Double set trigger problems.

[2longhunt]

Hello guys. I am hoping you all could give me a little advice on a couple guns I'm working on.

I have two similar guns that are causing me some trigger problems. Both are "Hawken" style percussion half stocks with double set triggers.

Gun #1 will only fire after you have set the back trigger. It sets pretty hard as well. In full cock you can not fire the gun by just pulling the front trigger, you have to set the rear. I don't know what brand of gun this is (I inherited it) but it has the appearance of a factory T/C because of it's rear, modern style adjustable sights and overall appearance. I'd like to get it to fire without needing to set the rear.

Gun #2 is also percussion and owned by a friend of mine. It would fire in either half cock or full cock postion with both the front or rear trigger! This is terribly dangerous. I can remove the lock and triggers from the stock and they seem to function correctly. I removed a little bit more wood around the sear hole and I believe now I can get the gun to stay in the half cock position when I pull the rear trigger but it goes off when I pull the front. 
I will recheck this tonite. I think maybe that I may just need to file down the tops of the trigger bars. Not sure. Any suggestions?

Thanks a lot. I can post pictures if need be tomorrow.

Mark

[keweenaw]

On gun two, there are three possible problems: the first possibility is that the half cock notch is damaged,  inspect this first.  There should be an undercut recess for the sear nose.  If that is chipped off the tumbler will need to be repaired or replaced.  Withthe lock at half cock in your hand you shouldn't be able to get it to fire by pushing up on the sear.  If the half cock notch is ok the next possible problem is that the sear can't drop down fare enough at the rear when the lock is in the stock so that the nose goes into the half cock recess.  Put some indicator on the sear arm and put the lock  in the stock, tighten the screws and then set the lock at half cock. Now remove the lock.  There should be no indication of contact between the sear arm and the wood in the stock.  Remove wood if necessary.  The third possibility is that the trigger bars are too high which will give the same problem as #2.  Loosen the screws that hold the triggers in slightly so the triggers can drop down a tiny bit.  If the lock works correctly now, you can correct this either by grinding the top of the trigger bars or by bending the sear arm up slightly.  If the trigger plate is set below the level of the wood you could also add some shims under it.

On Gun number one.  Take the triggers out and inspect them, make sure all the pins are where they are supposed to be, etc.  Some double sets triggers only fire when set.  If your triggers are like that there will not be an arm extending to the rear from the front trigger.  Nothing to be done about that except replace the triggers.  If there is an arm forward from the back trigger and one back from the front trigger it may be that there is some wood in the trigger mortise that is preventing the arm from the front trigger from moving up far enough to disengage the sear, easy fix.

Tom

[Dphariss]

Hello guys. I am hoping you all could give me a little advice on a couple guns I'm working on.

I have two similar guns that are causing me some trigger problems. Both are "Hawken" style percussion half stocks with double set triggers.

Gun #1 will only fire after you have set the back trigger. It sets pretty hard as well. In full cock you can not fire the gun by just pulling the front trigger, you have to set the rear. I don't know what brand of gun this is (I inherited it) but it has the appearance of a factory T/C because of it's rear, modern style adjustable sights and overall appearance. I'd like to get it to fire without needing to set the rear.

Gun #2 is also percussion and owned by a friend of mine. It would fire in either half cock or full cock postion with both the front or rear trigger! This is terribly dangerous. I can remove the lock and triggers from the stock and they seem to function correctly. I removed a little bit more wood around the sear hole and I believe now I can get the gun to stay in the half cock position when I pull the rear trigger but it goes off when I pull the front. 
I will recheck this tonite. I think maybe that I may just need to file down the tops of the trigger bars. Not sure. Any suggestions?

Thanks a lot. I can post pictures if need be tomorrow.

Mark

You need a gunsmith that understands sidelocks with DSTs.
Trying to diagnose from this distance is not really feasible.

Dan

[D. Taylor Sapergia]

I agree Dan.  Without the piece in my hands, I'm just guessing.

[snowdragon]

Yep, it's like shooting in the dark unless the guns were in our hands, but I wil go ahead and take a stab at rifle #1. The problem is probably associated with your front trigger blade.  The blade could be contacting wood before it makes contact with the sear bar, thus stopping the travel. Or, perhaps the blade is not high enough, so that it never touches the sear bar as it reaches its travel limit. If that's the case, someone may have filed it off to low.  Or, maybe you don't even have a front trigger blade. Some set triggers are set up that way, but I really doubt you'll find that with a production rifle.

Remove the lock but not the triggers. Pull the front trigger back to check if the trigger blade shows in the hole for the sear bar. If not, You'll need to decide whether the wood is stopping it, or there just isn't enough travel to get into that recess.

If you get to this point, why don't you come back to this post and someone can help from there.  There are some fixes, but I don't want to write them all down until you diagnose the problem. Good luck. Bill

[2longhunt]

I only get about 1/2 hour each morning to work on these guns and this morning I worked on gun #2 so that I can get it back to my friend quicker. I think Tom was correct in his evaluations. There is no wood obstructions that I can tell with either trigger blades or sear arm. I did file some off the top of both trigger blades and that seemed to help. But, I also check the half cock notch to see if it was deep enough. If I pull pretty hard I can throw the hammer in half cock. I didn't get a lot of time to do much filing to deepen it but will try that this weekend.

As far as gun #1, I took pictures of the trigger assembly but will not be able to load them today. When I pull the rear set trigger it seems to set twice. Pulling back it barely sets the front trigger. Then as I precede to further pull back, it sets the front trigger again. 

Maybe it will be clearer to you guess when I load the pictures.

I know it's tough to evaluate without the gun in your hand and also it's hard for me to explain the problem clearly. But, other than pictures, this is the best I can do right now. Thanks for all your help.

Mark

[keweenaw]

It's not the depth of the half cock notch that matters, it's whether it's undercut so the nose of the sear can enter the recess.  A common problem is that the small extension forming the notch gets broken off resulting in essentially no safe function for the half cock position. As I said, you can check this with the lock out by inspection and by trying it out.  In half cock you shouldn't be able to trip the lock by pushing up on the sear.  If you can file the trigger  bars, those triggers are pretty crappy as those bars should be very hard. 

Tom

[2longhunt]

Yeah Tom the tip of the tumbler notch actually doesn't look too bad and is not broken off. Neigher is the sear nose. But still I can trip it in half cock with the lock out of the stock. It takes some hard pressure to do this though. And you're right, the trigger bars are pretty hard to file.

Thanks,
Mark