Single trigger woes

[Roger B]

My Henry English pattern shoots extremely well when I get a good, consistent trigger pull, but often I don't.  The trigger is pinned through the wood & leverage is good, however the pin is a nail which is free to rotate in the hole through the trigger (though snug) & obviously the wood as well.  It also rubs against the trigger plate (moves side to side) & I think that I can actually feel the pin bend a little during pull.  The lock is a Chambers late Ketland & trips easily will a little thimb pressure on the sear.  What do I need to do here?  I suspect that I need to shim the trigger so it stays straight in the slot of the plate, but do I need to pin it such that the pin will not rotate in it's hole in the plate?  These are Rifle Shoppe parts & we have never set up this type of trigger.  I'm beginning to wish that I had used a trigger plate with mounting posts for the trigger.
Roger B. 

[Stophel]

Nah, you definitely don't want a plate with the mounting studs.

Sounds like you have a too-small pin and a too-wide trigger slot.  The slot in the wood can be fixed by glueing in a slip of wood in the side of the slot (get one of those Pony spring grip clamps and pull off the orange rubber tip to clamp it in place), and re-inlet the trigger.  If necessary, it is easy enough to drill out the hole in the wood and trigger (assuming the trigger isn't hard, which I would not suspect) and put in a larger pin.  I taper all my pins.  Drill the hole in the wood ever so slightly smaller (using numbered drill bits) than the hole in the trigger, so it is snug in the wood, free on the trigger.

[rich pierce]

You can also soft-solder a strip of brass or mild steel stock on top of the trigger plate with a narrower slot if that would help the side to side movement.  The pin should never move in the hole.

[hyltoto]

Is the pin tempered?

[D. Taylor Sapergia]

Is the trigger pinned through the trigger plate, or through the wood inside the lock inlet?

[Roger B]

Is the trigger pinned through the trigger plate, or through the wood inside the lock inlet?

Is the pin tempered?

The pin is just a nail & it is pinned through the wood in the lock inlet.  I've never set up this kind of trigger before, so I was a little lost as to how to do it.
Roger B.

[Sean]

Roger,

I think these guys have some good fixes for you.  As an aside though, I've handled a couple of original Henry English patterns.  Both of them had a trigger plate and had the trigger pinned through the wood.  I wiil be back in the neighbor of those two on Saturday and should be able to get you some details on the trigger plate if you'd like.

Sean

[Long John]

I would pull the trigger pivot pin, plate and trigger.  Debur the pivot hole in the trigger and polish the nail.  I've been using nails for years and they have always worked well for me.  Polish the sides of the trigger where it goes through the slot in the plate and the slot in the plate.  Then you can determine if the slot in the plate is so wide that it is allowing the trigger to bind.  If it is I would opt for the suggestion of soldering a brass sub-plate to the inside (upper) surface of the existing trigger plate with a proper slot.  That seems easiest to me.

Of course you could contact the builder and ask her/him to fix it.

Best Regards,

JMC

[Stophel]

Just to take up side-to-side motion, you could simply slip some small washers on one or both sides of the trigger on the trigger pin.  You can try it, anyway, costs virtually nothing, with no real time involved.   

[Stan]

Why would you use a nail as a trigger pin? Buy or get a piece of drill rod of a larger size than the hole & drill the trigger & stock with the CORRECT size drill for the drill rod, Harden the rod & you are in business. Stan Hollenbaugh

[Stophel]

I use nails for all my pins.

Trigger pins get case hardened.

[cheyenne]

I reckon if a pin from a coat hanger is good for Hershal House, then a nail should work too.

[Pete G.]

I have always used the Track of the Wolf 3/32" pins. They are polished and hardened and the extra diameter seems to help also. I don't like them for barrel pins, but they are great for triggers.

[Colonial Riflesmith]

I'd replace the trigger with a trigger and plate that is PC for the Trade gun. Easy fix.

[J Shingler]

"I think that I can actually feel the pin bend a little during pull. "
The trigger slot is about 1/8" wide max. No way could you bend even a soft nail supported by wood 1/8" apart with trigger pressure. Something else is happening. The nail should be snug in its hole and music wire is better but the nail would work just fine if matched to the proper hole size in the wood.

[Don Getz]

I was thinking along the same lines as Jeff above, ....bend the pin?....holy cow, impossible.   If you are pulling that hard
that you feel like the pin is bending, you have really done something wrong, or you have a horrible lock.  I use 6 penny
finishing nails for my barrel pins and for the trigger pin.  You could use a hardened pin, but, do you realize how much that
trigger actually moves on the pin......after all, it's not spinning around it.  The trigger pin should be snug in the wood just
like a barrel pin, it should not be loose and able to turn or move when you pull the trigger.  If the pin is now loose, I would
go to a bigger pin, drill out the hole in the trigger so that it turns easily on the new pin, and then install that.....Don