Value of good triggers

[Stan Hillis]

I have a 30" barreled Dickinson .410 S X S that I've used on doves and quail for 7-8 years, or so. But, I never shot it comfortably because the trigger pulls were just too heavy for me, at 7 1/2 and 8 1/2 lbs. I missed more shots than I felt I should have, at clays and birds. So, recently, I packaged it up and sent it to TX for my trigger man to do his magic on.

I requested 3 1/2 and 4 lbs., front and rear, respectively. But, I also added that if he didn't feel he could get them to that, safely, to stop as close to it as he could. They came back 4 and 4 1/2 lbs. Yesterday afternoon I took it to a friend's property where he has a trap set up. We shoot there occasionally just for fun. I first shot a 12 ga. hammer gun built in Italy in 1973, with some Comp One shells. Continue to have many misfires with this batch of shells, so put it up and shot a round with my 20 ga. SP II Sporting. Lastly, I got out the Dickinson and some Fiocchi 1/2 oz. loads, anxious to see how the new triggers worked. Wow! Only missed two on the first round, incomers, with the targets into the bright sun. Let it cool off and shot another round with it and only missed one.

What a difference good triggers make! I've been a bit anal about my shotgun triggers for as long as I can remember, but this was just another example of how nice good ones are. No way I could've ever shot a round with only one miss, with those horrendous trigger pulls it had previously.

Thanks, Phillip, for the excellent work you do.

[Double Lab]

Couldn't agree more Stan. I like mine in the 3 1/2- 4 1/2lb range for a target gun. The gun has to go off when I want it to.

[Larry the Gun Guy]

You're right Stan. Growing up we shot the guns and didn't even know what a good trigger should feel like. But as time goes on and you have good quality target guns you find out what good triggers are supposed to feel like. And then when you switch back to some of the old classics you realize that some of these guns have horrible triggers and they can certainly be the root of multiple misses. Unfortunately, they're not all fixable and unfortunately the guys that do it well are few and far between. You're lucky to have found someone that's good at it and knows when to say - enough.

[Mike Franzen]

A case of it being the arrow and not the indigenous inhabitant.