Stevens Favorite .17 HMR problem

About a year ago I picked up a Stevens Favorite in .17 HMR. It was NIB but had been damaged in shipping. There is a crack on the stock at the upper receiver tang and a minor ding in the lever. I knew that when I bought it as the plan is to restock it anyway with a piece of curly or quilted maple and add a tang sight and make a mini "Buffalo Rifle". I think it would be cool to hunt squirrels "old fashioned" style. I have a modern .17 HMR which is the terror of the squirrel woods. And for $50 I could not pass it up anyway.

The problem is the trigger fails to hold the hammer at full cock all of the time. When it does hold it back it is very "hairy". I have pondered what to do to fix it for some time but have never really had the time to do it. Now that I am looking at it I have some questions. I am not clueless about what is going on inside and am pretty confident I can fix it if fixing it is possible.

The pins which hold the hammer and trigger seem to be pressed in, can they come out without damaging the receiver?

They are tight enough they haven't budged using a brass punch. Would I need a press to get them out and then back in?

If anyone has worked on them I would be glad to hear about the difficulties encountered.

If you are the original owner and have had it for less than a year then it is under warranty. Contact Savage about. If the warranty is out they will probably charge you something for the work but it will repaired by folks who know the gun using factory parts.

I have had it longer than that. I may do that anyway just to be sure there is nothing really wrong with it. I really bought it as a project though and was hoping to be able to repair it myself. I may just have to be happy with doing the conversion to Buffalo Rifle configuration and leave the important safety wise work to the pros.

Yep.

The buffalo gun will be the fun part of the project anyway. Just don't do the mods to it before you send it to them as they might try to return it without working on it due to liability issues.