trigger/hammer

[wayne.alx]

My wife bought me a CVA St. Louis Hawken kit....or about 20 years ago. I started, but put it aside, but now I am determined to finish. I am progressing well, except for the trigger/hammer mechanism. Dry fitting them, I cannot get the trigger to release the hammer. This is a dual trigger. Is there a trick to putting them together? I am at a total loss as how to make it work. I've asked 4-5 people I thought might know, but no luck.Once completed I'd like to fire it, but if I can't get them to work, it's just a decoration. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[Mark Elliott]

We need to know a few things.   I will start with the questions below.    A few photos of the lock and trigger mortice as well as the lock and triggers might also help. 

Is the sear bar centered on the trigger bars?   That is, is the sear centered between the triggers when the triggers are installed?    That is where they need to be.   If so,  where are the trigger bars hitting the sear?  You can mark the top o the trigger bars with magic marker to see where the sear is hitting.

What exactly is the problem?   Are the triggers not hitting the sear, or can you not move the sear with the triggers?   You need to make sure that there is no wood preventing either the sear or the triggers from moving.    Can you trip lock/sear with a screwdriver with he triggers out of the stock?  Do the triggers work correctly out of the stock?

Once we have the answers to these questions, we will move on.

Mark

[bgf]

Once I inlet a Kentucky lock too deep and the end of the sear bar would stick on the wood at the bottom of the hole it goes into.  Honestly can't remember why I was messing with the lock mortise at all, but I had no idea what I was doing !

I recently looked at a mountain rifle where the trigger plate was set too deep, and the trigger could not be set until the lock was cocked.

Generally the parts go together correctly on those kits, but the least little bit of fitting required can be taken too far by first timer and cause strange problems.  If the triggers and locks function independently, they will work together.  Get folks the pictures and information Mark mentioned and you should be up and running shortly.

[PPatch]

Take your triggers out of the stock, turn them upside down and look at them. There is a small screw between the front and rear trigger, and another one behind the rear trigger. They are both adjustment screws, more about those in a minute...

By simply pulling the front trigger the gun can be fired, with a fairly normal trigger pull, without "setting" the triggers. When hunting you'd not likely want to have the set triggers engaged due to the hair trigger nature of them. The REAR trigger is the set trigger and setting it turns the front trigger into a "hair" trigger. On your CVA you must pull the hammer back to half cock to set the triggers - but you can set them by themselves when they are out of the stock. Once set, and the hammer to full cock, the lightest touch on the front trigger should fire the rifle. This is what happens: the trigger is pulled, up flies the rear trigger bar which impacts the sear bar (that thing sticking out at 90 degrees on the lower rear inside of the lock. That spring loaded trigger bar hitting the sear bar causes the lock to release the hammer.

...back to those screws mentioned earlier; The screw behind the rear trigger adjusts the large spring tension located on the upper rear of the trigger plate, housing. That larger spring is the "engine" for the set triggers. The middle screw, the one between the triggers, adjusts how crisp and light your trigger release will be - it sometimes  takes a bit of fiddling with to have it working as it should - note that when setting that rear trigger you should hear a click and feel it firmly set - if not then adjustments will have to be made.

That is basically how the whole shebang works. trigger pulled, spring loaded trigger bar jumps up and impacts the sear bar, lock fires.

Several things can cause problems, but for now... out of the gun - can you "set" the triggers by pulling the rear trigger? Can you then "fire" the set triggers by pulling the front trigger? If not, some adjust might get them working.

Unscrew that middle screw a full turn and a half, and try the triggers. Let's hope this is simple.

dave

[retired fella]

Just for grins and giggles.  Try taking one turn out of the lock bolt.  Wiggle the lock.  Then see if it works.  It may be something as simple as the sear binding on wood.  As this is a kit I can't imagine too far out of whack.