Polishing metal surfaces - Stone?

[Ron Jones]

Do you have any India stones? These are very important for maintaining surface angles and flatness. When removing metal from trigger surfaces; always remember that less is more. A very wise machinist once taught me that it's always easier to remove a little more metal than to put some back on.
-Mike

Was his name George?

[Rivverrat]

 Lee & Ron with others have given you sound , safe advice. I will follow up with what Lee stated. It's best you have another trigger on hand before starting this. It is a rare thing that  some one takes a trigger the first time & performs any polishing while keeping the the engagement surfaces true with no rounded off corners.

Also the biggest mistakes over the years regarding people, regular folks  filing / stoning the parts on their guns is a simple one to correct. Your first attempt at this will be less than perfect. Find a comparably sized piece of steel to practice first !! This will make your work much better.

 A sage, X Marrine, Gunny now a  well known gun instructor told me of an incident where he went into the next town over for stuff, really nothing out of the ordinary to see folks practicing open carry in both localities. As he was checking out a young boy was admiring his 1911 residing in his holster. The young fella began to ask questions, he ended up inviting him & his mom out to his ranch to do some shooting. As he was walking to his truck the gal asks, while looking at his gun in holster, in Condition 1 ....   Isnt that dangerous? Refferring to guns hammer cocked while in holster... Well  mam, Hell ya it's dangerous !!


  A bright, intelligent, young man comes home over joyed having made his final payment on an AR-10  in lay away. Tim ( Not Real Name ) first caught my attention when he was being berated for telling lies on a once notorious gun site.

At this time He was claiming to be having trouble with his "third" barrel in his Ruger Hawkeye 308 bolt action. Based on what he was describing, if true the barrels were acting like they were shot out.

Tim had a family history of hunting regularly. But when it came to what a well taken care of rifle is capable of he was a bit in the dark.  It's no small chore to burn up a barrel in some rifle calibers with a couple thousand rounds or less. However Tim's shooting procedure unbeknownst to him was greatly extending the barrel life of his Hawkeye. So what I was hearing from Tim could possibly match with the ridiculous round count he was claiming.

I am convinced Tim had no idea the number of rounds he was putting through his Hawkeye was far from a regular occurrence. Ruger obviously thought the same as my self. Replacing his previous barrels at no charge while keeping & cross sectioning Tim's wore out barrels for further inspection . Knowing several who work there. I called, they verified everything Tim had told me to be nothing less than completely true.

We became fast friends with plans to meet up & have WW3 type shootfest. He was wanting a better trigger for his AR-10. I convinced him the one in his gun was more than sufficient with a little work. I gave instruction to him via email while I repeatedly said, be safe & defined the boundaries to do this.  He had a full shooting bench set up outside on his back deck which set some 4'-5' above ground . Tim his brother & cousin were set up for few hours of fun.

The shooting I guess had been going on for a bit when Tim stood to retrieve his water inside . While inside his St. Bernard jumped up on to a near by table with his front paws, in an attempt to snag Tim's Burger,  causing the table to lean & Tim's AR-10, that he had just completed stoning the trigger on, fell hitting the deck & fired a round that went through the skull of his cousin who was returning from down range to replace targets. killing him instantly. This Gun Should Not Have fired !

This is the first time I've publicly mentioned this. The pain still resides some place inside of me. Since this time I no longer give detailed advice on gun work of any kind, to any one who is not sitting beside me or without me looking over their shoulder.  I am now at a point, as much as possible of having come to terms with this. This was & is a humbling thing. I say humbling because I know with Complacency & a lack of maintained Awareness the same can happen to me. To believe any thing else is not being honest.

We make many decisions on any given day. Some good, Some dont work out. Most decisions regardless can be filed in the No Harm No Foul file. Decisions regarding our guns can never be taken back. There are no mulligans with guns... Jeff

                                                                                               

                        https://f1.media.brightcove.com/4/1275380506001/1275380506001_1430002157001_0040-08A.mp4?pubId=1275380506001&videoId=1429971773001

                     

                                                                                 "https://www.youtube.com/embed/xh2FjzVVIZY"  

[Keta]

I had a M-77R that had a 1000# lawyer approved trigger that could not be adjusted, my older ones had good triggers.  I installed a Wolf spring in it, still 1000#s  I took the spring out and still 1000#s.  Looking at it I saw the Ruger law department forced engineering dept. to design the trigger so metal had to bend to get the sear to disengage.  I removed metal and put the Wolf spring back in....well the rifle had a .0001 ounce trigger pull now even when the adjustment screw was tightened all the way and would fire when the bolt was closed.  The factory spring gave me a 1 pound pull but would fire if I slammed the butt on the ground, not acceptable.  I had to argue with Ruger for several months before they sent me the parts to put my 300 win back together, the new sear was not the 1000# model and I got the trigger weight I wanted with the Ruger spring.

[Rivverrat]

 Good on you Lee. Ruger for the most part is great to deal with. However with certain parts one may have to go used as some parts just are not released to the public or Armorers. You will also come across the occasional Ruger revolver that is terrible. With barrel not true with frame & rear sight body not aligned with frame. It is what it is. I've yet to see a case they didnt take care of... Jeff

[Keta]

Good on you Lee. Ruger for the most part is great to deal with. However with certain parts one may have to go used as some parts just are not released to the public or Armorers... Jeff

Their legal department had too much say but they need to protect the company from law suits too.   When I had my #1 rebarreled for the second time, it started out a 243, then a 7mm-08 and now is 17 Hornady Hornet, they were more than helpful and sent 3 ejectors.  I am happy with the factory trigger but might spend some $ and get a better one to go with the lapped match grade barrel.

[Rivverrat]

  You hand lap the barrel your self Lee ?

[Keta]

Not on this one, I had a gunsmith in Brookings, Oregon do all of the work.

[Rivverrat]

Lee, the 17 Hornet is a wonderful round. One I would like to have. Friend of mine destroyed 10 of my steel plates with his 17 Hornet before us dummies took notice that his shots were passing through the steel plates. Plates were fine with 38 / 357 mag... Jeff

[Keta]

It does the job on sage rats too, this one was at 260 paces.  20gr bullet going 3600fps.

[Gobi King]

Good info guys,
Reading all the input and watching a bunch of videos,

A good buffing wheel and buffing compound is the way to go and go light.

I found this,


Definitely one needs to test if firearm will fire if bumped. I do that with any new firearm and after I adjust the trigger pull.

At the ranges I belong to, we cannot leave a firearm loaded, if you are not shooting it, we have to unload it and call it.  When we call cease fire for target pulling, ALL firearms needs to be safety flagged.
Unfortunate  what happened with Tim's gun.

My buddies adult son came along to shoot his AR10 once, he kept firing a few rounds and taking breaks with a round in the chamber and the muzzle pointing at angle that would cause the round to leave the range. it was a WTF moment and after a few please don't do it, I called we are done.

[Keta]

The rules at my "range" are like the rule here, simple.  Don't shoot the irrigation gear and the farm hands.  I (we at times) also use gun safety rules.  When Alan was up last year they were planting this field and we were shooting the one to the south, we knew where the farm hands were and they knew were we were and it worked well.   The last few days I have been the only one on over a thousand acres and have several fields to shoot.  Today will be the last good day to shoot, the alfalfa is almost a squirrel high and I am shooting at eyes on the pups.