Henry Rifle Forums

A "trigger job" on a firearm, strictly speaking, means to modify the existing fire control parts of the gun to change the quality of the trigger pull to something you like better. This can including polishing parts, adding parts, and changing the shape of parts. Changing out all or part of the trigger mechanism for improved aftermarket parts is not "doing a trigger job". It is replacing parts. It is the safest way to improve your trigger and it does require a bit of mechanical skill but it really isn't gunsmithing. I say this because the term seems to be misunderstood, probably because the interwebs abound with parts swappers masquerading as gun experts. I don't consider myself an expert and although I will fool around with the internals of my guns, I don't generally do it to anyone else's. I also have read people on many forums claim to be experienced at "trigger jobs" when all they have done is swap parts. I read someone a long while back that said you couldn't do a "trigger job" on a Henry because kit's weren't available. Tell that to the guys that made a living tuning competition revolvers back in the day. That didn't involve installing a kit. Both of my Henry's have creepy triggers. The .44 is the worst offender. This is probably a safety feature. After you shoot it a few times you can compensate by pulling through the creep until just before it breaks and then pulling the rest of the way. If I was doing some sort of target competition I would take them apart and fix them. It takes a lot of time removing material, polishing, reassembling, testing, rinse, lather repeat. If you go too far and ruin something, you can buy a new part and try again, or, if you have a tiny welder, you can add a bit of material back. Buying a kit is easier, but it's not the only way or the oldest way. Someone had to make the first parts for the kit to exist.

I agree that the term "trigger job" is a bit too wide-open. Perhaps we should use different terms for just replacing parts versus actually modifying parts, as in polishing and so on. On guns where I'm doing mostly parts replacement, I usually go the extra step and also polish and stone and file as needed, though, so I'm doing a bit of both. And then there are the guns where there are no spring kits and so on, available, so I have to use springs from other sources, then modify them to fit. Not sure where that fits in.

as part of an informal, general discussion,, I can't say I usually get very excited about verbiage .... I thought a trigger job was work done to a trigger .. ..

Yeah, I guess I did a “spring” job on my Ruger SP 101. However, the trigger sure works nicely now.

JEBar wrote:as part of an informal, general discussion,, I can't say I usually get very excited about verbiage .... I thought a trigger job was work done to a trigger .. ..

I'm peevish about the proper use of the Oxford Comma but I try not to rub everyone's nose in it.
I agree that there is a difference between a Smith and an Amourer.

A friend of mine passed recently, who was a nationally known gunsmith, builder of 1911s and PPC revolvers who had often stopped taking orders when the wait times for one of his guns would climb into the 18 to 24 month range. Shooters running his guns were winning, so they were willing to wait.

He often swapped stock springs, and my 1911 has several recoil springs I can swap out depending on the match load I am shooting. A light spring for bullseye, heavy for plates, etc. The wilson and brownells catalogs were always handy in his shop. But, he also polished surfaces, corrected angles, or manufactured new parts on his lathe as needed... so yeah... he did real trigger jobs. Lol.