1895 Steyr Mannlicher - Austrian sear/trigger

[Wayne Smith]

Gentlemen, and you know who you are!

Have any of you taken apart the trigger sear on your rifles? Mine refused to fire, and the sear clearly wasn't retracting completely, so I pulled it down and disassembled it. Clearly, not all engineers/designers belive in simplicity! After cleaning off the cosmoline - please don't tell me it was supposed to stay, the problem began before I cleaned it!- and having it fall apart several times, I finally came to the conclusion that the trigger/sear spring was protruding out slightly, preventing two pieces of the assembly to come together completely, thus preventing the sear from dropping completely. I used a pair of needle nose pliers and a dental pick to move the spring, and it fired. That was yesterday.

Lo and Behold - today at the range it refused to fire. I haven't taken it back down, but I'm sure it's the same pesky spring impinging between the two pieces of metal - I don't know the nomenclature for these pieces other than the sear and the spring, and it's the interface of the other two that I'm talking about.

After all that, my question - Have any of you gentlemen figured out the magical positioning of this spring to prevent this problem, or am I left on my fumble fingered self alone? ( It was only Divine intervention that allowed me to find that little pin after it fell out by it's own weight!)

[rocklock]

Is this the spring you're talking about?

http://www.ryngate.org/M95/spring.html


http://www.redchrome.org/m1895-rifle/m1895-disassembled.html

[StarMetal]

There's a pretty good picture in that redchrome site of the part you're talking about. Does your's look like that? Did you take that apart to make sure there's no burrs and anything and the cosmoline is out of it? And yes you are suppose to remove the cosmoline before ever firing the rifle. That is just a preservative grease. A rifle should always be stripped down, cleaned, and inspected first thing off from receiving it. That includes the bore too. Let us know if your parts and spring went assembled look like that picture.

Joe

[StarMetal]

Here's a good website for disassembly and assembly of the bolt.

http://www.geocities.com/codywyk/

Joe

[Wayne Smith]

Rocklock

Yes, that's it! The small pin that you are supposed to carefully "drive out" because it's under spring pressure, well - that fell out when I was cleaning the assembly! I think that diagnosed my problem right there. Five of thowse springs will soon be mine, as long as they are still available.

[Wayne Smith]

Springs ordered. Now I'll have five. Anyone else need one?