Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles Worst trigger on a factory rifle

Recently acquired a model seven in 300 saum while shopping for an elk rifle for my daughter. This one is mine as I loved the platform! After acquiring brass I made up some loads and discovered this is the worst trigger ever manufactured. I have a old model seven trigger on the way just now from the classifieds. I took 5 rifles to the range that day and raised my head to see if the safety was on a few times and at least twice I was surprised when the Bergra went off before I was ready (never shoot a junk trigger the same day as a quality one). Replaced the firing pin assembly with a quality item fro. gar-ten. So far I love the cartridge getting good groups at 100 with the Barnes 165 Tsx and 4895

Shawn
Pleasant Hill, Mo

Mine was on a Marlin 983S in 22 Mag. MAn, that was a crappy trigger.

My Nevada brother handed me a his Rem 740 series "elk rifle" back when I was gunsmithing, several decades ago. Primarily for the fact that the first shot went about 6 inches high and to the left of all subsequent shots. Cold and clean, or cold and fouled. After doing everything I could think of I called Remington.

"Well, if you happen to figure it out, would you give us a call ?. Sometimes a new barrel helps, but not always" was what I got.... . Nope, never figured it out. Either of us.

My home built trigger weight scale only goes to 17 lbs, and would not trip the trigger. I got it down to 6.

I put together a RU77 tang .270 on a modified Brown Precision stock for him. The modification being to cut the wrist out a bit on top for the ball of the thumb and a Bondo palm swell. I had done the same previously for a M98 I had. Worked and felt really good.

He's still using it 30+ years later. The 98 is long gone... another one I shouldn't have sold....

A Mendoza air rifle from Mexico. I don't have a trigger scale but you basically had to heave on that trigger to touch the thing off.

Yeah - my Gamo is pretty bad- and no way to alleviate that I can see.

Those are great stories! Yes the Gamo, I forgot I have one of those too

Shawn

My Gamo trigger is so bad I don’t even feel bad it sits in the garage with surface rust

Shawn

On the plus side, my rescue dog, Honey HalfLab, extremely gun shy when I got her, ain't no more... Or not as bad, anyway, thanks to the Gamo. The reason I bought it.

Had to teach her about grouse hunting using the Gamo, after working her up through just picking up and putting down a gun until she quit hiding, then gun carry on walks, and dry firing a staple gun in the garage.

I had to teach her everything on our first Gamo grouse hunting, right down to looking for the bird.

2nd trip out was " Hey! I got this, Boss!!! I'll just scoot back and stand here behind you until you shoot...."

Was going to graduate her up thru .22 cb, shorts, L.R.

Instead, going straight to 30-06 on a caribou hunt a bit later without thinking about it,- didn't faze her.... " I'll just scoot behind you until you shoot... "

She still doesn't like guns, but....sacrifices have to be made for hunting!

We are going with a .22 or the 20, for grouse next fall.

Not a damned thing to do with trigger pull weight, tho.

My picks would be the average SKS or worse yet, the Russian IZH single shot rifles. From what I understand, the IZH trigger system is such a piece of "engineering", that you cannot alter it to a good pull weight without making it very unreliable (as in dangerous) or getting misfires. RJ

Ruger mkII bolt action, then closely followed by the Stevens 200..

CZ bobwhite. Sent it back twice and it was still like beating against an anvil. Down the road it went. No more CZ shotguns

I have a Winchester 1300 12 gauge shotgun that has the worst trigger on any gun I've ever hunted with. As far as a rifle goes, I've had a few military rifles that had to have ten pound trigger pulls. The OP is talking about his Remington Model 7, and I'm going to assume that it has the XMark-Pro trigger.That one was a crap shoot. I like my hunting rifles to be around a 3 pound pull. I've had some Remington rifles with one that would not adjust at all, staying in the 4-5 pound range. Others would adjust to about where I liked them, but then that stupid screw in the trigger shoe would be sticking out. The two solutions I came up with were to either replace the trigger, or put an Ernie the Gunsmith spring in the XMark trigger.

Ruger 7mm Mag wood stock, you could pick the whole rifle with scope up (around 9 lbs) by the trigger and it would not go off.

Ruger M77 Mark 2 300 win mag.

Yes my model 7 has the X mark with only the three tiny adjustment screws covered in clear sealant. I have an old style on the way. I assume it’s a walker. Anyway I am not going to do further load development until I get the trigger resolved.

A friend just brought me a Ruger 10/22 to massage the trigger on. My gauge goes to 8lbs and it would bottom out before the trigger would release.


I’ve seen several Ruger MKII’s in the 7.5-8lb range also.

Winchester 100s and 88s could be pretty bad. As in cat on a screen door. Uh......heavy cat on a screen door.

Easy, hands down, a Ruger 10-22! Scoped it, tried to use it for squirrel hunting, no way!

The worst trigger I have ever owned is actually two triggers, It was marketed for a time by Remington as the SPR94 (Special Purpose Rifle), It is just a rebadged Baikal IZH94 over and under. It is a 12ga on top of a 223, never found a trigger pull gauge that would go high enough but both triggers are well over 10 pounds.
Never found a gunsmith that would touch it.

If you like the rifle, that Ruger Mk II trigger can be made into a very nice trigger.