I like more overtravel in the trigger than most. It seems to me that once the trigger breaks, I want it to fall away so that my trigger finger has no chance of pulling the gun off target. Some of my favorite triggers are the ruger Mk2, old Winchester M70s, and walker style Remingtons set at 3-3.5Lbs with some nice overtravel.
Does this overtrtavel have an effect on the safety of the triggers?
Am I the only one who enjoys this overtrtavel as it seems to me that no overtravel is generally preferred.

Like most gunsmiths, I had always set triggers uip with minimal overtravel. Then a dozen years back (or thereabout) a customer told me he had started setting his triggers up with more overtravel, following advice from Jim Cloward, after which his scores in rapid fire had improved considerably with no negative impact at all on slow fire. Since both of these guys are better shots than I, I decided to try it out and I liked it. As advertised, the overtravel was not discernible when shooting the rifle and the only time it felt different was when dry firing. Most customers prefer to have their triggers set up with minimal overtravel and I still set them that way but offer them the option. For myself, I mostly set them up looser. Regards, Bill

I always back the over-travel RIGHT OFF on my guns because of something VanOwen told me when I was a kid. Old Rudy's theory was that you didn't want the trigger coming up against a dead stop in it's rearward travel while the bullet was still in the barrel. If the gun stays dead still while the bullet is in egress you should hit what you were aiming at. If the trigger crashes into something, odds are that it's not going to stay dead still. Al Murdoch once told me something much to the same effect. Like Billy says, you can't feel over travel when your shooting with live rounds, so whats the point? It's a forgone conclusion that you're certainly not going to dry-fire that son-of-a-bitch into submission!

Just how long is that bullet in that barrel from the time the primer ignites until the bullet fully exits the barrel?

Am I correct that it is a nonlinear time distance equation (bullet traveling at an increasing speed) so the curve on the graph would not be a straight line.

Would it be the integral for the period from ignition to when the bullet left the barrel.

I guess my question is - what is the equation from which to take the integral?

What takes longer?
The time from when the sear is released to ignition?
Or from ignition to when the bullet exits the barrel?

Searched the internet and this is what I came up with

Rem 700 LA has a 2.5ms lock time, Mausers are 4-5ms
And from more searching the bullet takes approx. 1-2ms to exit the bore from ignition

Dead Eye

Could you provide the link to the site where you found that information.

Here you go

http://www.accurateshooter.com...s-about-barrel-life/

http://yarchive.net/gun/rifle/lock_time.html

A blink is between 100-150ms to put that in perspective. A blink is one of the fastest conscious acts the body can do.

I think lock speed falls in the category of "if you think it makes you shoot better, it does"

quote:

Originally posted by Bigjimttu:

I think lock speed falls in the category of "if you think it makes you shoot better, it does"

Actually the amount of time between when you squeeze the trigger and the bullet leaving the barrel is an incredibly long period of time. In a relative sense. If the angle of muzzle of the gun moves over one thousandths of one inch at one inch, between the time you pull the trigger and the bullet leaves the barrel, .001 inch x 12 = .012 inch at 1 foot, x 100 = 1.2 inches at 100 feet or x 3 = 3.6 inches at 100 yards. If I got the math right.

Lots of things can happen in that time. The flags can all change directions, the gun can slip in the bags, a bug can fly in your eye, Trump can nuke Korea, the cat can have kittens, your wife can have an affair, your tax notice can come in the mail or you can flat out pull the cross wires off of the target. Fast lock time is your friend.

I'm all for everything going as quickly and smoothly as possible. So a faster lock time is a good thing, but here's the math...

This is overly simplified, since the bullet in this case is accelerating, and there's the time involved with the actual ignition and combustion of the primer and powder.

But let's take a 3,000fps bullet. That's 36,000 inches per second.

In a 24" barrel, that's .6 milliseconds. add 1-5 milliseconds for lock time, and say...20milliseconds for the combustion (that's a wild ass guess...google failed me)

So all told, from the time you drop the sear, you're looking less time than a bee beats it's wings.

Admittedly, from my experience, I can screw up a shot from the time I squeeze the trigger until the bullet hits the target.

my point is this: a faster lock time is better than a slow lock time. But thinking your faster lock time is better probably makes you shoot better. Anything that makes you think you'll shoot better will. Most people don't realize have fast a millisecond is. It's faster than the human eye can process, it's faster than the brain can process individually. Its faster than a sorority girl could reject me in college, and that was really damn fast.

Any measurable, mathematical advantage that you can get, will make you shoot better! Most of the tiny things that you do to your equipment only make small improvements. All of the small improvements added together can make a noticeable improvement! And that's how bench rest shooters are conceived. And you thought it all happened in the back seat of an old Chev Impala with a bottle of lemon gin.

Faith, rabbits feets, salt over your shoulder, four leaf clovers, chickens feets, incantations, prayer, voodoo, lucky coins and seances. Well, good luck with that. It can't hurt. LOL

quote:

Originally posted by speerchucker30x378:
Any measurable, mathematical advantage that you can get, will make you shoot better! Most of the tiny things that you do to your equipment only make small improvements. All of the small improvements added together can make a noticeable improvement! And that's how bench rest shooters are conceived.

Years ago, when I was just out of college, an old benchrest shooter taught me how to reload my 222 Rem for best accuracy. He taught me how to bed and float the barreled action of my 700. He adjusted my trigger, lapped rings and lugs,showed me how to turn my necks. He sold me an old arbor press and a set of Wilson dies, since he'd moved on the 22 Waldog and 6PPC many years before. He would always tell me, "It takes pennies to make dollars!"

My match rifles, small bore , air rifle and competition service rifles each have the trigger set with maximum over travel. Trigger over travel helps most in standing position. I cannot imagine shooting a precision air rifle in stand position without any trigger over travel.

When it comes to the effect of lock time vs barrel time, the only sensible answer is, who cares? The original question concerned overtravel on a trigger. I like to have plenty and have heard no compelling argument to the contrary with most anecdotal evidence seeming to agree that it is beneficial. Regards, Bill.