Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Gunsmithing What to use to hone/polish a trigger?

I'm thinking about trying to cleanup the trigger on an old 22 rifle.

What kind of stone or other abrasive do I need to hone/polish the surfaces?

I have an old hard arkansas oilstone laying around. Will that do the trick?

Thanks.

I use ceramic files. I am really fond of the triangular shape since it allows you to get into sharp corners, but you would also need a square file. I have a round one, but dont get much use of it.

Your oilstone will do just fine.

Neil

I use stones designed to sharpen inletting chisels.

Thanks for the responses guys. I think the stone I have IS actually intended to be on chisels. It is about 3" by 2" with the long edges rounded, but with different radiuses.

It came out of a box of old tools I inherited when an uncle passed away. I have no idea how old it is but the packaging looks 1950s at the newest and it actually looks more like 1930s.

Are you talking about polishing up the sear engagement surface of the trigger or just the sides and other surfaces that don't affect trigger pull?

Cleaning up the engagement surfaces.

Since you are asking what kind of stone to use, I am assuming that you haven't done this before. This is just my opinion, but that is an area where it doesn't take much of a mistake to create a rifle that is unsafe or just down right dangerous. I would rather take it to a gunsmith that knows how to do the job and also how to test the rifle to see if the job was done safely.

It's an old Remington 511 that might be worth $180 on a good day. It doesn't NEED fixed, I have the rifle, and I have the stone, and I thought I'd give it a go just for the experience and the satisfaction thereof. I'm definitely not interested in paying anyone to tweak it, it's not really that bad. I just thought I'd see if I can make it a little nicer. If I ruin it I'm not out much.

I'm not a gunsmith but I've improved the triggers on every rifle I own. I've mainly used a white ceramic broadhead sharpener. It's very fine and flat. One trick, depending on what you're honing, is to come up with something to use as jig/guide to keep the surfaces flat, perpedicular, square, etc. Get creative. I've used all sorts of things depending on what needed to be done. A phone book with the right amount of pages peeled back to let the stone ride on. A small machinist square to keep things perpendicular. And so on.

It sometimes takes a little experimentation to get things right. Hone a little bit, put it back together, see how it works and repeat as needed. Just go slow and don't change the angles of the engagement surfaces. That's bad ju-ju.


fish head