My friend is a real gun guru and on a recent hunt to AK he had to bring lighter fluid and long qtips to clean the Timney trigger regularly. One thing about the R8 is the trigger is fantastic right out of the box!
Hello Philip,
I’ve never owned a Timney brand or any other after-market / custom / replacement trigger.
However, in Timney’s advertisements, the photos I’ve seen show a “box” type mechanism.
For those members here, who are new to the internal mechanisms of bolt action rifles, a box trigger is one with many or most of it’s small moving parts encased between two thin sheets of metal and held in place by drift pins or small screws.
Anyway, one of my fellow Rifle Grumps, here in Alaska (Ed Marsters), told me that he never uses “box triggers” in any of his rifles.
He is concerned that ice can form within said little “trigger box”, very effectively stopping the rifle from functioning, until it can be thawed out.
I don’t recall if Ed said it has actually happened to any rifle belonging to anyone he knows.
However, it sounds like the fellow you mentioned with his long Q-Tips and lighter fluid had repeated malfunctions in our weather up here.
And so, his “box trigger” needed repeated scrubbing in the field, to keep the rifle functioning.
Either way, Ed was born and raised here in Alaska.
And, at approximately age 70 now, is a very successful, life long Alaskan big game hunter.
Since I’ve only been here 41 years, my wife calls me a “chechako” (new to Alaska).
As such, I always listen to Ed’s advice.
The original Model ‘98 Mauser trigger and some of it’s descendants (Pre-1964 Model 70 Winchester as one example) are very fine triggers, in my personal experiences.
They are definitely not as likely to build up ice deposits, to the point of dangerous malfunction, during our plentiful freezing rain and snow weather, here during coastal Alaska hunting season.
Lighter Fluid ?
When I worked part time in a local gun shop we used, I think it was “Ronson” brand (?) lighter fluid, to scrub dirty rifle and handgun bores, before putting any newly received 2nd hand ones, out on the racks for sale.
It worked quite well, especially if after generously festooning the bore with it, then standing the weapon on its muzzle over night.
The next morning re-apply and scrub well with a bore brush.
Cheers,
Paul.
PS:
Fellow Hunters,
Regarding us rifle shooters quest for that dreaded sub-one inch 5 shot group, at 100 yards…
If a rifle is meant to shoot gophers, ground squirrels and similar tiny pests at long range, such pin point accuracy is in my own experiences, very important.
However, I have arrived at the stage in my wrinkled up old geezer years, indicating that if any scoped rifle I’m training and hunting with, is consistently hitting a coffee cup size mark at 100 yards or meters, a grapefruit size mark at 200, a gallon milk jug mark at 300 and a 5 gallon bucket mark at 400, I will continue to keep the buggy springs sagging from the weight of critters that I bag.
Cheers.
