I bought this 1958 99F and the trigger is like a striker fired pistol. You just keep pulling until the thing finally goes off. It’s not even 2 stage. Just one long steady pull. I can’t even squeeze it at the range. I start panicking thinking it will never fire so I just simply pull the trigger like you do on a shotgun

Sounds about right.
Have you tried using 2 fingers?

Someone mess with it?

Sounds like you were lucky to get one with an extraordinary amount of sear engagement. They aren't usually all that bad, but may seem so if the shooter is uncompromisingly used to light crisp trigger pulls - which frankly are not a feature of 99's. It can be fixed but I'll not be the one to recommend messing with that engagement, it's a job for someone who's versed in the trigger geometry of the 99. Not a commentary on you by any means, rather a statement concerning 99 triggers in general.

No offense. I won't be trying to fix it. It needs too much to be good. It's not even close. And no it hasn't been monkeyed with

I might add that it doesn't reset the same everytime either. Sometimes, instead of a 6 pound trigger that seems to pull forever, it feels like a 12 pound trigger with a more crisp break. It's weird

What gnoahhh said. I have worked on a lot of these and he is right.

I owned and shot dozens of 99s and there is a lot of variability in the triggers.

I've had 99s with just flat ass awful triggers like the one you describe and some that were actually reasonably tolerable and everything in between. I can put up with a 5lb trigger if it isn't mushy and full of slack. I don't work on 99 triggers or have them worked on. I either tolerate them or I don't. The worst have found new homes.


I can tolerate a gun with a less than perfect bore, but I simply will not tolerate an awful trigger.

That is weird, maybe the firing pin travel is severely gunked

I've heard the triggers are too complicated and scary to work on and should be avoided at all cost.

Same with the rotors. Scary. Springs and screws and stuff. Maybe even a pin or two!

The reason that my 99F is my backup rifle is because like most of you, I’ve been spoiled by outstanding bolt action triggers.

The negative responses to info requests for improving the trigger pull are driven by the fact that too many people have bubba'd the trigger/sear engagement and made the gun unsafe.

The trigger pull can be improved by simply polishing the mating surfaces of the trigger and sear. But! you have to resist the urge to file off the sear to try to shorten the pull. If you watch the trigger/sear engagement through the full cocking cycle you will see it gets very sort at one point in the travel. When the lever is fully closed the engagement is greater than during the cycle. Hence the seeming long pull. It has to be that way to maintain the safety of the mechanism and prevent slam fires.

So, polish to your heart's content and leave the files in the drawer.

It sounds like your gun needs a serious cleaning.

Ditto to Lightfoot’s comment. While I completely agree about not modifying the trigger mechanism, a careful inspection and cleaning is quite easily done by removing the stock. Especially considering the degree of variation that he described.

Also, how briskly you work the lever will often affect the amount of sear engagement. Slowly can equal less, brisk equals more. Use an aerosol cleaner, after removing all the wood, to blast out everything. Lightly oil the inside, very lightly. Then very lightly grease the sear engagement using a high quality synthetic gun grease. I like the little tub Brownells sells with a fine painters brush. I bought mine years ago, I've about used up what was stuck to the lid.
Use it sparingly.

Thought the same thing. I took the stock off and cleaned but everything was pretty clean to begin with

Yeah cleaning the internals is one of the first things I did

I do have a 99 takedown with a trigger that shames most bolt rifles. It's lovely

Do you think somebody may have worked on it?

And so endeth the lesson for the day. Take heed, brethren, lest ye fall afoul of misfortune. (Spoken as someone who's not afraid to doctor, customize, and otherwise despoil sacred artifacts to suit my needs. Look closely, under magnification, at the subtle angles and engagements engendered by the mating surfaces of said 99 trigger/sear engagements. I'll bet the designers/engineers/tool and die makers who perfected the M1899 spit, cussed, and argued until they got it right -what, you think Old Arthur did it all??? - and I for one am quite prepared to let it go, with maybe a bit of stoning to smooth things a bit.) If you want a sweet crisp light clean let-off, buy a Remington/Savage/CZ/etc. new bolt gun, otherwise learn to live with it.....it's not the end of the world.

And these aren't bench guns. That engagement you see while it's sitting nice and peaceful on a bench also has to be enough to survive you or the gun falling out in a field and taking a he**acious smack and STILL be absolutely guaranteed that nothing will slip inside.

I personally don't want to do 5' or 10' drop tests on my guns to see if they'll fail. Polish surfaces and practice. You got used to a light trigger bolt action, you can get used to this.

I do actually. I wish the triggers were reversed. The takedown isn't drilled and tapped and doesn't need that crisp, light trigger while the Featherlight is and wears a Nikon ProStaff and shows impressive accuracy potential even with the sad trigger

Moosemike, are you implying that a trigger has been successfully worked on? Holy Moses, stop the presses.

We can build computers the size of a gnat and grow meat in a petri dish but whatever you do, don't get anywhere near that Savage trigger!

LOL

Have a 1960 Savage 99... 300 Savage that has a fairly strong trigger pull. And at one point [at about age 45 ] the magazine rotor didnt rotate very well.

Am not experienced in messing with these things, but this is what I tried...

Did as some of the above comments suggested. Removed the stock and cleaned things up. No, there was not much to clean. Used a magic marker to color those two bearing surfaces... [not sure what they are called.] Dry Fired the rifle several times to see how the marker showed how the surfaces engaged. No, they were not exactly planar and parallel. Used the finest small sharpening stone i had to carefully gently polish the surfaces. Used some lithium grease to slick up those surfaces a little. Made sure all the other moving parts and surfaces moved freely. The trigger pull is still a little stiff, but seems better.
Also learned that the strong trigger pull tended to pull my trigger hand forward while i was pulling the trigger. So I learned to use a really strong grip with the rest of my hand to keep it from creeping forward. You; guys probably had figured that out a long time ago, but i am a slow learner.
Now I feed the 99 loads i worked up: 150 gr Hornady SP pushed by a moderate load of IMR 4320 . [am hoarding my supply of this powder] The Scope is a 1964 Weaver K4 with a post/cross hair. When i am having a good day off a bench the rig will shoot 1 MOA-->1.5 MOA.

The sticky rotor problem happens because the action allows crud to fall down in. I used an exploded diagram of the action to see how to remove the brass rotor out the front of the action with the fore end removed. Soaked the rotor in gasoline in a Ziploc bag. 2 soakings, then washed it well with Coleman stove fuel which evaporates nicely. The rotor action loosened up well. Reassembled it properly [ I think :-) ]

This 99 is the first rifle i ever bought. We took our share of whitetails together. In a few years it will go to my son.

In my pre-mil 99s, I sometimes had good luck reducing trigger pull weight a slight bit by adding one or more small, thin, flat washers under the trigger return spring. This trigger pull weight hack is reversible so if it is not to your liking, just remove the added washer(s).

Credit where credit is due. The hack did not originate with me. IIRC, I read about it in one of John Barsness's magazine articles.

I have had some with sahweet triggers.

Some not so much.

Not many gunsmith people I been around like working on the newer ones.

I think the really older stuff, pre war ..perhaps both of the wars. …. is easier to monkey with.

My 1902 engraved rifle has the nicest trigger of any 1899/99 I've shot. I've been afraid to say anything cause I might jinx it? Any chance that because it was a special order rifle if got a little TLC? Aren't the K's supposed to have some action work?

I don't have engraved rifles, but the triggers on mine are across the board. Ranging from surprisingly good to passable. I will say every one of them improved with a thorough cleaning.

My K has a nice trigger.

Same here; none of mine are terrible, but they do vary greatly. The oldest of the bunch, my 303, is best by leaps and bounds. It's got a pretty good trigger, even by modern standards. My current 300 EG is not great... not terrible, but definitely not good by any stretch of the imagination.