I finally had good enough weather to go to the range and fire the first few rounds out of my new .243 Savage from the custom shop. I had dry-fired it a few times at home and was pleased with the trigger pull.

It has a stainless short action in a laminated thumb-hole stock with a 24" stainless barrel and a hinged floorplate. - That's the custom part.

Click the image to see it bigger.



At the range though, upon chambering the first round, I found that the trigger was stuck. - The accutrigger blade would not move at all, it was stuck fast. The gun could not be fired.

I removed the round, closed the bolt again, and the trigger worked normally.

I chambered the round again, and again the trigger was stuck.

I tried pulling the bolt handle up and moving the bolt back a few inches and then rechambering the same round, and it still would not fire. The accutrigger blade was stuck fast, making it impossible to fire the gun.

I tried partially opening then re-closing the bolt several more times, and on the seventh attempt the trigger worked normally and the gun fired.

After that though, it went right back to the earlier behavior.

I had to travel 40 miles to get to the range and could not depend upon the good weather to last, so I experimented a bit.

One thing I had noticed was that when the trigger was stuck, the safety was too. The button would not move.

I tried closing the action up empty but cocked, then engaging the safety in the middle position, so that the bolt could be worked with the safety on. Then I opened up the bolt and chambered a round, clicked the safety off, and the trigger worked normally.

This became my routine for the rest of the shooting session, as I was wanting to break in the barrel a bit and get a few initial groups to look at.

With the safety on the middle position, I could chamber a round, turn off the safety, and the gun would fire.

If I forgot to turn on the safety before chambering a round though, the accutrigger blade would be immovable again, disabling the gun.

If I closed the bolt without a cartridge, the trigger always behaved just fine.

When I got home, I remembered a post on the Texas Hunting Forum, where a guy had the same problem:

http://www.texashuntingforum.com/for...ER#Post1344798

He sent it back to Savage, who returned it unfixed - perhaps because they did not try the gun with a cartridge but only dry-fired it when checking for function.

Another guy on the same forum posted a fix that entailed de-accutriggering the accutrigger so that the blade was no longer there. Part of that fix was to increase the sear engagement.

http://www.texashuntingforum.com/for..._Redeux#UNREAD

Has anyone else here experienced this same problem? - I recognize that the accutrigger is a great innovation and that it apparently works fine for just about everybody. What I am asking for is some feedback from the few who may have encountered the same glitch with their accutriggers - and how they resolved the problem.

I would rather do a repair than to de-accutriggerize the thing as the post above outlines. - I'm too broke right now to consider an aftermarket trigger so one way or another, I am going to have to get this one to work correctly.

Apparently there is something about the relationship between the trigger and the safety that is not quite right.

I'll take the action out of the stock tonight, chamber an already fired round and see if I can figure out where the problem is.... Any advice?

:) The first two rounds at 50 yrds were touching each other, and the 100yrd groups were at or slightly above 1" with flyers by the way. - It shoots just fine. With the 24" barrel and slightly heavy laminated stock, the recoil is almost nonexistent with 100 grn Federal Premium loads... A real fun shooter!