1917 Enfield Trigger woes

[Rancho Relaxo]

So I have two 1917 Enfield Barreled actions. One is 30'06, the other 22 Varminter (22-250). The '06 came with a trigger, magazine, trigger guard, and trigger. The Varminter has a bolt and that's it. The '06 trigger is cocked by the bolt closing, and goes off when pulled. However, if I swap the trigger group into the Varminter, I can't get it to cock or go off. I have tried swapping bolts, and the trigger goes off when pulled with either bolt at long as it's in the '06. I just can't get the trigger to work in the heavy barreled Varminter action.

What the ???

Is this normal? What should I do?

My 12 year old cousin and I are going to be working together to build him a rifle. I have a stock that was "sporterized" by a previous owner that we're going to glass bed and refinish. If I need to get a new trigger, so be it, but I'd like to figure out what the heck is going on!

 

[Jim K]

There are so many possible problems in what you describe that I can only recommend you take both actions to a gunsmith and see what is wrong.

You seem to want to complete the Varminter and leave the other as just a barrelled action. But it sounds like a previous owner made some modifications to the Varminter action so that the (original?) trigger won't fit. Without knowing exactly what he did, any advice I could give would be guesswork and probably only confuse the issue.

Jim