Trigger Return Spring Tutorial...

[Kali Komrade]

Work in Progress...

1. You gotta pick up some piano or spring wire... The thicknesses will vary depending on the metal suppliers. I found stock in the following sizes (i.e. .047,.055,.060).
I'm going to go with the .055 middle of the road just strong enough for a crank and just light enough for a finger and to make sure we get a good engagement with the Sear...
2. Take your wire in hand and cut off a section that is 4-3/4 inches long my tool of choice is the dremel with the cut off wheel...

http://www.beltfedshooters.com/forum/picture.php?albumid=3&pictureid=13

3. Now that you have your spring material cut to size you need to get yourself a pair of water pump pliers that have a jaw thats about 3/8 of an inch wide and your going to start out at the very edge clamping the material in the pliers and bending down a 3/8's section then do the other side... When you make your bends try to keep them as square as possible... See Below

http://www.beltfedshooters.com/forum/picture.php?albumid=3&pictureid=14

4. Now that you have a piece like above your then going position the piece as if the ends were pointing to the sky then clamp the pliers to the end and turn the ends towards each other so you end up with a wire like so... See Below

http://www.beltfedshooters.com/forum/picture.php?albumid=3&pictureid=15

5. Now what you have to do is find the center and bend the two ends towards each other you can use a pair of needle nose pliers to hold it at the cent to make bending it easier... See Below

http://www.beltfedshooters.com/forum/picture.php?albumid=3&pictureid=16

Now you might notice that one leg looks a little longer... No worries this actually works to our advantage as you don't want the spring wire riding on the other piece of spring wire this will help when it comes to adjusting the the tension...

All together now...

http://www.beltfedshooters.com/forum/picture.php?albumid=3&pictureid=17


INSTALLATION:

First thing your going to do is loosen the nut and machine screw on the trigger bar you can do this with a 3/8th's wrench and what your going to do is insert the spring with the points up in the air under the nut like below...

http://www.beltfedshooters.com/forum/picture.php?albumid=3&pictureid=33

When you go to tighten the nut up on the spring tigten it but don't over tighten the screw can break... a little past snug would be fine right now...

http://www.beltfedshooters.com/forum/picture.php?albumid=3&pictureid=32

You'll end up with something like so...

http://www.beltfedshooters.com/forum/picture.php?albumid=3&pictureid=31

Now what your going to do is push one of the wire legs down towards the trigger wrapping it around the trigger bar...

http://www.beltfedshooters.com/forum/picture.php?albumid=3&pictureid=34

This is the view of the trigger frame upside down you can see that the one leg is wrapped around the trigger bar and the point of the hook is now facing down or up if the your looking at it from the bottom like in the view below...

http://www.beltfedshooters.com/forum/picture.php?albumid=3&pictureid=35

Now your going to take a hook, screw driver, needle nose pliers and pull it up through to the top and hook that leg over the trigger... Like below... As you can see in this pic I am already hooking the other leg over the trigger...
http://www.beltfedshooters.com/forum/picture.php?albumid=3&pictureid=37

What it would look like after one leg is hooked over trigger...

http://www.beltfedshooters.com/forum/picture.php?albumid=3&pictureid=29

View from underneath

http://www.beltfedshooters.com/forum/picture.php?albumid=3&pictureid=36

Both legs are now hooked over the top of the trigger... Now you can adjust how much tension you want on the trigger... Don't lighten it too much as the most of the tension that you will be feeling when you test it in the gun will be from the sear spring...

http://www.beltfedshooters.com/forum/picture.php?albumid=3&pictureid=38

http://www.beltfedshooters.com/photopost/data/543/triggerspringlast.jpg

[secretbard]

Sweet. :troll:

Would .049 size wire work OK?

Oh, and is it possible to just use a pair of pliers? I'm not familiar with piano wire, so I don't know how easy it would be to break or bend.

Edit: Looked inside tonight and found what I think is the above trigger return spring. Once the rest of this thread gets posted, I will know for sure.

[Kali Komrade]

Man that sucks somehow my pictures got shrunk...:smartass: I'm going to have to redo them again... Hopefully that will give you a good idea how its done and what it looks like...

[secretbard]

Yep, that's it. That's what I have on my trigger now. Somebody installed that in there on the initial build. :smile:

[Kali Komrade]

Yep, that's it. That's what I have on my trigger now. Somebody installed that in there on the initial build. :smile:

Your good to go man... Hey if you ever run a crank its a good idea to run the heavier spring at my dimensions as I was told by an old time this works better... Some of the earlier springs were a little on the short side...

One of these days I'm going to learn to tune the sear spring... Hell I might even make my own just for the hell of it to see if I can get a lighter trigger pull...

[secretbard]

I would bet you can go a tad thinner on the wire and it would lighten up that trigger take up or pull as it were.

[Kali Komrade]

I would bet you can go a tad thinner on the wire and it would lighten up that trigger take up or pull as it were.

Oh yeah sure you could... But once the trigger is engaged with the sear you pick up the weight of the sear spring so lightening it at the trigger is not as big of a deal you actually want it to have strong positive contact with the sear so that you don't wear down the ears on the trigger and sear...

What I'd like to do one day is lighten the spring on the sear so that you don't have as much tension... There would be a fine balance required to do so because to light and you might have other malfunctions... Like the firing pin not being caught by the sear which would be bad....:shock1:

[CLP]

Thanks Kali,
All printed out and put in the book for the grandkids in case the computers go down for good.

[Kali Komrade]

Thanks Kali,
All printed out and put in the book for the grandkids in case the computers go down for good.

Thats not the final take I'm afraid CLP I gotta add somemore info and arrows... I just find myself so damn busy... But I'll get this flush out this week... I got the go ahead to start bringing stickys to the side boxes so those versions will be the final take...

[Armorer]

And yes you can use pliers to bend the wire in fact I recommend it. However you will need two pair, one to hold and one to bend.

And don't be surprized if you break the wire during a bend. I broke two then went to a thiner wire. I may have even broke one of the thiner ones also. Sorry I don't remember the thickness I ended up with (or the one I started out with). Glad I broke the first one though, it would have been a very heavy spring.

[Kali Komrade]

And yes you can use pliers to bend the wire in fact I recommend it. However you will need two pair, one to hold and one to bend.

And don't be surprized if you break the wire during a bend. I broke two then went to a thiner wire. I may have even broke one of the thiner ones also. Sorry I don't remember the thickness I ended up with (or the one I started out with). Glad I broke the first one though, it would have been a very heavy spring.

Sometimes... I forget to mention yeah an extra set of pliers is not a bad idea...
I'm so used to bending wire with my fingers I forget about everyone else out there that doesn't have leathery fingers like myself... A pair of gloves and safety glasses might not be a bad idea either it is spring wire and as you stated it can break...

[crkone]

i can not see the pics..... video tutorial would be great for us new guys....

[Kali Komrade]

i can not see the pics..... video tutorial would be great for us new guys....

Can't see the pic's is it just this thread ?

I will work on a vid in the coming week... I'll dig out some spring wire... and we will cover installing it as well...

Brian - Kali Komrade

[AZ_Gun_Nut]

I thought it was just me, but I don't see any pics either Kali.

[Kali Komrade]

I do... but then again I'm drinkin' the special water out here in Cali... What browser are you using by chance AZ... I want to debug this for you guys...:thinkin:

[Rivetz]

Pics not showing here, either.

I am currently running a cobbled trigger spring that I bent up during the Saturday night cease-fire at the Big Sandy a few years ago. :abused1:

I was running one of the plunger-type screws as the spring before and it worked horribly with the crank.

It would be nice to replace my makeshift spring with something that looks a bit more, uh, professional.

[Kali Komrade]

You need to do one a little different a friend gave me a tip for the Crankfires and I'll pass that on to you...

[1919_4_ME]

I can see the pics now.:bucktooth:

[Kali Komrade]

I can see the pics now.:bucktooth:

I think there's an anomolly in the Matrix Morphius...

:matrix:

[anm2_man]

I seen the pics this morning at 6:00am. They start off normal size, and then get smaller. :thinkin:

[Kali Komrade]

Yes they do ANM2... I might end up redoing all of that anyway...

[AZ_Gun_Nut]

I do... but then again I'm drinkin' the special water out here in Cali... What browser are you using by chance AZ... I want to debug this for you guys...:thinkin:

I can now see the very last pic with it all assembled. I'm using IE 7 but also checked it with Google Chrome and it's the same with both. Might be my shitty connection here though?

[Kali Komrade]

I think it's caused because I was pulling these pictures from my profile album so I'll switch them all over and that should fix it...