Is lightening the sear/magazine spring a valid way to lighten trigger pull?

[SDWriter]

Thanks Para. I've had mine out a couple of times. And yep, the M54 is a bit of a hybrid design between the Mauser and the M70. Story goes that Winchester copied just enough Mauser design to work well but changed just enough so as not to have to pay Mauser royalties. So much of the bolt assembly is original design and would look familiar to M70 owners.

FWIW, that upper pic of yours is a later design. Mine does not have rod capturing the spring. And my sear does not have that step in it---making it look to my like the state of Utah I guess. The image directly below is my sear and trigger. Note that slopping at the top. I believe there is to be a slight amount of slope, but not this much. And the angle at the rear may have been changed as well. I would dearly love to find a pristine example of this part, but they are very hard to come by nowadays. I recently bought a set off ebay, but that one turned out to function just as poorly as mine. Seems weird that the only one available for sale in the whole wide world would have been changed in the same way. But I don't have another explanation for it.

Attachment 91087

In addition, my rifle's "cocking piece" may have also been changed. Hard for me to say. M54 experts are very few and far between.

I believe that mine should look like this in profile. The photo is from Numrich's Gun Parts. A stock photo of theirs. Note the fuller top of the sear.

[Parashooter]

According to De Haas, there were early and late versions of the M54 sear mechanism ("slow-" and "speed-lock"). Nevertheless, all of them were the same basic Mauser design. Stoning some height off the front hump of yours might restore some degree of normalcy. If someone has cut down the height of the cocking-piece "bent", however, working on the trigger may not help.

[SDWriter]

According to De Haas, there were early and late versions of the M54 sear mechanism ("slow-" and "speed-lock"). Nevertheless, all of them were the same basic Mauser design. Stoning some height off the front hump of yours might restore some degree of normalcy. If someone has cut down the height of the cocking-piece "bent", however, working on the trigger may not help.

Exactly. The early type and the later "improved" design. Mine's obviously the former. That's why I need a pro. This shouldn't be rocket science, but it's beyond my capabilities. I think an experienced and gifted gunsmith could get this working fine again even if he's never seen a Win 54 in his life. It'll probably require adding metal to one part or another. Via TIG welding, and then reshaping. I sure wish I could get my hands on a copy of the original blueprints.

Ugh. I don't know who else would care about this but anyway.... what it's actually doing is this: with bolt removed from the rifle, 1st and 2nd stages feel normal. No friction or binding. But when the bolt is installed, things get weird. 1st stage has a LOT of friction, to the point that the sear actually sticks in place. The trigger won't reset when finger pressure is released! This has to be due to some unwanted interaction/contact between the sear and the bolt's C-notch. They're not coming together right anymore.

FYI, when I was in San Antonio TX last December I examined my cousin's two M54s, which apparently also belonged to our grandfather. I took pictures of the exposed sear and also the underside of the bolt on his .30-'06 version (his other is in .250-3000 Savage), which apparently is also the earlier type. I have to admit, in looking at the pics now I cannot tell much difference between his and mine. The large 'chamfer' on the back of mine might be a little more pronounced I suppose. But I wasn't able to take any measurements of any kind. Left my dial caliper at home. LOL. I can say that his certainly behaves better. Works exactly as you'd expect.

[nijalninja]

Glad to see my thread got shared here pretty quick. What I learned there turned me off mucking around too much with the trigger assembly, and besides I am a lowsey shot anyway so I can't pretend I'll get better just with a lighter trigger haha.

[SDWriter]

Glad to see my thread got shared here pretty quick.

Your thread? Did you used to use another name here?

In any case.... When I was pursuing this route I bought a spare C-piece (or two?), sear, spring, and trigger. I figured if I screw up the experiment with those parts, I'll have still my original set. As an owner of a rifle it can be frustrating when things aren't "perfect" but near perfect. I only paid $200 US for this #4, 16-17 years ago maybe? (I have no idea what a similar one would cost now.) It was in darn near perfect shape, pristine looking bore. It wasn't until getting it home and later using it at a range that I discovered its trigger is on the heavy side. Often the well meant advice is "buy a different rifle if you don't like this trigger". My response is always, No! The issue can't be that extreme. Buy another rifle that seems to have a better trigger, then get it home and find out it has some other issue that the current one doesn't? No thanks.

[nijalninja]

Parashooter shared it on the first page.

[Parashooter]

This topic was discussed thoroughly a few weeks ago at https://www.milsurps.com/showthread.php?t=63607

Post #3 on this topic contains a link to nijal's topic.

[SDWriter]

Oh of course. Thanks. I hadn't scanned that far back.

I remember your idea of annealing the spring.