Reworked a few Remington 788 & 580 series triggers over the weekend

[JDHasty]

Let me think about how I would go about ordering the correct ones. What I have done is match them up from odd parts that I have in pill bags in a bottle. IIRC, I think the rimfire bolt stops will all interchange, but there are two varieties of safety/bolt release levers. It may take me a day or two to look at my loose parts to see if I have an example of both levers. I know I have one good one and one broken one, I just don't remember if they are the same or different.

[JDHasty]

I have some photos of different triggers and will get them posted as soon as I learn a new method. If you need me to hurry up, say the word and I will try and get it done sooner, rather than later.

[JDHasty]

I still don’t have the ability to post pictures yet. I’ll get there, I have stocks I’m working on right now and get caught up in that and lose track of time. I did take time out to do a couple more triggers this evening.

A couple things I forgot earlier:

On the safety side of your housing use a fine file and smooth off the burs that are raised in drilling the housing and generally just make sure that side is flat. If not the e-clip(s) will not engage the ring on the pin. Some safety levers have one pin and one screw, some have two pins. But if the safety lever will not lay flat the e-clips will not be fully seated in the groove in the pin. I make sure by trying to push the pin out to make sure they are fully seated. It doesn’t matter if the other side is smoothed up or not, it’s up to you.

When installing the trigger back onto the receiver engage the sear and set the safety. In most cases on a 580 series the sear block will be captive and that helps matters considerably. In some 580 triggers the sear block can escape and on these I just gently fight it to hold it in place on the triggers that the sear block does not extend past the safety side of the housing. The ones that the sear block does extend past the safety side of the housing it can be held in place by your finger with the spring compressed. Or, here’s an idea. Go ahead and drill and tap for an over travel adjustment stop, you can do that in fifteen minutes. Engage the sear and use the over travel stop to lock the trigger in place and instead of cussing and fighting for half an hour, it will go in slicker than owl crap. Then back off the over travel stop until it’s time to set that adjustment. Remember that over travel stop screw has to be short enough to not interfere with the bolt stop. You always take the safety and bolt stop off to adjust it, but they need to be on the trigger when you are putting the trigger back on the receiver. Buy some good American, German or Japanese e-clips of the right size. Then remember where you keep them. They break and get lost all the time. The Chinese ones are….

Remember to support the trigger housing when driving the pin back through the stud in the receiver and be very gentle tapping it in place.

Just go slow and be patient and you will be proficient with reworking these triggers in no time.

[JDHasty]

I stumbled on this at McMaster Carr today while looking for something else. The one with thread locker might just be a ready made trigger spring. This makes it a lot easier to do the separate sear and spring trigger modifications a lot easier. In the past we turned a tit on a grub screw and then glued a spring on it with Shoe Goo.

I think that it would be wise to first run it into a 6-32 nut so that when used in the aluminum trigger housing the nylon will already be engraved. Or a spot of Shoe Goo or nail polish or primer sealant once it is set to your liking.

https://www.mcmaster.com/spring-scre...ead-size~6-32/