doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com RBL Single Triggers?

OK I'll ask. What is the difference between a single trigger on a SXS and an O/U that makes the later reliable and the former questionable? O/Us use both mechanical and interia triggers and seem fine where as SXSs are worrisome? Except SKBs and Brownings SXSs!

Mr. Roberts, in my conversations with good gunsmiths and double gun manufacturers, the single trigger (any design) is unquestionably the least reliable element in any double gun. Period.
Use whatever you want. Looking up and down the line at my local club at what "everyone" uses, I suspect we should all be in love with recoil pads with white line spacers, and have them installed on all our guns, too.
I ain't.

Best,
Ted

Marc,

I am more concerned if the stock fits and the POI is where it should be. Trigger arrangement isn't a deal killer for me either way, fit is.

FWIW single triggers on a SxS are many times more reliable than the cycling of an auto loader to deliver the second shot.

A question for the experts. When single triggers fail are they more likely to FTF or double?

Chief

I've seen lots of both failures. The damndest things will cause trouble with them, as well. My Father had a spiffy pachmayer pad installed on his Beretta Silver Snipe, circa mid 1960s. The single trigger, an inertia style unit, suddenly became unreliable, with any load. Dad proceeded to discover that most automatic shotguns (Notable exception being A5s, in our experience, they typically seem to go off when the trigger is pulled) really, aren't automatic, in the next two or three decades, during which time, the installed pad on the little used Beretta, became a lot harder. Bingo. The trigger now works, well, again.
I did strip and clean the Beretta, several years past, and discovered that some Italian gun worker thought it needed good sized gobs of grease applied, which had fossilized in the time since it was built. Double triggers are less sensitive to this, sadly, not unusual treatment, in my experience.
I've come to view single triggers as just so much bling installed on a gun, a heavier, even more unreliable form of bling in the case of selective single triggers. Much like the automatic bail that was installed on Mitchell spinning reels in the 1960s, which made it possible for handicapped individuals to cast, they actually are a handicap for able bodied individuals in use. You have complicated, and, typically, lost the ability to select the better choke from your double gun, for the presented shot with either form of single trigger. Mr. McIntosh got this one EXACTLY right.
If you hand is cold (the most common excuse for a single trigger) handwarmers are cheaper, and much more reliable.

Best,
Ted

I've had one of each, on the same gun. The doubling may have been a recoil/finger pressure issue. It has not recurred since leaving the 3" mags off of the menu. The FTF was entirely my doing. I had restocked the gun. The new stock was interfering with the inertia mechanism. A little woodwork and no more trouble. This gun has been shot a bunch, several years of skeet league and plenty of use, hunting, SC, barnyard trap.

I don't believe there is enough difference in choke selection to make that a premier issue for me. Some can shoot birds at 50yds. but not me, and not most.

When I look at used guns the trigger arrangement is the least of my considerations.

Chief

Mr. Schefelbein,
You and these "good gunsmiths" and manufacturers you're hob-nobbing with do know that the single trigger is here to stay and its popularity continues to grow among both target and field shooters alike? You do know that Beretta, Browning, Winchester, CSMC, Ruger, Rizzini, Guerini, Blaser, Zoli, Perazzi, Krieghoff, Kolar, Fabbri,and a dozen other lesser brands have made and continue to make thousands of guns with single selective triggers that NEVER malfunction through milllions of rounds fired? The shooters buying and shooting these pieces, including me, aren't sheep; they're as knowledgeable and experienced, many times moreso, as any self-professed internet expert typing on some discussion board, no offense intended. Dismissing single selective triggers as nothing more than "bling" is outright denial of fact. A couple of anecdotal stories can always be called up to justify a claim. They're few and far between.

You do know that the biggest money game in the world among shooters, live pigeon shooting, where reliability is foremost, is done with shotguns with single selective triggers?

Heck, there was even an article written recently in SSM about the most archaic single selective trigger ever made, L.C. Smith's infamous Hunter One Trigger, which showed that they were utterly reliable unless some ham-handed "gunsmith" had screwed with them. The Parker and A.H.Fox single selective triggers were very reliable as well.

Michael McIntosh, God rest his soul, was wrong about at least two things in particular: chokes and choke tubes, and single selective triggers, but he wrote well enough to make many believe his opinion was fact.

Double triggers are a throwback to tradition. They're fine for those who insist on traditional game guns with splinter forends and straight grips. Many shooters enjoy that style. I encourage them and urge them to continue to use and enjoy them. I do with my Parker PHE 16, but I would like it even better if it had a Parker sst.

Double triggers are no more reliable than the modern, perfected single triggers on the above mentioned gunmakers products. When you've had a few guns with two triggers double on you, you soon realize they are not the be-all, end-all of reliability, and are no better, and many times, not as good, for the purpose of firing a two-barreled gun, than a single selective trigger.
JR

Very well stated, John. My experiences with shotguns include just about an even ratio of single-trigger two-barreled guns to double- triggered two-barreled guns. I have shot Beretta and Perazzi O/Us extensively with never a malfunction from either brand. Tens of thousands of rounds in two each of Berettta and Perazzi. High volume doves and sporting competition. I have shot two BSS doubles extensively with never a trigger malfunction in either. I now shoot a Hunter One Trigger a lot, with no malfunctions so far. Pretty decent record so far, eh?

All trigger malfunctions I have ever experienced have come with double triggered guns that would double fire. The most recent, an Italian sidelock hammergun of modern manufacture.

This has not turned me against double triggers. I was raised on a double trigger, and still enjoy using them. I can switch back and forth from single to double without any conscious thought. It just happens for me. But, I think the ability to instantly choose chokes with double triggers is terribly over-rated.

MM was also the writer that claimed that chokes were obsolete with modern ammunition. IMO, quoting him in order to help prove a position is wasted time. He was right about a great deal of things, but his writings were one thing only, HIS opinions. Being able to state them well does not add credulity to his positions, nor take away from them, for that matter.


When I HAVE witnessed a failure with a single trigger on a modern O/U it has almost invariably been a Browning. Not casting stones at Brownings, just an observation.

SRH

Me too, Stan. For many years I shot Parkers, Foxes, and Smiths with double triggers with zero problems. I have no problem either switching between single and double triggers. These days, most of my shooting is done with single selective trigger guns.

Your statement about instant choke selection being overrated is about as spot-on true as anything I've read lately on these shooting forums. Very astute observation.
JR

I fully agree that single triggers are very functional and dependable. And as is true of most of us who shoot both a lot, switching back forth is an exercise which doesn't weven require thought. However, I frankly think having instantly available chokes is actually an underated and underutilized advantage. Like using a double trigger, picking the barrel for the shot is something that takes a little practice and is viable in a weapon choked like a traditional game gune - fairly open and fairly tight. The fact that we don't always take advantage of the capability doesn't mean it isn't there.

I agree, Joe, that the capability is there. I just think it is over-rated. Many feel that the ability to select chokes at a sporting station, and change them for every presentation, is also a huge advantage. I don't. I may be in the minority on this, and probably am, but I'm in some pretty darn good company. Many top competitors believe, as do I, that using enough choke all the time to break anything they might throw at you is a better route. Nothing to think about but killing the bird.

I will agree that you might could practice with one gun hard enough, and long enough, with nothing in mind but switching triggers and selecting the "appropriate" one, you might get to the point that it becomes second nature. Like switching back and forth from single to double triggers. But, I contend it would take thousands of rounds of practice to get there, and to what end? If both the barrels had been choked as tight as the second one, you would have had a dead bird anyway.

I like tight chokes. I hardly ever shoot anything less than a modified, except for quail. I can give that going away bird another second to get away from my muzzles a bit, and give myself that extra second to get on him, a lot easier than I can figure which trigger to use.

My hats' off to you if you can do that instant selection thing, without ever getting it backwards. You are, then, a rare man, indeed. I truly admire the shooter that can do so, because he has devoted much time and effort into learning it.

But, there's a quandary here, if the instant choke selection thing is so important, why do all the double gun "experts" recommend a slightly heavier trigger pull on the rear trigger? If they are so convinced that the rear trigger may be chosen first just as often as the front, they should be recommending exactly EQUAL trigger pulls. They are pretty adamant about this heavier rear trigger thing, BECAUSE, they know in the back of their mind that 99% of the time the front trigger is gonna be pulled first anyway! There's a lot of people claiming to want that instant selection, but who's really using them that way?

SRH