I try to stay on the sunny side of life most of the time. Keep the glass half full, look for the silver lining, etc. I have met disappointment, but we aren’t intimate friends. Last Wednesday night however, we became a bit closer . . .
As you might have gleaned from my Gear Preview: Timney 10/22 Trigger, I was really excited about the prospect of breathing some new life into my old girl. In fact, I ended my preview with the following statement, “My initial dry firing makes me think that I’m going to be sending Timney some of my hard earned money.” Instead I’ll be sending them their trigger assembly for a mulligan.
Let’s start at the beginning shall we?
I took my bone stock gun to the range, and warmed up with four magazines of 10 rounds. Things were running flawlessly. Save for the guy two stalls over shooting his .300 Win Mag as fast as he could cycle the bolt (indoors no less), things were going well. I was able to establish a baseline 9 shot group with the stock setup at 50 yards.
I checked with my RO to make sure that he was okay with me disassembling my firearm on the line, and changed out trigger groups. Like I mentioned in my preview, this is a snap. All you have to do is remove the receiver, push out the two pins that hold the trigger assembly in place, put the Timney group in, replace the pins, and reassemble the action and stock. I took the opportunity to do some cleaning as well. With everything assembled, I refreshed my target and started taking sighting shots to get comfortable before I shot for “score”
My first sighting shot was a bullseye and the trigger broke crisp and clean as expected. I was practically giddy. I started squeezing for the follow up, and squeezed, and squeezed, and squeezed. It seems my hammer had not reset. Chalking it up to funky coincidence, I racked the bolt, and squeezed off another shot. It landed mere fractions of an inch from its former mate. I squeezed for the follow up shot and continued to squeeze some more, and ran into the same issue. Rack the bolt, squeeze, nest 3 together. Lather, rinse repeat.
At this point, I realized that there was an issue with my new trigger group. Looking at the cases of the unfired ejections, it was clear that the firing pin was making a small impression in the primer. At this point, I should have packed my shit, returned the trigger, and gone to bed slightly disappointed. Instead, I decided to shoot for “score”
And damn if it didn’t look good. Yeah, I had to cycle the bolt manually after every shot, but look at the great photo that I was able to get for the loyal TTAG readers. You’ll notice that there are only five bullet holes in this target. I didn’t shoot more because the SHTF.
In 12 years and 15,000 rounds with this gun, I have never had a ruptured case. I hope to never have another. It scared the shit out of me. I took some shrapnel to the head, and watched smoke start pouring out of my gun. I am so so so very glad that I wore my glasses as I took a piece of something directly to the lens. Had I not been wearing glasses, I would be a doofy looking pirate for Halloween this year. I am also extremely thankful that I am not a left-handed shooter who uses a right-handed gun. The Phantom of the Opera mask has never looked good on me. A small explosion a foot from my face was enough for me. I shot a few rounds through my AR and then headed home. On the way, I emailed Chris at Timney to tell him that I had a major issue. He responded back within 20 minutes, and followed up today with the following.
Tyler:
We are finding out that the disconnector spring in the Timney 10/22 Complete Drop-In Assembly does not work in some rifles.
We have a fix that has proven to work in all rifles we have tested.
Please return the trigger assembly to us and we will fix it.
Thanks.
Chris
I spoke with Nick Leghorn Thursday night. He agreed that the disconnecter spring issue would explain the failure to reset the hammer. He also explained that my case rupture was very likely due to a sensitive primer that got ridden a bit too hard by the firing pin. The infamous double fire that has been mentioned on TTAG over the last few weeks seems to have reared her ugly head.
Looking past the major mechanical issues, it is a fine trigger. A real joy to shoot. And so far, I am pleased with Timney’s response. It would be just as easy to scream “operator error!” and send me down the line. They are owning up and taking care of the issue. We all make mistakes. The true test of a company is how they deal with it. The trigger group is with Timney now and should be returned to me shortly. Stay tuned for updates.
Nothing mechanical will ever have a 0% failure rate, even from the best and most diligent manufacturers. I once sorted and tested itty-bitty springs for a small manufacturing company, and they arrived from their manufacturer all over the map in terms of external dimensions, strength, and temper. It was a PITA to sort them by size, but even worse to test them for rate and temper so we only used a statistical sampling for those attributes.
So bad stuff sometimes gets through, and this is where good customer service makes all the difference. Timney has a good reputation, and I’m glad they’re protecting it.
I recently purchased an NIB Ruger 10/22 “all weather” (synthetic stock and stainless barrel) for $239.99. The plain-jane wood stock/blued barrel model goes for $199.99. Timney’s trigger retails for around $130.00 to $150.00, which doesn’t sound like a wise expenditure of funds to me.
It depends on what you’re looking to end up with, and what else is available in that caliber, with that performance, and at that pricepoint.
I installed the Volquartsen 10/22 trigger which is excellent. However the cost is even a bit higher than Timney’s trigger. Eventually I want to turn this rifle into 1/5-th scale metallic silhouette shooter – assuming I can refine my rifle shooting abilities.
Did Timney get this problem resolved in the newer 10/22 drop in housings?
Just ordered one.
Thanks
Comments are closed.