I have an old early 90's Remington LH 700 short action. This started out as a 308Win in a Custom Deluxe wood stock. Since that time it has been thru several incarnations. In any of the phases it has not shot to my expectations. One of the reasons was it has an inconsistent trigger. The original was way heavy so I and my gunsmith a gentlemen who made BR triggers out of Remington triggers adjusted it down to about 2 1/2 lbs. I say about because it never would stay consistent. It went like this 2 1/2 lbs, twice, 3lbs once, 2 once, back to 2 1/2 lbs. 4 times, 3 1/4, etc. It has done this with several different after market triggers. It has had a BR trigger in it and it did the same thing only in degrees of lesser magnitude. It currently is a medium Palma barreled action in a synthetic stock in 308 win. It has a popular common after market trigger in it adjusted to about 2 lbs. When it has a round the chamber it seems to do this to a greater degree. Like the round is exerting some kind of back pressure on the sear arrangement. It can't be the chamber/barrel because this action has now had 3 different barrels on it and still had an inconsistent trigger. I have recently taken the bolt apart and cleaned the bejabbers out of it. I looked for any burrs or unusual wear. I didn't see anything so I lightly oiled it with a gun oil and reassembled it. The current custom after market trigger maker suggested I try a different bolt. I am not capable of resetting the headspace on a new bolt and LH 700 bolts are not cheap or easy to find. I have access to a couple other LH 700 bolts on a friend's rifle I could try dry firing on an empty chamber. I have looked for contact between the stock and trigger and the trigger guards etc. Any suggestions? STBE Harris
My guess would be a trigger timing issue, and as you've tried multiple triggers, I would be looking hard at the cocking piece. It could be what I call too long, meaning the angled surface on the cocking piece, the one that engages the sear, has too much metal on the front of it. This situation puts a lot of downward pressure on the sear connector via the sear, and in my experience, leads to inconsistent pull weights.
If you have a set of dial calipers, take a measurement, with the bolt in the fired position, from the back of the bolt shroud to the back of the cocking piece. Now, pull the bolt back and push it forward as far as it will go, but do not rotate the bolt into battery. Take another measurement. This time you may be measuring from the back of the cocking piece to the back of the bolt shroud. Now, keeping your eye on the cocking piece, rotate the bolt into battery. My guess is you will see it moved rearward...significantly. Take another cocking piece to rear of the bolt shroud measurement. The distance between measurements #2 and #3 is what's called, IIRC, the sear handoff measurement. The distance between measurements #1 and #3 is the firing pin travel distance.
In the case of a sear handoff measurement, again if IIRC, .010 is the ideal number. I would guess that yours is significantly more than that, causing undue pressure between the sear and the sear connector, and quite possibly the angled surfaces of the cocking piece and sear, in turn causing inconsistent trigger pull readings. Especially if you work the bolt with different amounts of force. The fix to all this is removing metal from the front of the angled surface on the cocking piece, ideally, to the point you have the .010 sear handoff measurement.
If you do this, you MUST maintain the angle on present on the cocking piece. If you don't, you will likely have problems. Ask me how I know...
Another way to check all this is to pull the barreled action out of the stock, and while watching the sear and sear connector through the little window on the trigger housing, work the bolt forward, but not into battery. If, when doing this, the sear contacts the sear connector, your cocking piece is too long, as described above. The act of rotating the bolt into battery should bring these two surfaces together. Now rotate the bolt into battery, keeping in mind the rearward movement of the cocking piece (action/reaction), and you can picture the increase in downward pressure caused by the too long cocking piece. Now imagine working the bolt with vigor vs. working the bolt gently and think about the ramifications...especially considering the tolerances present to allow all those bits and pieces to move freely. Could the cocking piece and sear, and the sear and the sear connector, be locking-up, or engaging differently from shot to shot?
This, if I understand it all correctly, is the issue of trigger timing. I FOUGHT with Remington triggers and inconsistent pull weights until I learned the above.
Caveat: You'll note the liberal use of "IIRC" throughout my reply. I am currently at work, screwing around on Benchrest Central and not working, trying not to be found out by my boss, and am typing my reply by memory. And my memory is as long as my...uhhh...you-know-what. All my notes are at home...but I think I'm close. If somebody here sees something glaring, by all means, point it out. I don't want to put bad info out there.
Or you can do what I used to do when having this problem, which was to get into my stash of Remington trigger parts and start swapping parts, hoping to cure the problem. Sometimes it got a little better...sometimes it got worse. Never once, though, did I change, or modify the cocking piece. Hmmmm...
The ABSOLUTE BEST thing you can do, in my humble opinion, before you do anything I suggest, is to grab a cup of coffee, a pad of paper and a pen, and call Dan from Accu-Tig (Dan's 40X on the forum here), and tell him what's happening with your trigger. And let the learning begin. This is how I learned the above, and every time I talk to Dan, I learn something new. Great guy, and first class service and work.
Hope this helps,
Justin
