows up and it was possible to fix.
 
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