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| Article by: Jamie Mangrum | |||||||||
Recently we published a great article written by Mark Trope on building a home made trigger pull gauge. The article is called Trigger Weight: Measuring Trigger Pull in a Mil-Surp Rifle. In Mark's article he makes the following statements: Unfortunately, most commercial gauges don’t have enough range to measure the trigger pull weight in mil-surp rifles. |
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The pull weight of mil-surp firearms far exceeds the ranges found in commercial firearms. The trigger in the military firearm is very specialized.
Article after article that I have written for Surplusrifle.com, I have had to describe the trigger pull of my mil-surp firearms in relative terms. I have had to guess what weight the pull of the trigger actually was, in each case. |
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The reason for the guessing? Like Mark said, commercially manufactured trigger gauges, when tested on a mil-surp firearm with a heavy-weight trigger pull, measure well beyond the measurement capability of the scale.
After the article was published I received the following email correspondence in response:
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In the recent article by Mark Trope,
he made mention of the fact that no one makes a scale
that will weigh above 12lbs. Well here at feather river
sports we make two scales one in the ten pound increment
and one that will measure up to 25lbs. (see web site)
The latter, was a special request by the gunsmith at the
California highway patrol academy,
www.featherriversports.com or at the these
#s 1-530-533-3049 or our fax # 1-530-533-3428. BTW - Timney Triggers will be selling this scale exclusively for around $35. Also this model of scale will soon also have a kilogram scale on one side of the indicator as well as the pound scale.
Timney Triggers Best regards, |
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I wrote back that I was very interested in testing the 25 lb. gauge. Literally the next day a box was waiting on my doorstep. On a side note: Surplusrifle.com has a new photographer. My daughter Maija is now in college and has a job (thank god!). She no longer has the time to help out on the site with taking photos. I thank her for all of the assistance and the endless patience she has showed me over the past two years. |
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Believe me, she has shown a heck of a lot of patience with me! I think I have prepared her for the most difficult boss you could ever work for! :) Maija in her time as our photographer has taken over 10,000 photos for the site. A long time friend, Tony Solis has taken over in her place (but not as my daughter!) and his photos are starting to show up on the site, as in this article. The familiar "MNM" initials on each photo has been replaced with "TSolis". Welcome and thanks, Tony! |
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Tony was surprised to see the level of my enthusiasm when he came over to shoot photos. I basically had at least a dozen rifles and pistols lined up to test the trigger pull. Since we both have day jobs and taking photos of testing this many firearms' trigger pull would take until the wee hours of the morning to complete, I quickly came to my senses and trimmed down the list to five firearms.
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I chose a 98k, Russian SKS, Albanian SKS, and Nagant 1895 Pistol - all with standard issue military triggers. I also added in a Yugo m48 Mauser with one of John Huber's Mauser triggers installed, for good measure. I have purchased a couple other commercial trigger pull gauges over the years and on first examination of the Feather River gauge I came to the conclusion that it is a very well made device and should last as long as your interest in firearms (and that is a lifetime, right?). I used my Tipton gun vise and locked the rifles in place, aiming straight up at the ceiling. |
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| Safety Note: Before pulling the trigger on any firearm you need to make certain that the firearm is unloaded. Remember - assume all firearms are loaded. | |||||||||
First I tested a Mauser 98k. I cocked the bolt and then reset the trigger gauge to zero. Like other gauges the gauge works off of a spring. When you pull on the trigger it compresses the spring and pushes the indicator forward on the scale. When the trigger breaks, you stop pulling and the spring expands, leaving the trigger pull weight indicator where the exact trigger break occurred. The 98k came in at 6 lbs. This is very reasonable for a military rifle. Next I set up a Yugo m48 Mauser that I had installed one of John Huber's Mauser triggers and it broke at 3.5 lbs. Wow, that is a really light trigger pull! |
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"Out of all of my SKS, my Albanian has the weightiest and roughest trigger pull. I don't have a trigger pull gauge, but I would have to guess the pull would measure somewhere in the VERY high teens. If not higher." |
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Amazing! Last, I decided to test the granddaddy of all trigger pulls: the m1895 Nagant pistol. I estimated that mine has at least a 10 lb pull in single action (cock the hammer manually and then pull the trigger and it releases the hammer) and probably twice that in double action (pull the trigger and it both cocks and releases the hammer). |
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From this point forward you are going to see the Feather River trigger weight scale in a lot of the range reports on Surplusrifle.com to accurately tell the readers (and not just make these wild a$$ guesses) how many wrestlers you will need to pull the trigger on your new mil-surp rifle or pistol. Great product Feather River and thank you for releasing something we can all use! |
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| jlm;) | |||||||||
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