My Father-in-law passed away a couple of weeks ago. Since he didn't have a son my wife being the only shooter in the family took his firearms planning on passing them to her son some day.

Got a question on two of the 22s. One is a H&R Plainsman 865. For being 50+ years old it looks fine, bore is ok the issue I've found is if you cycle the bolt quickly the sear will not catch. Do it slowly or push down and it works fine. Trigger pull while I haven't meassured it has to be way less than 3#. I have not taken it apart to clean it but wondered if anyone had ideas what to look for other than just WEAR.

Second is a Rem 552 auto. This rifle looks fairly new and clean functions fine. However I would bet the trigger pull would max out my guage. Can these triggers be lightened? I have not searched for new springs.

Disassemble the H&R and clean it thoroughly. It may be that accumulated crud is causing the problem.

+1 what Dall85 said. That was my guess when I read your post.

I'm no gunsmith but both could probably benefit from being taken out of the stock and blasted with crud cutter or a light lube like LPS#1 then gently blown dry with some air. They probably haven't been cleaned and lubed in a decade or so. A little gentle brushing with a small fiber brush to get the goo out and a little light lube will do wonders.

Paul,

I second the inputs you've gotten so far that the most likely cause is dried oil gunk. I get a dirty old .22 to fix almost every week and 9 out of 10 times the only thing wrong is dried oil gunk gumming up the works. Clean it all up and I'd bet you don't need any springs.