Hi all,

I just got in a BT99 trap gun for a general cleaning and inspection. The fellow who owns it shot trap on Monday and said it went off when he closed it. He was unsure if it was his fault.

Question--- Will / should this firearm go off ( fire ) when the action is closed and the finger is on and pressing on the trigger?

Here again is a modern gun that I don't get in my shop and wanted to see what some of you think on this. I haven't got a chance to tear in to it yet. Remember, this is the trap gun "without" a safety on it. Therefore, I would think that it would be possible for the hammer to fall when closing the gun with pressure applied to the trigger.

Let me know you experience on these guns.

Thanks,

Mark

Some break open shotguns have a disconnector built into the mechanism that don't allow the trigger to be pulled while the lever is in the open position. Some guns carry that further with that mechanism moving the inertia block away from the sear while the lever is "open". Then when the lever is moved to closed, the trigger has to be released before the inertia block re-engages the sear. Unfortunately, my feeble memory can't recall the chain of events in a BT99 even though I've work on 2 of them in the last month. Fortunately, pulling the stock and watching things work a couple of times will tell you all you need to know.

What I have seen happen more than once is a shooter will close the gun with his finger in the trigger guard, pressing the trigger at the same time that the gun closes. This causes a loud disconcerting noise that causes your phone to ring shortly therafter.

That isn't to say there isn't something wrong with it. But if the customer has volunteered that his finger may have been on the trigger, that may very well be the problem. It's somewhat along the lines of "Dr., it hurts when I does this." "Then don't do that.".

First thing you'll need to know is whether it's a pull trigger or a release trigger. Maaannnyy problems effect release triggers, not the least being user error.