What would you consider a "heavy" trigger?

mr00jimbo

mr00jimbo

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I took my 700 in to the smith. When I would shoot, the thing seemed pretty damn heavy to me.
He measured it at 6 1/2 pounds so I am getting it lightened.
Would you consider that to be "heavy" ?
Seemed to have a helluvalot of creep
 
Depends on the rifle. For a target rifle, 6oz is too heavy. For a varmint rig, 1.5lbs is about as heavy as you want to go. For a hunting rifle, I'd say 4lbs is as heavy as I'd like.

And I like to have zero take up, overtravel and creep on any trigger
 
Creep and over travel are worse problems than just a heavy trigger. Most folks seem to want 3 pound triggers on their hunting rifles, and I don't think there is much to complain about if that's what you ends up with. If a smith is setting up the trigger tell him the only acceptable creep is none, although adjusting creep out of some triggers can be very difficult, although 700's normally have adjustment freindly triggers.
 
My old Lee Metford is at or above ten pounds! Feels like I need vice grips to lighten the squeeze.
To me "heavy" and "Creep" are two different things.

I really like 2 1/2 lb pull for any of my rifles.

My double set Brno is 1 1/2 when set, which I am starting to really like to but takes a bit getting used to.
 
Boomer said:
Creep and over travel are worse problems than just a heavy trigger. Most folks seem to want 3 pound triggers on their hunting rifles, and I don't think there is much to complain about if that's what you ends up with. If a smith is setting up the trigger tell him the only acceptable creep is none, although adjusting creep out of some triggers can be very difficult, although 700's normally have adjustment freindly triggers.
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x2 for sure. Well stated
 
The only factory rifles I had that came with no creep were Sako, Tikka and Kimber. These were all easy to adjust for weight. The best triggers by far. The others included Remington, Weatherby (Vanguard), Savage all had creep in them and required work.... The Wichesters I had were in the middle, and had fairly decent triggers, not quite as good as the Tikka/Sako/Kimber, but better than the others.....

I replaced my Remington out with a Timney, much better than the remington trigger, even after it was worked on by a gunsmith.

Trigger creep annoys me more than the weight.
 
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I have a number of rifles with no creep, but most required tuning. The worst offenders for creep were the Weatherby Vanguard, the Remington 7600 (TERRIBLE), and the ruger 77. Any military gun will have creep, and most have a LOT of creep. My remmy 700's, winchester 70's and Savages have no creep at all, but most did require a slight adjustment.

The slack and first stage of a two stage trigger is the 'take up.' Creep is the amount of distance the trigger moves after all the slack is taken up, but before the sear releases. Creep most often feels 'gritty,' like there's a minute amount of sand in the trigger. Overtravel is the distance the trigger moves after the sear releases.
 
I consider 5 lbs heavy in rifles, although I think to a great degree you can adapt to a heavy pull over time.
Less so in handguns, and 5 lbs in a handgun is damned heavy and very hard to control, even though I'm quite used to the heavy pulls on some of my older leverguns.
 
Oh, and I have a 45-70 with about a 1.5 lb trigger pull. It's fun to give to newbies, their first shot always goes off prematurely ;)
 
prosper said:
I have a number of rifles with no creep, but most required tuning. The worst offenders for creep were the Weatherby Vanguard, the Remington 7600 (TERRIBLE), and the ruger 77. Any military gun will have creep, and most have a LOT of creep. My remmy 700's, winchester 70's and Savages have no creep at all, but most did require a slight adjustment.

The slack and first stage of a two stage trigger is the 'take up.' Creep is the amount of distance the trigger moves after all the slack is taken up, but before the sear releases. Creep most often feels 'gritty,' like there's a minute amount of sand in the trigger. Overtravel is the distance the trigger moves after the sear releases.
Click to expand...
I hate overtravel almost as much as I hate too much creep!
I sure like a good first stage however.

Many of my childhood heroes didn't use the set triggers in their smallbore match rifles, opting for two stage triggers.
When I asked why, my father explained that there was more feel to a good two stage and less lock time due to the moving parts in a set trigger.
Cat
 
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