I have a new (tang safety) 1894 AE in 30-30. It is the saddle ring carbine version, and has a truly terrible trigger. Does anyone know what can be done to lighten or improve it? I've talked to gunsmiths that won't even touch them...

Anyone have any suggestions? Even Wild West Guns said they can't make it very good, and it wasn't worth the money....

Thanks,

Dan

The newer Win 94 triggers are truly horrible. I had the opportunity to shoot one last year and you about needed a winch to set the thing off. I guess they figure if you can't fire it, you can't hurt anybody.

It is hogwash that they can't be improved. Maybe you can't make a light target trigger out of it but you can certainly make a good hunting trigger out of it. I have a 356 Winchester with the new style trigger and it wasn't bad when I got it. It wasn't great but it was shootable. The angles on the sear and hammer engagement surfaces need to be changed to really improve it. Lighter springs may help and just using it may improve it over time.

quote:

Originally posted by Marc:
Lighter springs may help and just using it may improve it over time.

Absolutely. Many of the Winchester 94s of 60 years ago had less than delightful triggers when delivered, too. Nothing like a couple of thousand cycles to tune those suckers up... (Same was also true of Colt Peacemakers, BTW.)

Hello Dan H,
Think what WWG was really telling you is that they just did not want to take the time to work on it. Check out www.leverguns.com and ask around, several people have the same experience and ways to solve the problem are discussed there. Just a suggestion.

Thanks for the ideas....
I'm going to see if a spring kit from Wolfe and a little polishing can make enough difference. I don't want too light a hammer spring to start causing misfires in the cold, so I guess I'll have to mess with it and see what happens. Replacement springs sound much better than cutting down and maybe screwing up the one I have...

Cheers,

Dan

I purchased a new 94 AE this year and had to break it in to make it huntable by my standards.
I Put the safety on and cyled rounds through the receiver to loosen up the mechanisms. I also would push the cartridges into the magazine one at a time and allow the gate to snap shut between each cartridge, so that you need to force the gate past the loaded round to get the next one in. If you keep doing this, it will eventually get easy to shove one the magazine after a shell is fired or ejected from the chamber. This I believe is essential to get the full benefit of the tubular magazine. The gate will wear off enough to allow for smooth and quick loading. I did not want to decrease spring tension like some folks do in order to get an easier feed, as this tension gives reliable feeding.

I put loctite on the buttstock screw to keep things tight. Where the wood forearm meets the receiver I put a bead of epoxy the whole way around the wood and used vaseline as a release agent on the receiver. Then you push the forearm into place just far enough to get the barrel band screw in. When the epoxy sets up, I remove it, clean up the receiver, shove it back in place and put loctite on the barrel band screw and make it quite snug. It is essential that the stock does not shift or the barrel band screw move and change the tension on the barrel in order to get consistent accuracy. The front barrel band screw and the tube-to-barrel screw also get the blue loctite on the threads -- again for the purpose of maintaining barrel tension consistency.

The top of the hammer should have its ridges stoned off so the bolt slides over the hammer easily. After that stick a folded piece of thick cloth between the hammer and the firing pin and cycle the action and snap the trigger (many times) until it runs smoothly. Final tuning of the trigger is accomplished by putting pressure on the back of the hammer extension (pushing forward) and snapping the trigger. The pressure will hone that trigger till you get a fine and crisp release -- compared to what it was from the factory.

With a scope on mine I can keep some 3 shot groups with 170 Corelokts and 29 grains of H322 under an 1" at 100 yards with a 4x scope. Usually the groups can stay under 1-1/2".You might say I am very pleased with the results.

Don't know about the new ones but some of the old ones were very heavy also.
A gunsmith lightened mine and it turned out at 1 lb. So I don't know if that was what he was after or he over did it slightly, but he got the same result with my 77-22.
One thing about a very light trigger, it brushed up one's safe handling proceedures.

So all you need is a good smith, not those collywobble ones you've seen so far.