I am Triggered

I have sort of sad news RE the Savage Accutrigger project. I bought two light trigger springs for two rifles. One of the springs installed pretty easily and worked perfectly. The other one didn’t work.

The gun that works with the new spring is a Savage A22 in .22 Long Rifle. The new spring dropped right in without alteration. It was very soft, so I had to set the trigger pull somewhere above the lightest level. The trigger is great now.

The gun that doesn’t like the new springs is a Savage 93R17 in .17HMR.

This is a different sort of gun. The A22 is a semiauto, and the 93R17 is a bolt action. The Accutrigger assemblies are somewhat different.

When I got the 93R17 open, I saw that the spring was harder to get out. The spring in the A22 had a pin at one end that lodged in the trigger assembly housing. I lifted that pin out and screwed the spring out of the threaded hole at the other end. The 93R17 didn’t have a hole for a pin. The entire bottom end of the spring went over a pin in the trigger assembly. I guess that pin is about 3/16″ in diameter. There isn’t enough room to lift the spring off the pin and pull it out, so you have to remove the trigger and lower the trigger away from the pin to free the spring.

Another problem: the spring I ordered wouldn’t accept the pin on the trigger assembly. In order to create the pin at the end of the spring, the manufacturer bent the spring wire across the bottom of the spring and then bent a small bit outward at 90 degrees. The part that went across the bottom blocked the large pin on the assembly. I had to Dremel it off.

I got the new spring installed and put the trigger assembly together. It wouldn’t fire. The new spring was so soft, it was almost completely compressed by the pressure of the rear of the trigger.

Another customer claims the spring worked with a Savage .17 HMR. Maybe he has the semiauto version. Anyway, I got nowhere.

I decided to modify the original 93R17 spring. I was nervous about doing it, because I had read that Savage didn’t like mailing new springs to people. I pictured myself having to pay a gunsmith a hundred bucks to put a $5 spring in. I found out people had been able to get new springs from a company on the web (Sharp Shooters’ Supplies), so I decided to take a chance.

I wasn’t sure about what I was doing. Some guy on Youtube claims you shouldn’t shorten the spring because it causes other problems. There’s a video of a man taking a different route. He ground down the part of the trigger the spring sits on. He reduced it by about 0.070″. This allows the spring to relax a little.

I considered trying his solution, but I hate hacking up a gun like that.

I found a thread at Rimfire Central, the site that banned me for no discernible reason. A whole bunch of people said they had cut their old 93R17 springs with no ill effects. Supposedly, you can take an entire coil (360 degrees) off the spring. If you take off much more, you can end up with a gun that won’t fire.

The thread was very long, and a ton of people said the modification worked, so I decided to ignore the Youtube advice.

I took my old spring and mounted it in my new Panavise. That was exciting. By my standards. I took down the old Dremel I opened up and got working the other day (another triumph). I used a cutoff wheel to remove one coil from the spring, and I put it back in the gun.

It works fine. It feels just like it used to, except the pull is lighter.

Using the new workbench is a blast. I have air conditioning. I have a big screen TV. I am within easy reach of a couch and a recliner. It’s heaven.

The people on the thread suggested adding Loctite to increase friction in the threaded cavity the spring sits in, to keep the spring from turning and changing the trigger pull all by itself. I did that. I hope it will still turn when I want it to.

I contacted the outfit that sold me the spring that didn’t work, to find out if I had done something wrong. I guess they’ll email me.

Now I have two super-duper scoped rimfires. All I need is some decent weather to try them out.

I keep getting failures to fire with the A22 and Remington Golden Bullets. Not sure what that’s all about. I have a new batch, but I’m still shooting old ones. I haven’t sat down and had a real session with it since I modified the spring, but I did go out and shoot 5 rounds in the yard to make sure it worked. One of the rounds didn’t go off.

I’m not worried. If there’s a firing pin issue or something, it can be fixed. If I have to take the gun to an authorized Savage smith, I can always put the old spring back in so they don’t give me any noise about the warranty. The spring has nothing to do with the firing pin.

Maybe the A22 will work fine with my newest shipment of Golden Bullets. If so, everything is fine.

I like accurate rifles. You can’t learn to shoot with a rifle that shoots worse than you do. You end up chasing the rifle’s errors. As far as I know, I have three very accurate guns now. Not sure; I think the .204 Ruger is accurate, but I haven’t shot it enough to be certain.

I hope to get outside tomorrow and try the modified Savages out.