Interesting trigger malfunction on WRA

[Griff Murphey]

I had an interesting trigger malfunction today while dry-firing my rack grade Dane Winnie, which is kind of my dedicated dry-fire M-1. The rifle has sat up for a couple of months; today it would NOT drop the hammer even with a very hard squeeze, but when I let off of the trigger, it did "fire." This happened most of the time, also at times 2-3 times in a row. Of course we are talking dry-firing here, but with live ammo this could be dangerous to say the least. During a match it would get the attention of a range officer, for sure, if the rifle fired as you brought it down out of your shoulder. I popped the trigger housing group out; it did not appear dirty or especially worn, nor did it look especially dry. I blew it off with WD-40 (yah, yah! all I had just then) and lubed with light machine oil on trigger, hammer hooks, sear, and for good measure the hammer itself. The rifle then dry-fired normally. Do you think it was just dry or have I got a part with an occult defect in the THG? I can't imagine it was "dirty" in the sense a combat rifle would be.... By the way the THG is WRA but I have not checked the components for manufacture source.

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[American Patrol]

with a Winchester I provided for the film "Saints and Soldiers".

The trouble it caused became a real problem. Technically speaking the gun would "double tap" two rounds in quick succession. Bad for safety reasons. The immediate fix was to switch the T.G. to a Springfield while filming. Since then I have done a careful examination of the components and observed nothing out of the norm. I feel the parts may have just been slightly off-tolerance from the factory and may not have worked well together. I have since replaced sear and hammer with other Winchester components. No more problems.

[JBS]

Check hammer hooks very closely on both sides. More than likely when the hammer makes the transition from back hooks to the front hooks it is not making a full catch. When pressure on trigger is released the hammer slides off the hooks and it is not caught by the other set. Worn badly or someone did a very poor trigger job and over ground/sanded the hooks to set second stage travel. May require replacement of hammer. This is also what causes double taps with Garands, M14 on semi, and M1A1s

[Bodyman]

I'm gonna vote for stacking of tolerances between all the little parts there. I have seen this much more pronounced on early rifles where they were still trying to figure out which hair needed to be split (or was already split too far) - some of these early parts just will not work in combination with each other. If you swap out one or two of them - voila - everything works fine. I don't know if anyone can really identify which part is the culprit but it sure seems to all add up to where the hammer/trigger hooks and sear all get together (check your sear pin and the other pins to see how they fit into the trigger housing - that tolerance can be huge right there ...).

Back in the days when such parts could still be found (without getting a second mortgage), I spent many months acquiring the earliest versions of the whole trigger housing assembly and when I finally got them all assembled together, the darn thing would not drop the hammer no matter what. Frustrated (and just a little to'd) I set it all aside - after all I was not going to go taking a stone to my early parts. When I finally found another very early trigger I figured what the heck and got that too, and when I swapped it in everything was as smooth as glass. Go figure.

There were lots of little problems like this early on and there is lots here for someone who has a mind, but that is probably already boring the majority so let's just call it good for now.

Best all.

[Dan Shapiro]

Griff: Pull the trigger pin. Roll it between your thumb and forefinger and see if it's slightly out of round. #1 son had a similar problem. Rifle would not fire. Cycled the bolt a couple of times, it would fire. Then it would lock up and you could not pull the trigger. Cycle a couple of times it would work. Checked everything out, everything appeared fine. Lubrication was fine. Then while playing with the trigger group, I noticed that the trigger pin was rotating slightly each time I cocked and pulled the trigger. That's when I found the pin was slightly bent. Replaced the pin and have not had a problem since. HTH

[Too Much Coffee]

The stock fit can also contribute to the whole TH mess. Any binding on the sides or a lock up on the stock that cants the TH can cause doubling. Parts swapping is easiest if you have parts to do it. If that fails start to look at the stock, especially wih a tight fitting TH to stock.
HTH
Mark

[dinki dow]

Hatcher's "the book of the Garand" could be the cause 1. deformed hammer or trigger, or worn trigger pin. Replace the defective part. 2. Trigger strikes trigger housing. Replace the defective part.