Author Topic: Pilkington Trigger Tune revisited  (Read 4525 times)

Offline Fatman

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Pilkington Trigger Tune revisited
« on: February 07, 2010, 02:36:25 PM »
There are some truly great aftermarket contributions to the world of pellet guns. Among the best are: the brass screw/valve grinding compound muzzle crown, the replacement Gamo trigger, Maccari’s Springs, Moly and Tar, and without a doubt, the Pilkington Trigger Tune.   (Ok there’s some good  Crosman stuff as well).

If you are happy with your stock trigger, or have done the Pilkington Trigger Tune and are satisfied with the results, or if you have to pass a pull test for competition you might want to move on.

I’m snowed in here so I have way to much time on my hands.  If you are still interested and feel up to it, grab a beer or a cup of coffee as this may take a while.

My shooting buddy likes the trigger on 953 so much he wants me to do the Pilkington Trigger Tune on his 853.  He seems to have forgotten the previous disasters with the 753 Target Stock and the Avanti Precision Diopter Sight that I talked him into.

In order to avoid another disaster, I went to the Pilkington site and reviewed the procedure step by step.  I’m the kind of guy who reads the instructions and follows them to the letter and I wanted to get it right this time.

Ok, on with the tune.  Disassemble the action, remove and clean all the parts.  Cut the relief in the front of the trigger, trim down the spring mounting  boss on the trigger blocking lever, cut down the pot metal pin, drill and tap the hole in the trigger guard, etc.  I also polished the sear and the piston mating surfaces with 600 Wet or Dry paper to remove any roughness.

I reassemble using moly on the piston and sear mating surfaces and white lithium grease on all other moving parts.  I’ve found white lithium grease to be just about the slickest stuff on plastic and haven’t seen any adverse effects.  It is available at most hardware, automotive and home improvement stores.

The pot metal housing was very roughly cast on top where the Cocking Lever slides was so I smoothed it off with 600 Wet or Dry paper.  Don’t remove any material just knock off the high spots.

He doesn’t shoot in competition and wanted the trigger as light as practical but still safe.  To achieve this I left out the sear spring (the small spring between the sear and the housing) and clipped about 3 turns off of the large rear spring as well.  Now leaving out the sear spring seems scary (unsafe) in principle, but it works just fine and I haven’t had a single problem in several thousand cycles on my 953 with the same setup.  The safety still works fine as well.

The result - Fantastic!  Much better than my 953.  Go figure.  I can’t believe how short, light and crisp the trigger is and it passes both the “Bump Test”  and the “Slam Home the Pump Lever While Cocked Test “ every time.  Third time lucky I guess.

So what about my 953?  Why the difference?  

Let’s check it out.  With the stock removed, you can see the action of the trigger and the trigger blocking lever at the rear of the housing.  Even though I cut down the spring mounting boss on the trigger blocking lever per Pilkington’s instructions, it was still making contact with the spring mounting boss on the trigger before the sear released.  

I currently prefer a very short trigger with no discernable travel or overtravel.  Adjusting the trigger to this level resulted in these parts being in contact, even before the trigger was pulled.  Pulling the trigger involved flexing the plastic parts, hence the heavier pull weight. The spring didn’t even enter into it.  

Now these guns are mass produced which is a good thing because it keeps the prices down.  It also is a bad thing because tolerances are broad enough so the manufacturer doesn’t get interference anywhere in the assembly process.  Why the problem on the 953 and not on my friends 853?  The parts are the same on both so it’s down to production tolerances.

The solution is to file down one or both of the spring mounting bosses enough so they don’t make contact.  They only need to be high enough to keep the spring in place, which isn‘t much.  This may raise another issue.  If you have left the rear spring at its original length, it may become coil bound (coils touching and essentially solid) with the same result.  

After you have reassembled the action, test it (dry fire) before replacing the stock.   Adjust the trigger to your liking and observe if there is any interference with either the spring bosses or the spring.  

If the bosses make contact before the sear releases, take it apart and trim some more off.  If the spring is coil bound, you can back off the trigger adjustment screw and pop it out with a small screwdriver without taking the action apart.  Trim a few coils, reinstall, readjust the trigger and check it again.  When you are satisfied, replace the stock and try it out.

I was OK with my trigger till I did my friends.  Now that I’ve got mine sorted it’s just as good.  If you do the same and hate it, you can always go to back to the way it was before.  Daisy has great parts availability and they are vary reasonable.  If you go too far or mess up anything you can get replacements direct from their Customer Service Dept. 1-800-643-3458.  They process orders quickly and don’t charge an arm and a leg for shipping.  

For information on the desirability of different trigger set-ups (pull weight, travel vs. no travel etc.) visit Nygord’s site.  He was well respected in competitive pistol circles. Sadly he is no longer with us, but they’ve kept his site up as a memorial.  There’s a lot of good information on technique there that applies to rifle as well as pistol.

 I have far too much time on my hands.

Thanks for visiting,
Fatman  



Offline Magnum

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Re: Pilkington Trigger Tune revisited
« Reply #1 on: February 08, 2010, 12:25:39 AM »
You are right about this "There are some truly great aftermarket contributions to the world of pellet guns." I have experimented also with the pilkingtons trigger mod and very effective :)  Thank also for the link to visit  http://www.nygord-precision.com/notes.htm