M14/M1A Trigger Job
The most important modification, one that will help you actually shoot better, is a good trigger job. An accurate rifle won’t be much help if you can’t pull the trigger without moving your rifle off your point of aim. A proper match tuned trigger will help you get your shot off without moving the rifle all over the
Hitting the bulls eye is easy - or so I’m told. All you need to do is breath, relax your lungs, align your sights with the
Boy it’s hard to keep these sights on
Speaking of calling shots. It’s like bowling or golf. The important thing to do is follow through. There’s been lots of guys complaining about getting double shots. They often think they have a bad trigger when the problem is trigger control. Follow through is what you do to make sure you don’t get double shots, but it’s also vital to being able to “call your shots”. It requires that you do several things when the rifle fires. Shutting your eyes and wondering where the shot went isn’t one of them. Neither is yelling “come back”!
Proper follow through involves keeping your eyes open, holding the trigger back, rolling back with the recoil, while concentrating on exactly what you saw as the sight picture when the shot fired. The mental image you have of the sight picture or alignment in that instant will tell you where you should have hit the
The important thing to know here is that without a good trigger your follow through will suck and you will have little control over the rifle. Something to keep in mind. Another thing to keep in mind is that it is best to leave getting your trigger adjusted to a professional armorer. Don’t try to do this yourself unless you have had some training or experience. I have a fairly extensive reference library that includes several books dedicated to the repair and modification of the M14 rifle. One thing they all have in common is a telling lack of information when it comes to adjusting the trigger. It may be a liability issue (even qualified gun smiths are very careful in this area). Most only touch on careful honing to smooth up the trigger pull and none mention touching the hammer hooks to eliminate second stage creep. It’s almost guaranteed that an inexperienced person will ruin at least one hammer while learning the proper procedure. My best advise is leave it to someone who knows what they are doing.
By Ted Brown
Shooters Den
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