MKIII Sear Spring Softening

[nijalninja]

G'day there, just wondering if anyone out there has tried annealing their sear springs ever so slightly to make them a little more ductile and soft. I've tried filing down a spring to make the pull a little lighter but it was too brittle to cope. Just reckon if I took the finish off, annealed it, and re-finished it (Not the polished surfaces) I could have lighter pull and less prone to breaking so long as it retained enough spring.

Any advice is appreciated.

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[Maxwell Smart]

How light are you looking to get your trigger?

Annealing the sear spring is not the usual method of achieving a lighter trigger.

[nijalninja]

Un-regulated target rifle light. Its for an experimental rifle so I am just trying extremes that I can refine later on for other projects. So as light as I can get.

[CINDERS]

Not so light that with cycling the action vigorously and closing the bolt vigorously the sear will not drop you don't/shouldn't have a weapon with that light a trigger the sear drops when you close the bolt into battery.
We have to cycle our bolts the first time we get down to shoot every Sunday no cycle no shoot so the check scorer can visually see the sear does not drop when you close the bolt.

[nijalninja]

Of course not CINDERS. I just want ideas to lighten it somehow, how much I lighten it I will decide for the particular rifle. Just need to know what I can get from what techniques.

[Peter Laidler]

Stop there................ I've gone and had a stiff whisky so that I don't accidentally write what I WAS going to write about enthusiastic amateurs and................. you get my drift? Look......., as I have stated several times on the forum, you lighten up the trigger by increasing the angle of the trigger bent on the cocking piece. It's xxxx-xxx to do with sear springs.

[englishman_ca]

I'll go put on my helmet now.

I have had good success in lightening the magazine release lever spring by polishing the back of it with emery paper. Never had a spring so unusually stiff as the one in a rifle that i bought. The spring was same size as other springs but it was a monster to use. Polished the crap out of it I did. It actually didn't make much of a noticeable difference to trigger pull. But it has a one finger mag release now and the mag plops out into my other hand.

And yes, the rifle passes the bolt slam test, but now I don't need to use my two hands, two knees and an armpit to remove the magazine.

As for modifying the angle of the bent, don't do it! Even as untrained less-than enthusiastic amateur, I can tell you that this probably THE most sensitive piece of the whole friggin mechanism of the Lee. Incredibly easy to screw up royally. I can ruin a cocking piece in seconds. I've had lots of practice.

I just threw away (which is unusual for me) several cocking pieces that I kept trying to fit then putting back into the bins. The face of the bent had been ground on all of them. Not straight or square, the face had been moved rearwards which has the effect of raising the edge vertically. When gently squeezing the trigger, the sear trips off the bent but now because that edge has been raised, the sear is too high and catches the half cock notch.
So Bubba (not me) filed the underside of the cocking piece to make a taper upon which the sear can ride, which cuts off the half cock dog, so he undercuts it which makes the knub in the cam track miss its mating knub on the bolt so the bolt can be popped open at half cock and.....ugh.... big mess, ruined parts.
Other than going to extremes of tig welding and reshaping the nose, good only for fishing sinkers.
I've seen many similar buggered up cocking pieces on ebay. Buyer beware.

Only touch the bent angle if you know what you are doing. If not, have an untouched spare ready to fit.

When buying a spare part for a project, if the cocking piece has anything but the original factory ground bent, I will pass.

[nijalninja]

Peter I was hoping you would offer some insight, and though I have seen you say this before, it only actually clicked this time as to how it works: "Trigger bent on the cocking piece" never made sense to me. Cheers.

englishman, I have a No4 with an awkwardly stiff spring in that regards too, but considering the originality of the rifle I don't want to tamper with it, despite how painful it is. Oh and yeah I have a rifle with a cocking exactly like how you describe, except this one has been rounded off so the edge is not uniform, which makes me think that getting the same pull-off on every shot will be difficult. Its also even got the half-cock fix you describe. Unfortunately this rifle's secondary bolt lug also catches on the top of the sear on closing, and I can't see much of a way to stop that without grinding things that I really so not want to.

[Bruce_in_Oz]

The set-up of sear spring and cocking piece is important.

One of the primary "mechanical" features of the system is that, if the trigger is releases before the sear disengages the cocking piece to fire, the sear MUST, no "ifs, buts or maybes", MUST be driven by the sear spring back to its original "rest' position. It it does not so return, you have a cocked rifle that may discharge at the slightest bump or vibration. This is scary on a target rifle and possibly lethal on a hunting rifle.

Fooling around with the angle of the cocking piece "nose" ( full-cock bent) may alter the angle AND FLATNESS of that face to the point that the sear will not rise, even with a new, full-spec spring.

Polishing the full bent in a jig, at the correct angle and maintaining flatness, is the ONLY acceptable way to reduce "drag and creep". How light do you want it? NEVER below Mil Spec. EVER. It the trigger pull is SMOOTH, it simply does not "feel" heavy.

If you cannot apply your safety mech when the rifle is cocked AND uncocked, it has either been assembled incorrectly or some "enthusiast" has been "at it". Get it checked by someone who knows their Lee Enfields.

Hacking away at the full bent may also play merry Hell with the function of the "manual" safety. When the safety is applied, teh striker / cocking piece SHOULD be withdrawn to the rear such that it no monger rests on the sear. With the safety applied, you kan pull the trigger for all you are worth, it (theoretcall) should NEVER fire in a decade of Sundays. All safety rules abot fingers and triggers still apply.

MURPHY WAS AN OPTIMIST!!

[nijalninja]

Thanks Bruce, for some reason that thought had never crossed my mind about the sear not retracting after half a pull. Thanks for all the accompanying info as well, it gives me a difference perspective that I was not aware of until yet.