I think when you are talking vintage single triggers, it becomes a discussion of how good the guy who was making and fitting the trigger was. Since most American doubles were built by piece rate workman, not gunmakers, the precision was likely not high. Dewey Vicknair goes into some single trigger designs on his blog, usually as a detail of whatever he is working on. I don’t believe the Kautsky would be considered one of his favorites.

You would think the vintage English triggers would enjoy a reputation for supreme reliability, but, you would be wrong. My own experience there was with a pre Royal Holland, and it taught me a few things, foremost to absolutely not do it again. Since the Spanish single triggers are copies of English single triggers, you won’t typically find guys raving about their mid 1950s AYA, or, other vintage Spanish single trigger gun.


Back when the Parker repros were being clearanced off the dealers shelves, I snapped triggers on a few of the single trigger versions that were left. To a one, they were what I would describe as “crunchy”. To this day, I don’t believe I have ever seen a double trigger Parker reproduction, but, I’d bet the triggers were better.


Very early on in my game, I figured out I prefer a double trigger arrangement. Maybe if most of my targets had been clay, instead of feathered birds taken while walking, I’d feel different. The path I am on right now, learning to shoot all over again, late in life, might change that opinion as well, I just haven’t gotten that far yet. Dad’s old Silver Snipe has a non selective single trigger that works well, but, after he put a big, squishy Pachmeyer pad on the gun (he put pads on every gun) it acted up with standard loads. Dad, being a child of the second big war, just shrugged and fed it 2 3/4” magnum rounds, which, always set the trigger. Eventually the pad got hard, and I stripped and cleaned the gun, and it works as designed, today. I briefly owned a Ruger Red Label, a first year blued 20 gauge, that I routinely forgot to swing the safety to select a barrel, getting the thing stuck in the safe position at a few flushes. Not the fault of the trigger itself, but, the safety, and, perhaps, years spent using the good old Snipe.

Old habits die hard.

Best,
Ted