Daisy 880/901 trigger mods

[stonykill]

  I have tried pretty much everything in print here for trigger mods on the 880/901/35. In print on GTA that is. Pulled a lot of idea's from TJ.

   I do not like the soup can mod. I find it takes away the crisp predictable release that makes these triggers so incredible.

   An overtravel stop is great. There are 2 ways to do it. Step 1 eliminates the safety, the other ways do not. I'll get pics of all of this later on.

    How I mod a trigger for these Daisy's and retain the perfect crisp predictable release and shorten the throw without a shim or a screw.

   1st you need to look at how the trigger works. And how the soup can mod works.

   The trigger is a simple thing. When you squeeze the trigger rides on a sear on the hammer. The way the soup can mod works or adding a screw to do the sme works is it LIFTS the trigger off of the sear. Which is the reason why that mod makes these weapons lose their predictable trigger.

  So I shorten that sear, by 1/2 with a needle file, then sandpaper, then polish. Hard to gt a good pic of, but if you compare your stock hammer to this picture, you will see.

 

  Note how the top front edge of that sear is angled back. The way an 880 series trigger works it pulls forward and lifts away on release due to the hammer spring. So this angle is all you need. Besides putting a mirror polish on it all.


   Remove the flat spring and save it for removing orings from 880 pistons. It is perfect for that. The only purpose of that flat spring is to prevent firing while the bolt is open. And it adds about 4 lbs to the pull.

  So remove that flat spring, mod the sear on the hammer as above, polish every contact point, lube up well. You have a very nice hunting weight trigger that is crisp, predictable, breaks at the same point every single time. No surprises.

   If you get heavy into mods you will need to make the hammer spring stiffer. And with these mods, you will not really notice the stiffer spring.

  It will never be a hair trigger, and personally, I find that a good thing.

 

[gemjam]

Thanks for the picture Tom!  I definitely will be trying this on my 880.  Thanks again, Greg.

[hutnicks]

Never knew the bolt safety spring added to the trigger weight. Away she goes.

Thanks for that info.

[stonykill]

Never knew the bolt safety spring added to the trigger weight. Away she goes.

Thanks for that info.

 Yes it does. How that works is it sits on a step. You need to apply several lbs of pressure to bend that flat steel over the step.

[BigTinBoat]

Tom - I spent the $12.00 and got the tube, new piston and tirgger.

Wonder how you did your mod. I filed my trigger and it is nicer but I think it can be better so I spent the $2.50 on a new one.

You filed the hammer. In your pic below did you file the blue, red or yellow?
I'm guessing the yellow, but wanted to be sure
Thanks

[stonykill]

Yellow

[stonykill]

 but i polished the blue along with the rest of the surfaces

[BigTinBoat]

Yellow

Thanks - that's what I was thinking.

On mine I filed 1/2 of the "hook" on the trigger that holds the hammer. Basically I cut the travel in half. It looked to do the same as the "soup can" not letting the trigger go all the way forward. But it did nothing for the "downward" pressure.

For 12 bucks I figure it's worth a shot

[BigTinBoat]

but i polished the blue along with the rest of the surfaces

I did polish the blue, along with the underside of the trigger hook

[stonykill]

 I plan on trying your trigger mod with mine to see how that feels.

[stonykill]

but i polished the blue along with the rest of the surfaces

I did polish the blue, along with the underside of the trigger hook

  Perfect

 

[sk73]

Tom and Rob:  Thank you both for what you have shown on modding the hammer/sear/trigger.  It's great.  Two things so good about Daisy air rifles is  that parts are cheap and parts interchange.  I've bought a model 35 mostly to tinker with it.  Even before this thread, I've tinkered with filing the sear down just to see its impact on the trigger pull.  Knowing how cheap and easy  it is to replace it means I don't worry about going too far in my experiments with different angles.

A final thought here, just to make sure we are all singing on the same page of the hymn book.  The first post in this thread identified as a "sear" the piece that Tom calls a "flat spring,"  at least as I understand it.  It is somewhat confusing when there is mention of filing the sear.  The piece identified in the first post as a sear can just be discarded.  I know that discarding it make it a lot easier to reassemble the trigger, spring, hammer. 

Anyway, thanks again.  And BTW, thanks to Tom for the 880 I bought from him.  It's a great shooter!  He's also in the  process of another project fhat I don't have the time, talent or tools to do.  I'm looking forward to seeing that happen.

[stonykill]

Tom and Rob:  Thank you both for what you have shown on modding the hammer/sear/trigger.  It's great.  Two things so good about Daisy air rifles is  that parts are cheap and parts interchange.  I've bought a model 35 mostly to tinker with it.  Even before this thread, I've tinkered with filing the sear down just to see its impact on the trigger pull.  Knowing how cheap and easy  it is to replace it means I don't worry about going too far in my experiments with different angles.

A final thought here, just to make sure we are all singing on the same page of the hymn book.  The first post in this thread identified as a "sear" the piece that Tom calls a "flat spring,"  at least as I understand it.  It is somewhat confusing when there is mention of filing the sear.  The piece identified in the first post as a sear can just be discarded.  I know that discarding it make it a lot easier to reassemble the trigger, spring, hammer. 

Anyway, thanks again.  And BTW, thanks to Tom for the 880 I bought from him.  It's a great shooter!  He's also in the  process of another project fhat I don't have the time, talent or tools to do.  I'm looking forward to seeing that happen.

 

  Agreed on the flat spring/sear thing. TJ called it a sear in the 1st post. I think for the lack of knowing what to call it. To keep things simple it probably should be just called the flat spring.

   Glad you are enjoying that 880! That one is certainly a pellet stacker!

[dmoneytt]

Different strokes for different folks.  Glad that those who don't like my mod are having results that please them from other methods.  I will add that I have modded a lot more Daisy pumpers with the "soup can" method, and have found that a Crosman Premier metal pellet tin lid makes the perfect shim material, and I'm sure that we all have some of those lying around.

[dmoneytt]

I also want to add that in no way does the shim or a pre-travel screw LIFT the sear off of the hammer.  It just shortens sear engagement, which means that the trigger works exactly as it did from the factory, but most of the unnecessary trigger travel has been removed for a shorter pull.  That is all that is accomplished, and it works like a dream with very little work.  The trigger break is no less crisp than a factory trigger, because it still is a factory trigger. No geometry has been changed, nor any spring (hammer spring) pressure modified. You just don't have to pull through a ton of mushy pre-travel to get to the break point like you do without the mod.

[longdx]

I removed just the flat spring and the trigger pull is reduced substantially. Thanks for the tip

[Cyrus Lever]

Ok so the first and fourth picture in the initial post is the "flat spring" that needs to be removed?and the other part of it is doing something  that prevents the trigger from moving forward as much when you set the trigger?how light is the trigger/how much lighter is the trigger with just the flat spring removed?

[stonykill]

Ok so the first and fourth picture in the initial post is the "flat spring" that needs to be removed?and the other part of it is doing something  that prevents the trigger from moving forward as much when you set the trigger?how light is the trigger/how much lighter is the trigger with just the flat spring removed?

  There is a noticeable difference by just removing the "flat spring". Easily knocks 2 lbs of pull off of a brand new 880.

   I don't have a fishing scale to test trigger pull. But it is noticably less when I am done with all of my mods. I will try to find a little time to put up/take better pictures. But a few posts back you see Rob?bigtinboat and I discussing, and there are pretty good pictures there on how to shorten the throw.

[DavidS]

Been a while since I measured the trigger pull, though as I recall just removing the flat spring cuts the pull nearly in half.

I have not yet done anything on the 880 to effect overtravel, other than a stop for the trigger blade in one.   Though I have never worried to much about a long travel on the trigger, that is unless it is a Daisy 953, 853, 753, 888, etc.

[stonykill]

and the other part of it is doing something  that prevents the trigger from moving forward as much when you set the trigger?

  Missed that part before my morning coffee's. That is in reference to a trigger overtravel stop. It took a lot of head scratching and pm's with TJ to understand it. I have done it on a few 880's including my main hunter the .22 carbine.

  There are several ways to do it. The easiest is to remove the safety, replace it with an appropriate sized piece of aluminum and file the area of the trigger stop until the 880 JUST fires. Done this way the trigger only pulls less that a 16th of an inch after firing. Makes for a REALLY nice trigger when used in conjunction with cutting the throw in 1/2.

  The other way to do it is to remove the safety without losing that ball and spring and rough up the groove in the safety that is the very deep trigger over travel stop. After it is roughed up, fill it with JB Weld and the do the same process as above. Removing material until the trigger JUST fires.