Started on my 4th practice pistol/1st complete pistol, new mistake, help!!

[Rolf]

One of the members at my gun club gave a piece of black walnut and said he'd buy my next practice pistol if I used the walnut and completed the gun. So far I've inlet and pinned the barrel, made and inlet the thimbles, inlet the lock and installed lock bolts, made and installed the singel trigger and triggerplate and made my first brass buttcap. The triggergard is one of the practice triggergards I made from sheet stock

This time I was able to inlet the lock without breaking into the barrel channel. I filed down the short arm of the main spring and that made a world of difference. I'd like to thank members of forum the tip.

This time I made a new mistake. I filed about 2mm (0.08") to much off the triggerbar. This gives an annoying slop in the trigger. I have not case harden the trigger jet.  I'm thinking of using a welding rod to build up metall on the triggerbar and then filing it to fit better. Would this cause problems with case hardening the trigger?

Best regards
Rolfkt

[tallbear]

Rolfkt
Can you inlet the trigger a little deeper?The trigger bar should not be so tight on the sear bar as to bind the bar as the lock cycles to full cock.

Mitch

[smart dog]

Hi Rolf,
Yes, you can weld metal to the top of the trigger and then case harden it with no problem.  I have done that several times.  However, before messing with the trigger, take a careful look at the lock.  Watch how the sear bar moves up and down as you cock the lock from rest to half cock and then to full cock.  In many cases the sear bar drops a little bit lower at full cock than when at rest.  What usually happens is that you try to keep the trigger snug when the gun is uncocked but when you do that, the lock won't hold at full cock.  So next you file down the trigger bar until the lock holds at full cock, only now there is slop when the lock is at rest.  The fix is this:  adjust the trigger bar so the lock cocks properly at full cock.  Then anneal the tumbler and carefully grind a shallow depression (more of a shallow groove across the bottom of the tumbler really) on the bottom of the tumbler where the nose of the sear rests when the lock is uncocked.  Deepen the groove sufficiently to eliminate any slop in the trigger when the lock is at rest.  Reharden the tumbler and case harden the trigger and you should be all set to go.  If you don't want to anneal the tumbler, a Dremel tool with a diamond grinding bit will work fine.

dave

[Rolf]

Thanks for the tips. I'll try Dave's suggeustion first. I am afraid if I inlet the trigger/trigger plate deeper, I'll spoil the flow of the grip.

Best regards

Rolfkt

[rich pierce]

If you don't weld it is quite possible to add a piece of steel on top by incorporating a dovetail.  Get the added piece to fit well then peen the sides with a hammer and it will never budge.  Then you can case harden and not worry about it coming loose.

[flehto]

On all my MLers I high temp silver solder a piece of high speed steel  {the hardness is unaffected by the heat} onto the trigger bar, grind to suit and stone the few thousands for very little "slop" at full cock. Of course I use Chambers locks that have very little deviation of searbar positions at half and full cock.....Fred

[davec2]

Rolfkt,

Here are a couple of pictures of the trigger on my 4 gage blunderbuss.  Due to the thickness of the stock in the wrist area, I had to add a bit to a standard trigger by welding.  Also, I hate the rattle of a loose trigger, but am too lazy to do all the fiddling with the tumbler, sear, etc.  I just put a very small leaf spring under the trigger to keep it in constant contact with the sear arm without any rattling.  The trigger accomodates any movement of the sear arm without the need for any meticulous fine tuning.

[smart dog]

Hi Dave,
I have done that and it works well as long as the sear spring is fairly strong.  If the sear spring is light then the trigger spring has to be very light so the lock holds at full cock.  On a big lock for a blundebuss you have a lot of margin for error because the sear spring (and mainspring) is probably pretty strong.  On a small pistol lock, Rolf will probably have to do a little more fine tuning of springs to make that work.

dave

[davec2]

Dave,

Good point.  I do have the same arrangement on most of my rifles and pistols, but, as you point out, the trigger leaf spring needs to be very weak - just enough to keep the trigger from rattling.  Actually, it only has to have enough strength to pick up the weight of the trigger (a few grams) on that side of the pivot pin.

I hate to admit it in this forum, but on a couple of guns I built back in high school, I used the coil springs out of a ball point pen to keep the triggers noise free. 

Dave C

[Pete G.]

I like the spring. Seems that you could use a fairly weak spring and then tap a hole forward of the spring hold down screw and get a adjustable trigger of sorts.

[smart dog]

"I hate to admit it in this forum, but on a couple of guns I built back in high school, I used the coil springs out of a ball point pen to keep the triggers noise free. 

Dave C"

Aha!!   I knew your engraving and metalwork was too good to be true.  I knew there had to be some sort of secret character flaw somewhere.  Don't worry Dave, your secret is safe with us.

dave

[Acer Saccharum]

I use that spring trick on target guns where I don't want any rattle. For a hunter, I don't mind.

This spring must, as Dave said, be only strong enough to lift the trigger bar, but not strong enough to trip the lock should the sear spring break.

Your lock, by the way, should hold on full cock with no sear spring.

Acer

[Rolf]

Thanks for the spring tip. I'll try it if i can't get good results with adding metal to the triggerbar and adjusting the tumbler.

Best regards

Rolfkt