Here are some of Robin’s sketches on Trigger.  Needless to say that Robin has tried many types.  Here are a few tips.

                                    CASE HARDING TRIGGER PARTS

Here is another way to harden trigger sears, very simple, using household sugar, use a cupful of fine caster sugar, heat the part to red hot, then ram the part into the sugar, the sugar will stick to the part, heat again to red you will see the sugar melting onto the part, this in turn is imparting a film of carbon into the part, do this three or four times, this then will give you a good hard surface, heat once more and quench in sweet oil, your sear should now be hard.

Don’t forget your part must be finished to fit, before you harden your sear as it will be hard to file after you have harden the part, do not heat the sear at the trip lip, it will burn the lip off, heat from behind the sear lip, you should polish the part of the sear that contacts the other sear on the string latch, so all part runs smooth together, it should not feel gritty when tripped.

Sweet Oil = is Olive oil

To hardened mild steel trigger sear parts.

The only way you can harden mild steel is to caseharden the part, what this means is you are putting in carbon in the surface of the metal this in turn will give you a thin coating of hard metal.

Here are some ways to do this.

The first and easiest way is to use a product for case hardening such as Kasnit most tool houses stock this stuff, you can get it from Brownells, first polish the sears on your latch and lever to a high polish, now with a propane torch heat the sear part only till it is red hot then ram it into the Kasnit it will stick on the part, get the part red hot again or until the Kasnit is melted onto the sear then just drop into clean cold water its now hardened if you want a even harder sear repeat, polish again. Same for the lever, but be careful when you heat the sear points you can burn the nice crisp edge.

Another way to do this is you will need a burnout kiln or pottery kiln but whatever, it needs to have a high temp of about 2000f.

You will need a small length about 4”of water pipe 2” diameter threaded both ends, two end caps to fit the water pipe, drill a very small hole in one end cap this is to allow gases to escape.

Get thin leather scraps wrap your trigger parts in the leather; wrap each part on its own. Put the leather wrapped trigger parts in the pipe and pack in more leather, screw both end caps on tight. Place in the kiln turn it up to high, burn out until all of the leather is gone, let cool clean up your parts and oil with sweet oil this seems to give a bit of extra colour your trigger parts will have the rainbow colouring of case hardening like you see on old guns it’s a bit of a chore to do but its worth it.

There are many other ways some are very dangerous (cyanide) but these two above are the easiest, and safest.

Heat your parts red hot and cool in old dirty engine oil will give some case hardening.

If you cannot get Kasnit try this use same method, as Kasnit but use bone meal fertilizer from the garden shop, must be pure bone meal as it has high base carbon.

Sweet oil –Olive oil

The following plans are supplied for everyone information. Should you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact Robin.