How to lighten your Marlin .22 trigger (pics)

[Macchina]

WARNING: The following instructions will make your gun easier to fire. Work at your own risk. I am not a gunsmith, I'm showing you what worked for me, it may not work for your gun. Make sure your gun is unloaded before starting. Please point your gun in a safe dirrection while working the bolt.

I have a Marlin 882SSV (.22 MAG) that is cappible of amazing accuracy. The Marlin's biggest flaw is the hammer-of-thor-resistant trigger they come with. I bought mine with close to an 8 pound pull! I first tried stoning the mating surfaces between the trigger and the sear, but I took too much off and the gun would fire when the bolt closed. I ordered a new factory trigger from Midway for $12 and researched. I made this tutorial to condense the information that I learned.

1. Remove the stock:


2. Remove the trigger by unscrewing the screw and pulling it out (pull bolt back first):


3. Trim the trigger return spring. My trigger return spring was originally .485" inches long. I cut off one complete link (with heavy duty wire cutters), reducing the spring to .440". You may have to remove more or less, if you remove too much, you can stretch the spring by pulling on it with two pairs of pliers. The idea is have just enough push of the spring to push the trigger forward after you fire. This step reduces about 25% of the pull weight.

4. Remove Sear:


5. Shim Sear Spring. After removing the sear, pull the spring out of the hole located at the rear of the sear . Put something in this hole to increase the spring tension. I found that one of those tiny steel beads off of a dog tag chain work really well. You can use whatever, the idea is to fill up about 1/2 to 3/4 of the hole. This will reduce trigger pull by about 50%.


6. Reassemble rifle and check trigger pull. If the pull is still unsatisfactory, you can polish the contact area between the trigger and the sear. DO THIS AT YOUR OWN RISK! The idea is to polish out the machine marks, and not to remove any more metal than you have to. Use a fine ceramic stone or other fine knife sharpeining stone. DO NOT USE A FILE. If you do this, cycle your rifle hard a few times to make sure it still engages well. I did this last step, and it fine tuned the pull to about 2 lbs. I would not want to go any lower on a hunting rifle.


Good Luck. If I messed anything up, please tell me. If you mess anything up, tell your wife.

 

[joneb]

I have a Marlin 882 that I bought along with a Win 1300 defender for $ 200 at a going out of business sale from a local gun shop. The accuracy of the 1300 was dead on I hit everything I aimed at but the 882 was lacking. I did'nt catch on until I scoped it. Ya the trigger pull sucked, but this was nothing new, I have shot many Ruger 10/22's with better groups. So I dry fired the 882 on a empty shell case while looking through the scope, and noticed one bigass jump of the crosshairs yep the striker spring was wound to dang tight. Pulling the trigger would jump the gun, granted the scope was at 12x but still Well any way I ground the spring down a bit at a time until the the jump was gone and pin strikes were still pronounced, this improved my groups from 1"+ @ 50yds to 1/2" @ 50yds. And after free floating the barrel the 882 has turned in the occasional 3/4" @ 100yds
I may order springs from Numrich's and play around with the sear and trigger return springs.
Thanks mich, for letting me learn from your mistake

PS, by lightening the striker spring and dressing the trigger/sear/bolt interface my trigger did improve some.

 

[7mmsavage]

thanks for the info

I think this is exactly what my 882 needs, it has always shot pretty well but I have never been really happy with that trigger. JIBJAB could you give a little more detail about that striker spring? I read something about these guns having a two piece firing pin that is difficult to service.

 

[joneb]

http://www.e-gunparts.com/productschem.asp?chrMasterModel=082Zz882
The striker spring is #41 in the schematic, it's been awhile since I did this mod, and the trick is not to make the spring to short and to keep it cool if you do any grinding(a wet wheel works well) the spring is now 2.21" I don't know the original length


PS, My primary reason for doing this mod was to improve accuracy, cut the spring long to allow for the flat grind.

 

[tgonza]

Good info

I have a Marlin 783 .22 mag. It is the previous version of yours, I'm pretty sure, but a tube feed model. It's alwys been a good shooter, but with a terrible trigger. I tried shortening the one spring and putting a spacer in the other one. It helped a little, but did not lighten it enough for me. It still seemed to be a little over 4 lbs. I also have a Marlin 880 bull barrel in 22 lr. that has an excellent trigger. I decided to try that trigger in the .22 mag since I know most of the marlin .22 bolt actions use many of the same parts. If it worked, I could then order another 880 trigger from Numrich. The safeties are opposite (safe forward for 880, backwards for the 783,) so I had to use the same safety lever in each gun that came with it. I kept the shortened spring in the 783. It worked and seems to be about 3 lbs. or so. I did try making it lighter by shortening the spring even more, but it did what yours did - didn't cock or fired upon closing the bolt. I wish there was a lighter spring, it would probably make for a little easier tuning. I put the 783 trigger in the 880 and I was surprised to find that it was lighter in the 880 than it had been in the 783 I may or may not order new trigger now. Thanks for the info. I might still try a few other things like shortening the firing pin striker spring.

 

[sinwagon71]

trigger job issue

I have this same gun that i purchased a while back with this trigger job done already it was about 1.5 pounds after setting in the safe for about 6 months it now fires when you release the safety with out touching the trigger any thoughts on how to fix

 

[spark10000]

Case Hardening Spoiled

I stoned the surface of the trigger on my V17 Marlin. After about 100 rounds I decided to look again to see about additional lightening of the trigger pull. The first thing I noticed was some mushrooming of the contact surface that I had stoned. Appearance would indicate there is not much depth to the case hardening.
www.riflebasix.com sells adjustable triggers on the net, so I have ordered one.
There may be other sources of triggers by now or you can always go back to original parts. My point is if you have not looked at your trigger for a while, do so now, see that it is still in good servicable condition. Better to be safe than sorry.

 

[Fleet]

any thoughts on how to fix

replace the springs and start over.

 

[rcmodel]

Might as well replace the trigger & sear while you are replacing the springs.

Yours are already ruined by stoning them till the hard surface treatment was cut through.

rc

 

[icanthitabarn]

My rifle shot better before I messed with the trigger. The trigger is great but somehow I was more used to the heavy pull

 

[spark10000]

Case hardening on trigger parts

The contact surface of trigger and sear must be durable. The case hardening provides the wear surface durability.
Starting over with original parts is good advice.

 

[SBecks]

I have a 882ssv purchased in late 90's. Shot it some.
After a long hiatus from the range, I have started shooting again. Because of ridiculous ammo prices, and no more reload equipment, I am shooting rimfire.
The 882 is the only rimfire I own. After a couple visits to the range, I got tired of the hard trigger pull. Saw the info on this site.
The only thing I did to mine was snip off the first full ring on the trigger return spring.
That is all it needed. The trigger is perfect.
Props to mich for his elaborate post. Thanks.