I had my factory trigger adjusted to a crisp 1 1/2 pounds. I used to carry this rifle chamber hot too. Woke up one day and decided life is too precious.
This is the rifle that
@p_ham is installing a 3-POS kit on, filling the tang hole, and installing a Timney to a more reasonable hunting weight. New life for my first ever big game rifle, which I had parked in the back of the safe.
Some tricks you need to know on tang safety Rugers:
(These are for more serious tinkerers, if you are not confident in this area go to a gunsmith. )
1) The factory trigger is very low tolerance and sloppy. This allows for inconsistency if you are applying any lateral (sideways) pressure as you squeeze it. This can be fixed with a couple of shims on either side of the trigger to prevent the side slop. I made my own, but there is a kit from Brownell's designed to shim sloppy cylinders on Ruger revolvers that works great. What you get is a set of feeler gage thin washers, pre-punched and good to go. Put in enough shims to kill the side slop, but not cause additional pull on the trigger.
2) To get below 3 lbs you will have to cut springs.
I no longer recommend this. You should never have to stone a Ruger Mk1 trigger.
3) When you disassemble the safety to clean it, the detent spring on the side will go flying if you are not careful. I had to buy another one from Numrich. Found the original 15 feet away years later.
4) This is a trigger blocking safety. The trigger and safety moving parts all effect each other. You really need to clean and lube them both. If you are not confident messing around with the trigger, it is gunsmith time.
5) For a stiff safety, don't forget to check for a bent or bound action bar from the button to the safety cam. This can get bound by gunk in the stock under the tang. If the tang has been bedded, look for interference with the action bar and the bedding. The underside of the tang is relieved to make room for this bar. The first thing I would do is remove the stock and see if the safety frees up. If it does, this is where you need to start looking. Sometimes bedders forget the relief cut in the tang allows bedding to be high in that area. The fix is to remove the little shoulder of bedding if it is there.
6) No matter what you do in this area, the final test is to verify the chamber is clear, then cocked and safety on SAFE, slam the butt HARD on the floor. Even set to 1 1/2 pounds, mine would never dry fire this way if I had it set up right. I would also test after each slamming that it did not fire when I pushed the safety to FIRE.
7)
Never trust a tang safety in a rear window gun rack! The safety button is right under the hook on the gun rack and it can be bumped to the OFF position. Ask me how I know. I fixed the outside hole in Red Green, but keep the inside hole as a reminder.
