I just bought a beautiful '94 carbine from the mid 1940's, chambered in 32 WS.
It's in excellent condition, and puts up a nice pattern with store-bought ammo,
so I don't think its seen much use.
But this old gal has the sloppiest trigger I've ever seen.
The trigger has over a 1/4" of play side to side and 1/2' front to back

Is this common?

I disassembled it, there doesn't seem to be any wear on the pin, trigger, or sear.
I'm thinking about adding some bushings and maybe some spacers, and maybe lighten it up a bit.
The trigger pull isn't bad, just a little heavy for my taste.
But the play is really unsettling.
It feels like the trigger is going to fall out.

this post didn't seem to draw much interest, but for the sake of the archives...

I couldn't find another 1940's carbine to compare mine to, so I still don't know if this problem was peculiar to my rifle.
Neither the pin or the trigger showed any wear.
But the slop really made me nuts.
...so this is what I did.

I went down to the hobby shop and bought a piece of thin wall 5/16" brass tubing. I pulled the action out and apart, drilled out the trigger with a 5/16 bit, drove the tube into the trigger and filed it off flush on either side. I took a reamer and opened up the ends of the new bushing in the trigger a tiny bit so the pin would install easily, and then re-assembled the rifle.
It seems to work very well.
The trigger is much more stable and the pull is a lot crisper.

I can't tell you how long this fix will last, the brass may peen out quickly from the recoil, but I've got enough of the tubing left to replace it 23 more times (for 80 cents) so things could be worse. and I was done in under half an hour.

Good luck

m

I'd love to see pictures. I've got a 1949 version and would like to see the details of what you've accomplished.

All the best. - Lenny

Hi Lenny
(and everyone else)
Can I paste photos into these posts?
I'm not that computer savvy.

The process is pretty cut and dried.
I could eMail you photos if you end up needing them,
but there's not much to it.

Go to a hobby shop that caters to model makers and model train enthusiasts, they'll have the 5/16" O.D. thin wall hard brass tubing.

Use a small tubing cutter to clip off a piece of tube about a half an inch long.

Remove the large screw that goes down thru the top of the tang and slide the shoulder stock off.

Remove the large screw that the hammer pivots on.

Grab the lower tang and slide the trigger group out.
(it's in pretty tight, you may have to wiggle it a bit)

Drive out the pin that the trigger and sear pivot on.
(it's not in very tight, if you don't have a punch, a fine nail set will do)
The pin doesn't appear to have any sort of taper to it, but just to be safe I marked the sear side so it went back in the same way.

Take a 5/16" bit and drill out the hole thru the trigger.

Since the new hole in the trigger and the outside diameter of the tube are both 5/16", the tube will be a fairly tight fit. The end of the brass that was cut with the tubing cutter will be slightly compressed. Insert that end into the enlarged hole in the trigger and tap it in place with a hammer so that you have at least 1/8" of tube on either side.

Take any sort of a fine saw and a small file and trim the tube flush with the trigger.

Take your fine nail set and tap it into either side of the newly bushed trigger hole, twisting it lightly to remove any burrs and to secure the bushing in place.

Before you put the trigger group back together, check that the pin fits properly thru the bushing. As I remember, I had to tap mine thru with a soft face hammer and give it a couple of twists.

You're done, put it back together!

There's a bit of wire under the hammer spring that keeps spring tension on the sear. Be sure that rests on the narrow tail of the sear.

Tap the axel pin in from the sear side so as not to put too much strain on the new trigger bushing.

Just to be safe, put the hammer in place and slide its retaining screw in place so you can try out the assembly.
There's a pin that sticks out of the lower tang, it blocks the trigger when the cocking lever isn't all the way up. You'll need to push that pin in to get the trigger to work.
The play should now be gone and the trigger pull should be much smoother.

If you're brave...
While you've got it semi-assembled, you could check out the mating faces of the hammer and sear.
This isn't for the faint of heart, and if it works okay as it is, you might not want to mess with it.

But you could...
use a magic marker to color in the top edge of the sear where it mates with the notch in the hammer. Cock and fire the assembly a couple of times.
The ink will be scraped off the sear where it mates with the hammer and you can check out the contact area between the faces.
Mine wasn't so hot and I ended up hitting the sear a bit with a whet stone.
This process needs to be done carefully and if you're not mechanically adept, I wouldn't try it. You need to be sure you don't change the angle of that edge or take off too much metal.

The only difficult part of re-assembling the gun is getting the hammer set in place.
You need to line up the holes in the action, the holes in the trigger group, and the hole in the hammer. Which takes a little finesse (and maybe that fine nail set).
Make sure the "stirrup" of the hammer is set into the hook of the hammer spring as you slide the trigger group back in place.

Re set the stock and you're done.

If you have any questions, feel free to drop me a line.

Regards

M