| Building a Muzzleloader - Installing Trigger Assembly | |
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I'll tell much of the story with photographs, so each page may be a bit slow to load. Click on any photo for a larger image.
Installing the trigger proved to be one of the easiest tasks of this project. It's held in place by the tang screw in the front and one wood screw at the rear. All I had to do was remove a bit of wood at the rear of the inletting to make room for the set trigger spring, and carefully bend the trigger return spring to clear the tang bolt.
After installing the lock and trigger, I found that the trigger pull was terrible! I have no way to estimate the weight of pull, but it was tremendous. It was so hard that the set trigger, which is spring-loaded and "jumps" up to hit the sear to drop the hammer, couldn't disengage the sear from its notch in the tumbler.
CVA's instruction booklet says that if the triggers "do not operate properly, inlet trigger assembly deeper, removing small amount [sic] of wood each time and repeating function test."
Well, there was no way that would help my problem, though an inexperienced builder may not have realized this, to his or her everlasting sorrow. Further inletting of the trigger assembly would have been a big mistake. As it turned out, there is a small screw on the tumbler to control the sear engagement, which I found upon closer inspection. No mention of it is made in the instruction booklet, though it is mentioned in the manual for the gun's operation.
I'll also mention that the instruction booklet called for the drilling of a 3/32" hole 1/2" deep for the rear trigger assembly screw. Well, that would have been too big for the screw provided for that purpose! I used a 1/16" bit instead, which worked just fine. Just goes to show that it takes a good dose of common sense to do these projects and not be thrown off by instructions that prove to be incorrect.
The trigger inlet in the stock after fitting. All I had to do, after knocking out the loose bits of wood, was remove a little wood for the set trigger spring. You can see the small notches I cut with a small, sharp knife, just to the left of the screw hole on the right.
This is a top view of the trigger assembly. The Philips-head screw to the right is securing the set trigger spring, which is what I had to notch for. The small wire spring, visible above the hole to the left, is the trigger return spring. I had to put a slight bend in it so it would clear the tang bolt, which screws into that hole. Contact between that spring and the stock or tang bolt would keep the trigger from working properly.
This pic shows the inside of the lock. The little silver screw with the spring around it, near the lockplate, is the sear engagement screw. It simply serves as a stop against which the sear rests upon cocking. The sear is that thing that's sticking down towards the bottom of the picture.
I adjusted the sear engagement screw until I had proper sear engagement -- that is, the full face of the sear engaging the notch -- and trigger pull was fine. The set trigger also worked properly at that point, so I was done with this portion of the project.
This shows the sear properly engaged at half-cock. The sear is fully engaged in the half-cock notch, and pulling the trigger (which pushes upward on the rear of the sear) will not cause the hammer to fall.
And here it is, cocked. The full face of the sear is against the notch in the tumbler, as it should be. Partial engagement is a no-no, and would probably cause undue rapid wear of the sear and notch, increasing the likelihood of unintentional firing.
Next page - Polishing and Fitting the Nose Cap.
- Russ Chastain
