Trigger Adjustment

[JLayne]

All,

First off, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all of you.  And thank you for all of your help and advice to date. Many of you have responded to my posts on here and it has been greatly helpful and is appreciated.

I am using some vacation time this week and am hoping to make some progress on my first pre-carve I have been working on. I have installed an R.E. Davis, Bivens style modern trigger with a the trigger pinned to a lug that is part of the trigger plate. The next step is to get the bar fitted correctly so that it works properly with the Colonial VA lock.  The lock currently fits in its mortice, but even with the cock at rest, there is a bit of tension between the trigger bar and the sear, such that you can feel the sear spring depressing a bit when you push the lock plate firmly against the barrel. My question is whether that acceptable, or do I need to file the trigger bar until there is some free play in the trigger when the cock is at rest?  I just thought I would ask before filing away so I don't end up taking off too much.

Thanks in advance.
Jay

[rich pierce]

You should see the trigger bar in the sear hole inlet in the lock mortise. Take the lock out and trigger out and “paint” the side of the trigger bar with magic marker. Re-install the trigger. With a sharp nail mark where the sear hole lines up on the trigger bar. Also figure out where the bottom of the sear bar hits the trigger plate, using lipstick on the end of the sear bar and placing the lock in (mostly). Now you have a good sense of how much to file. File half as much as you think you need to. Check, including tightening the tang bolt. Keep fussing till you get a minuscule amount of trigger wiggle at half and full cock.

[TommyG]

Great advice from Rich above. Trigger work is tedious and patience is the key.  Your not going to believe this, but one of the tricks I use to locate the actual sear location in the lock mortise is kids "silly putty".  I'll make a small roll and insert it into the sear hole in the mortise, then press the lockplate/sear combo into position.  Remove the lockplate and you will see exactly where your sear lies.  This will get you close, from there I would do what Rich recommends above.  Oh and be sure to use a pick of some sort to remove all the putty.

[flehto]

Before doing any filing on the trigger bar, I check to see the position of the sear bar at half and full cock.....many locks vary in this respect.....the Chambers locks come close as to being the same but not always. The best situation is that the half cock position of the sear bar is higher than at the full cock position. In this case, the trigger bar can be filed using the full cock position and the sear bar at half cock can be ignored. If the opposite is true, having the sear bar lower at half cock than at full cock, the trigger bar is filed for  the sear bar contact using the half cock position which results in pre-travel in the full cock position. Personally, I don't mind having pre-travel.

When first starting to build, I made the trigger plates w/ a standing lug for pinning the trigger....the lug stood 3/8" high for a higher pin location.  Later on  I stopped  making the Tplates w/ a lug and just pinned in the wood.

I have some small  widths  of hi speed steel and soft  solder a piece at the sear bar contact point on the trigger bar and then  use a Dremel grinding wheel to get close and then stone for final contact. The soldering temp doesn't effect the hi speed steel.  Possibly over kill, but I just like to  do it anyways......Fred