Thread: Baikal centrefire trigger work

Originally Posted by lui

Kia ora tātou,

Thought I'd share a bit of my work over the weekend. Having a young family means time doing anything gun related is pretty limited at the moment, but had been chafing to get in to see if I could get my .243 baikal working a bit nicer, mostly around the trigger. Turns out it was pretty straightforward, pulling the buttstock off to pull the action out of the stock, then only needed to tap out the one main trigger pin. Process is made significantly easier by shoving a pin above the trigger spring (some cheap shirty drill bits lying around were easiest for me) to minimise the force through the trigger pin.

Attachment 236011

Attachment 236010
Pics showing my rudimentary pin holding my trigger spring up, and also the surface of the hammer which I cleaned out.

Cleared up all the crud and took the sears to a very fine stone to remove some of the burrs. Moved a cloth around on the sear of the hammer also which cleaned it up nicely.

Straight-forward to reassemble, you could probably do it a lot faster than me if you don't drop the little part from inside the trigger assembly on the ground and spend a frustrating soul-revealing 40 minutes looking for it.

Attachment 236009
Gar!

Most people comment on the jankiness of these triggers, I so wanted to see how much I could improve mine with some TLC. Fully assembled it runs a heck of a lot smoother, first of all getting rid of all of the crud from its pre-me-life made it a lot smoother throughout the full pull, and more critically removing the burrs means it doesn't feel like a two-stage trigger now, where the effective different lengths of lever arms from those burrs means you don't get the feedback about when it's going to release.

Managed to get 3 shots in around 35mm at 100m after getting it all back together, so pretty happy for a pack gun from a tractor factory!

I'm looking at customising this puppy a bit more, so I'll keep you all posted. I know a lot less exciting that most of the awesome work you guys are doing here, but it's something!

Be very careful when you do this...My brother had a 'gunsmith' do this for him and now his rifle will fire on closing if it is slammed shut in a hurry. The difference between good and dodgy seems to be about 1 or 2 additional passes with the file....