Gunboards Forums banner

Any way to lighten the trigger pull on these?

1 reading
6.5K views 7 replies 6 participants last post by  BobGee  
#1 · (Edited)
Anyone done a lightening of the trigger pull on one of these nagants, I have one that has absolutely no collector value, and its trigger is worse than all the others I had, swear, it must be 15 pounds pull or some such, and lets not talk about double action.

I was lookng at that "V" spring underneath my ground down and undated/barely legible remainder of markings renumbered sideplate(that aint even original to the pistol obviously) and was a thinking if it was thinner maybe it wouldn't be so difficult to work, especially double action, but kind of reminds me of the time I busted a ex sniper light trigger spring when I was fiddling around with it disassembled, I'd hate to suddenly need a new spring.

Other than that, I can't stand that ugly red plastic grip material anymore, thinking of at least hand making something in wood for the grips, and like I said, this "rebuild" just has no markings for date, time period that I can discern, and former pitting in areas, so not sure if this means "bubba-ization" or some such.
 
#2 ·
My understanding is: All V-springs on all the Nagants are the same (same metal, same thikness), so if your Nagant has worst trigger pull - look for poorly fitted action parts and try to polish all parts with friction marks. Thinning the spring (lower arm) might help a little, but most likely will result in misfires.
All of the above is my personal, totaly wrong opinion.
 
#3 ·
First, I must assume you are troubled by the double action and not the single action trigger pull. If it's the single action pull, then it's alot more easy to deal with - although you must avoid a pull that is so light that it is dangerous.

If your double action revolver lock is smooth with no cylinder in place then it might be the cylinder ratchet, or the hand.

If you have more than one Nagant, try the cylinders from your other revolvers to see if the problem improves with a different cylinder. If it functions smoothly with a different cylinder then you have found the source of your problem. If not, you must move to the lock.

I do not suggest lightening the main spring. As above noted, when the sideplate is off, look for areas the parts are rubbing on, then reduce these areas until the parts can move without catching.

Grips are not hard to make for the Nagant. Post a picture when you are done.

Best regards,
Greg
 
#4 · (Edited)
From what I can feel, it appears to me to be stiff spring giving me all the work, and I do know these have generally stiff springs anyway, its the double action that takes alot of trigger effort, likely cause these style of pistol are supposed to be stiff anyway, but I likely have a weak trigger finger or too small a hand, I guess if I was as big a man as my uncle, six foot four with hands so big wouldn't ever have a complaint but not me of course, s unfortunately, double action is a novelty feature on this one for me.

Last time I shot it, after 25 rounds of .32acp, my hand was just fatiqued.
 
#7 · (Edited)
Okay, I used a spare cetme roller(hkg3 locking roller) as the "shim" as pictured. What I get is seemingly a slight reduction in effort but I still wouldn't want to be double actioning it all day, but I do know one thing for sure, the single action trigger pull once cocked makes it like a target trigger, no effort to pull the trigger and get the hammer to fall, so that aspect is definitely an improvement.
I figure that with the cetme roller in place, the spring will have tension enough to fatigue it weaker later, like how I kept some argentine highpower 17 round mags that had extra stiff factory springs loaded with 15 rounds for bout two years, then the springs lost some of their stiffness.

Thanks.....
 
#8 · (Edited)
Seems to me that three things can be done to improve the double action trigger pull weight, especially relating to the two significant springs in the lock work:
1. As said above, polish and lubricate all rubbing surfaces, but lightly, including the trigger and hammer pivot posts.
2. Thinning of the v-spring leaves. The lower one can be thinned quite a bit which will have a pronounced impact in the first stage of the double-action pull, but not the second part. This is affected by the upper leaf which can also be thinned a bit but not too much or the hammer might not cause the primers to ignite. A Dremel with sanding drum is perfect for this. Keep the sanding marks longitudinal - any which go across the spring leaf will be stress raisers which might cause the leaf to break. Careful, these things don’t grow on trees these days.
3. The main cause of the very stiff pull at the second stage is that the hand, which rotates the cylinder as the trigger is pulled, has also to push the cylinder forward and to cam the thrust block forward too. Quite a lot of work for it to do and the angles are all quite steep. Polishing the sliding surfaces helps but it is the cylinder pin and spring where some work can be done: polish and lubricate the pin (and burnish the cylinder sleeve bore if you can) and trim the spring or replace it with a “softer” one. This coil spring has to be strong enough to withdraw the cylinder and spent case after each shot, but no more. Needs a cautious approach.

Hope this helps.

Bob