Winchester 94 rebound hammer conversion to half cock

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My Winchester 94 AE is pre safety, thats good. It has a rebounding hammer....works, but known to be occasionally unreliable with hard primers. Now I see why, the leaf spring is considerably stouter than the coils and provides the primer a real sledgehammer blow.

When you can get into post 64 parts in like new condition for under $50 delivered, changing from rebound to half cock is a no brainer.

Here are the new parts, 1970s issue Top Eject half cock tang and hammer assembly in like new condition.

The only thing that keeps it fitting the 1980s AE is the Tennons on the left hand side.

 

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After the tennons are removed, the bare metal can be blued and assembled for function checks. The gun passed all checks with the new to me old style trigger tang and hammer.

 

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Rebounding AE trigger tang and hammer above, modified Top Eject trigger tang and hammer below.

The AE hammer screw works for both tang assemblies.

 

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Just to prove a point, it is completely unnecessary to cut, grind or otherwise butcher good trigger/sear/hammer relationships on a hunting rifle. This one, was 3 lbs 14 oz with the rebounding hammer assembly. Below, the new top eject trigger tang assembly reads 3 lbs 10 oz before doing any polishing inside at all!

 

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No parts were butchered.

The bearing pads of the trigger and interlock spring were polished and the fingers gently cold bent up away from their contact points.

The left upper edge of the interlock was polished only where the finger of the interlock spring rubs on it. Scale indicates with the polish and slight bend, this spring now adds exactly 1 lb of force to the trigger during the last half of the trigger pull.

The dual mainsprings were simply polished, length wise, and only where they bear on each other and the underside of the hammer.

 

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The hammer was not polished at all. Simply cleaned. Simply added a divot in the hammer so the thumb extension doesn't slide off nor require a half inch drive impact wrench to get it tight enough to stay on. (They fall off from time to time without a divot as the set screw does not stay tight with the minimal contact of a flat sided hammer.)

 

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After reassembly and with a touch of RIG Grease at all contact points, including between the two mainsprings, the total trigger pull dropped to 3 lbs 2 oz....thats 8 ounces lost for 15 minutes cleaning and polishing. Trigger breaks clean and crisp with just a touch of take up. Again, nothing was done to modify or even polish the hammer/sear interface....they are factory finished virgins.

 

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And finally, the thumb cocker thingie was installed, set screw bearing nicely in its divot in the hammer spur and we are going hunting again tonight.