Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Gunsmithing Canjar Trigger adjustment

Hope to have some help from the readers with said trigger. Today I picked up a LH Model 788 in 6mm Rem. It has some sort of rough texture coating on the metal, has been bedded, wears a Tasco Euro-Class 3-9x52 scope, and has a Canjar set trigger. Took it out today after a good cleaning and it shoots little groups with a load worked up for another rifle. BUT the darn safety does not engage. I have found instructions that say pre-set from factory leave alone.

However I would think someone has mucked with one and can give me some advice. Leave it alone and get a different trigger or adjust away.

Thanks

On that trigger, the safety is primarily a flat piece of steel with a lever bent to a specific shape meant to protrude through the slot in the stock. The mechanism pivots on a pin running through the trigger body. There is a detent mechanism on it that provides positive positioning in the safe and fire modes. There is also a small bend on the front of it which rides in a slot in the bolt release. If you push the safety all of the way forward, it pushes the bolt release down and allows the bolt to slide out of the back of the receiver.

The safety works by not allowing the main sear lever to move when the safe mode is engaged. There is a small protrusion on the side of the sear that sticks out beyond the side of the trigger plate. When the safety is engaged, the flat steel safety plate comes up under this protrusion and prevents the primary sear lever from falling. When the safety is disengaged, there is a cutout in the flat safety plate that allows the primary sear to fall.

The trigger is meant to be used normally with a pull above 24 ounces (my estimate) or more. Then, when a light pull is required, the set function can be used to obtain a pull of just a few ounces.

What happens I believe, is that sometimes people try to set the main trigger pull down to a point that is too low to be properly held by the normal trigger function. When the safety is engaged, the trigger may be pulled and the internal sear surface releases and does not reset. The gun doesn't fire though because the primary sear is held in place by the safety plate. However, the act of moving the safety from safe to fire mode at this time will release the primary sear and the gun will fire.

Is this the behavior you are seeing?

If so, you may be able to correct the problem by increasing the basic trigger pull via the adjustment screw just ahead of the trigger lever on the bottom of the trigger. Turn it clockwise / in to increase the normal pull. It is unlikely that you will need to adjust the other screws for engagement or overtravel unless the previous owner messed with them himself and thus put the trigger into a precarious operating range.

Of course, you could be having another problem altogether. Perhaps caused by a broken spring, etc.

If I have time this evening, I'll post some pictures of all that blather I posted above so that you can see what I'm talking about. If you decide to get something different, please keep me in mind if you sell it. I would encourage you to try and make it work though as these are usually very good triggers.

In the picture below, the safety is not in one of the detents and is actually 1/2 way between fire and safe. If the safety thumb lever is pushed forward a bit farther, you can see how that silver protrusion on the sear would be in the fire mode because it could drop all the way into that notch.

Thanks for the help. After looking it over very well the part that blocks trigger movement is a pin affair that goes the width of the assembly. The thumb actuated lever has two very small detent holes, the hole for the fire position is also partially concave on the side of the lever that rides against the assembly. The pin is about 1/4", this side rides on the safety lever it also has a very small cone machined on it that catches in the detent holes of the actuating lever. A small but fairly stout spring goes against the trigger assembly on the side opposite the safety lever and around a small shank that protrudes all the way thru the assembly.

If I cycle the bolt and engage the safety the rifle will still fire with the trigger, I have not had any problems with it fireing when the bolt is closed. If I cycle the bolt, engage the safety and take the end of a small paper clip and insert thru the hole in the safety lever then push the trigger blocking pin down just a bit the rifle will not fire, the safety works. So the skirt that blocks the trigger needs to be longer or I need a safe reliable way the push the pin down farther in the safe position but let it move fully into fire.

What model number is scribed on the side of your unit? Can you throw a picture up?

I assume you have taken the trigger/shoe off of the unit to get the stock off so you can see all of this. The trigger in my picture in the prior post has the single-set shoe removed. The shoe is too wide to allow the bottom plate and stock to be removed without taking the shoe off. Unless of course someone has milled out those areas on your rifle.

model 788-1

No 'S' after the '1'? Mine is an earlier unit than yours and so your safety may work differently. Does yours have the shoe that you push forward and the small set trigger pops out at the bottom of the shoe?

Yep

The safety lever on mine looks nothing like the one you have pictured. The piece your thumb pushes looks like the factory unit.

The thumb piece on yours probably looks larger and has a bit of a trapezoidal shape I'm guessing. So you took the shoe off to remove the stock so you could see the trigger? You can see in my pic that I have removed the trigger / shoe piece. It has to be that way to get it out of the rifle due to it's excessive width.

Nope, the stock and metal around the opening for the trigger have been opened up just enough to get the trigger thru.