Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Savage Collectors 99 Trigger Adjust

I picked up a 308 99EG and the trigger pull is terrible....do I live with it or is there an easy fix?

no EASY fix... slow and steady and you can adjust it... I would start by smoothing the mating surfaces between the sear and trigger and not shortening the distance on either... I have never personally messed with one but its pretty straight forward when you take the stock off and cycle the action a few times... I doubt you even need to take the trigger out of the gun... though it just takes a small punch.... again... start by polishing the mating surfaces...

Or better yet.... take it to a smith...

Do the following at your own risk!
I took a dremel and ground where the trigger meets the sear to shorten the trigger pull.Then i put a rubber washer under the trigger return spring,it worked to lighten the pull.make sure you dont remove too much from the sear,i left about an eighth of an inch contact,maybe a little less.really improved my trigger

i just did a trigger job on my eg in 308 and my post r model in 300 sav. remove the stock, there is a bolt hole under the butt plate. you will need a long heavy screwdriver. then remove the trigger return spring, it is held in place with one screw on the right side of the gun. the screw next to it is on the left is for the bolt stop, it is not necessary to remove it. take a pin punch and remove the trigger, then remove the small screw on the back of the bolt on the left side, be careful at this point a small spring will fall out when after the screw is removed and the tention is released. it goes in between the hammer and the back of the bolt. then remove the lever screw and lever. then remove the large screw on the left side of the reciever that is the sear screw the sear will then fall out. after this the you can start a trigger job. i put the sear into a padded vice and use a small flat piece of steel wraped with 600 grit sandpaper and polish the sear in the direction it slides off of the hammer until it has a very high polish. then i do the same with the hammer where it contacts the sear. only the hammer is sometimes rougher on the contact area so i will polish it first with 220 grit then finish to a high polish with 600 grit. just remember to polish without changing the angels of the sear and hammer,keep the sear and hammer contact areas flat.if you shorten any thing or grind or remove metal you can ruin your trigger assembly and cause the saftey not to function and it will be dangerous! then when i reassemable i will put some action lube(from brownells) on the contact areas. that is all there is to it! ...... it is easier than it sounds.

Did you do any before and after measurements on the actual trigger pull poundage?

Your procedure goes along with the recommendations most of us here would make. I would not shorten the sear as some suggest. It usually leads to a slam fire condition.

I looked all over for my trigger pull guage and couldnt find it.Il see if i can borrow one and measure mine.as far slam fires,removing some of the sear is perfectly safe as long as a little meat is left.like i said in my post,there is probably an eighth inch of contact still there,thats plenty.

Okie dokie....................Gentlemen,,,,,,,,,,start your files!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Sounds a lot like "Hold my beer and watch this!" (Famous last words of Bubba.)

Seems like about once a year someone comes along who thinks they know better than the Savage engineers did. (The hell of it is, know-it-alls the world over will now set out to prove that statement wrong, and people will get hurt.)

Gary, you are MUCH more eloquent than I. Dumb summabeech is what I wanted to say but I bit my tongue. I "dry fire" ANY 99 I buy BEFORE I drop the cash. UNLESS I buy it from someone I know. I've never met a trigger I couldn't squeeze!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hi VernAK: Do not file off any of the point of the trigger!!!
I bought one many years ago some one filed the point down and it slame fires on me at the range. I had to buy another trigger. Just smooth the surfaces and the trigger as stated above and the trigger pull will come out about 3#.
Steve

By calling me a dumb summbich you are calling Roy Dunlap a dumb summbich.I got the mod out of one of his books.Are you more of a gunsmith than Roy Dunlap?

Well boys, what say ye???? Roy Dunlap or Dumb Summbich???

Balls in your court!!

First, if you do something that as per the instructions from somebody else, it's always best to reference the somebody else early on rather than later when called out on it.

And second, even if Roy Dunlap developed instructions for trained gunsmiths to use in tuning a trigger, it may not be wise to push forward those instructions as "THE" way for everybody to tune a trigger.

Once metal is removed, it can't be put back on. And slam fires are not something to be messed with. Polishing the surfaces should be the first thing tried, and almost always the only thing tried.

The book is"Gun Owners Book of Care,Repair and Improvement"by Roy Dunlap.page number 76.Buy it and read it,it's really a good book with lots of useful info.
I don't just dive in and alter firearms,i always have some sort of manual or book to back what I am doing.I also don't give advise off the top of my head,Im not stupid.I have the same respect for guns as you or anyone else here.

Not only that, I don't think you can read. I said I wanted to call you a "dumb summbich, but I bit my tongue". Now I'm not so sure I'm very far off the mark. This is a collectors forum not a 99 hone the trigger forum. There is a gunsmith forum which is maybe where you belong. I've been a toolmaker lots of years. One thing I've learned, is that there are some things you just don't mess with. Nice unaltered 99's are one of them. BTW, I also have articles and books by Dunlap.

Click the link below and have a nice day.

http://www.24hourcampfire.com/ubbthreads/ubbthreads.php/forums/22/1/Gunsmithing

If your wining about posting this in the smith section,tell it to the OP I was simply replying to his question.
By writing on a public forum that you wanted to call me a dummbich,you are calling me a dumbsummbich.If you were to really hold your tounge you wouldn't have written it at all.

I have welded, machined, fabricated some perty impressive stuff over the last 30+ years, but trigger jobs scare the schittt out of me. Called 3 smiths asking if they do trigger jobs on 99s, they all said "NO". If 3 smiths with a combined 80 years experience don't want to do em, it means they be a bich. If it was an easy DIY job, I doubt they would decline. I prefer a nice 3-3.5lb trigger, but can shoot a 5.5 lb trigger just fine as well. Thats my 2 cents worth.

Maybe they didn't read Roy's book either.Just kidding.I am not implying that the 99 trigger can be worked into a target trigge.What I have suggested simply improves the distance of pull.Above posters are correct in suggesting polishing sear surfaces to lessen the weight of pull.

You just joined yesterday, so we have no idea if you're a total idiot or if you're the best gunsmith east of the Rockies. But what those of us who have been on the forum for a few years do know is that there have been quite a few 99's found that would slam fire because somebody did a "trigger job" on them.

Welcome to the campfire, by the way.