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M & S Series Trigger Reset


By BigTaco

This stage tackles trigger reset. I’ve tried to provide symptoms and solutions along with
background and info concerning more detailed looks into the workings of the Steyr trigger.

I hope it’s enjoyable to read, even to those whose pistols work excellently

Disclaimer: I am not a gunsmith. I am not an authorized Steyr repair center, or person. My


knowledge comes primarily from talking with people who are, and studying the mechanism in my
free time because I had two malfunctioning pistols and zero options. I’m very mechanically
inclined and feel comfortable taking anything apart and have had very good success getting
things back together. This tutorial is very thorough in my opinion, and anything suggested here is
absolutely doable for most people.

(*) Also, please don’t tear your “never been cleaned” pistol to pieces trying to find the source of
your reset issue. The fact is that a good cleaning and light lubing solves many problems.
Someone once posed the question, “How often should I clean my pistol?” The lone reply was,
“How often do you want it to work?” It really is that simple. So be sure to eliminate dirt, grunge,
brass flakes and cookie crumbs from your pistol before taking more elaborate measures.

If it aint broke, don’t fix it. A flawlessly functioning firearm is a terrible thing to break.

If it is broke, let’s fix it!!!

Just as we have figured out how to attend to our own extraction issues, we can now attend to our
own reset issues.

Info: Unloaded and pointed in a safe direction, pull trigger. Pull slide back approx. ¼ of an inch
and let slide go forward. You just reset your trigger. All that happened was that the firing pin
tang, which was in front of the sear, has now been pulled behind the sear. The little clicks you
hear coming from the sear area are the firing pin pushing the sear downwards so that it can pass
over it as it moves rearward.

When you let the slide go forward, the firing pin tang and subsequently the spring that pushes it,
push the sear onto the post.

Dry firing will always yield the same malfunctions as live fire. However, it’s less expensive, you
can do it at home anytime you like, and it saves you from testing at the range which can be
frustrating if you haven’t quite gotten it right yet. When you dry fire, you should simulate the firing
sequence as accurately as possible ie… keep the trigger pulled to the rear as you rack the slide
very hard to the rear and let it slam home. You will not hurt anything by dry firing you pistol or
racking it vigorously. I would go for 200 perfect dry fires before feeding it live ammo. After 1000
malfunction free live fire rounds, I would feel completely comfortable using the pistol in any
circumstance be it competition or carry.

Trigger reset; issues, problems and fixes:

Now that you’re thoroughly familiar with the workings of your firearm, (you did read the “how it
works” tutorial. Right?) Here are some issues, problems and solutions.

There are basically four potential problems which will keep your trigger from resetting.
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This is the order in which you should test and try from simplest to hardest:

1) Spring #20 is not able to pull trigger fully forward.

This is very uncommon as #20 doesn’t need much force to start with. But it is possible, so let’s
eliminate it.

Holding your UNLOADED gun, and pointing it in a safe direction; pull the trigger.

Cycle the slide SLOWLY while continuing to hold the trigger to the rear. Once the slide is back in
battery, release the trigger. Both triggers should be fully forward. Pulling the trigger again and
hearing the same click will confirm that spring #20 returned your trigger forward enough to re-
engage the flat on the bottom of the sear, resetting your trigger.

If the triggers do not return fully forward, this spring has insufficient force and should be replaced.
If no replacement is available, try gently pulling on the spring, increasing the included angle, to
give it more force.

2) The trigger bar rides too high in the sear when the sear attempts to pass the trigger bar as it is
moving forward while the slide is going into battery.

The trigger bar pushes a flat on the sear rearward, Gun= BANG. Slide cycles, Firing pin tang
initially goes forwards, pushing sear down. Then the tang travels backwards with the slide during
recoil, pushing the sear down. At this point, with the slide all the way back during recoil, spring #
12 pulls the sear back up into position. As the firing pin tang comes forward, it pushes the sear
forward to put the sear back onto the post. But the trigger is still to the rear, so the flat that the
trigger bar engages must travel over top of the trigger bar.

But ironically, spring # 19, which is nestled inside the actual trigger, is pushing the trigger bar up.

If spring #19 is strong enough, (i.e.… too strong) it can push the trigger bar so high that the flat on
the sear is re-engaged by the trigger bar as the sear tries to move forward and over the trigger
bar. This will stop the sear dead in its tracks, but the slide and firing pin keep on going. The firing
pin gets in front of the sear, which is not pulled onto the post and voila! Your trigger is not reset.
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Test: remove the slide from the gun. Now, holding the gun with slide removed, pull the trigger.
There will be a clicking noise emanating from the trigger area. This is normal.

If there is a click emanating from the SEAR area AND you can see the sear moving, you have
trouble. The click indicates that the trigger bar is engaging the sear while the pistol is de-cocked,
as the pistol requires the firing pin (which is currently not on the firearm) to set the sear on the
post.

Fix: Part 1 is to ensure that the 90 degree bend in the trigger bar is pretty much exactly 90
degrees. 89-91 degrees, no big deal. 87 or 93 degrees can be a problem.

I used a combination of precision parallels, but a vise with a machined face and a good square
will be sufficient to diagnose out of squareness. My 90 degree bend was perfect so I didn’t touch
it, if yours isn’t, clamp the long part of the trigger bar in the vise and gently pull or push the short
part into square. It won’t take much effort. As a bonus, when your bend is exactly 90 degrees
your trigger will feel better because it will push the sear directly rearwards without any diagonal
slop.

Re-assemble the whole deal and perform the same test. If it doesn’t click, try some dry firing as
your problem may be fixed. If it still clicks, do the next little bit.

Now that your bend is definitely correct, next try to decrease the force of spring #19. Remove the
trigger from the sub-frame… again.
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Holding the trigger in one hand, gently, I mean as gingerly as possible, pull the trigger bar down
slightly. This spring is a real lightweight and it won’t take much to get what you’re after. You still
want the spring to push the trigger bar all the way to the top of the trigger. You do not want a
droopy trigger bar. You’re just trying to remove that little extra nth degree of force in the spring.
The good news is that the trigger bar rides in a slot inside the frame. (The black grip) The gun will
function if you bend the spring too much, it just won’t feel “solid” anymore. Better to undershoot
the desired result 10 times than to over shoot it once.

By the way, this spring is really easy to bend, go easy on it.

If you bend it too much, you’re looking at ordering a trigger bar assembly. Forget knocking that
roll pin out of the trigger, and unless you’re a gunsmith, really forget about getting it back in.

THIS SPRING IS VERY LIGHT AND WILL NOT REQUIRE MUCH FORCE TO BEND.

Now try some dry firing.

Those are the easy two things to diagnose and fix. If your gun has the click but functions
normally, awesome. It shouldn’t have the click, but if it works…

If it doesn’t work…

Before we can go on, we need to do a test to determine which place to look.

Test: unloaded and pointed in a safe direction continually dry fire the pistol until it malfunctions.
You should simulate the slide cycling as it would under recoil i.e…rack it hard to the rear and let it
slam home. You will not damage your pistol doing this. Be sure that you hold the trigger to the
rear while dry firing.

Once your gun has malfunctioned (trigger didn’t reset) pull the take down lever as if to
disassemble the firearm. It’s already de-cocked.

One of two things will happen:

A. the slide pops right off.


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In this scenario, the firing pin tang has passed the sear as the slide came into battery, which
means that in this particular instance, the firing pin spring was probably not the culprit. Move to
the fourth option.

B. IF the slide is captured, (i.e. will not slide forward off of the gun) the firing pin tang is behind the
sear, but the firing pin spring has insufficient force to pull it onto the post. Check out option three.

3) The firing pin spring is incapable of pulling the sear onto the post

This is an easy fix. Add more preload to the firing pin spring.

But there are three possible ways to do this.

A. Replace the firing pin spring.

B. Add a weight, (# 45) if you can get one, or if you can scavenge other Steyrs in your collection.

C. If no parts are readily available, simply remove the spring and tug on it a little to stretch it out.
This will add preload but is more of an art than a science. Here we go!

Remove the firing pin spring and guide rod from the firing pin. Pushing the fat end of the guide
rod onto a hard surface, pull the spring down. Slide the weight off. The spring is still captured
slightly so have no fear. With a gentle twist and tug, it can be removed from the guide rod.
Another gentle twist and tug and the spring pops right off.

Once it’s removed, just tug on both ends until it gets longer. But be careful.

I have a spring that is completely stretched beyond belief, and it works excellently… at resetting
the trigger. But… it feels really bad because the force of the firing pin spring is the main force you
must overcome as you pull the trigger. With it all stretched out, I’m working harder to pull it, and it
rubs against the inner walls of the firing pin atrociously, creating all kinds of friction and bunching
and just making the trigger feel bad. Which is to say worse than my other Steyr’s trigger pull. It
still feels better than other combat handgun triggers.

My understanding is that eight pound Steyr triggers had two weights, 5 pound Steyr triggers have
one weight. The spring force was never changed. This is why some Steyrs with one weight have
springs that can’t handle the job of pulling the sear onto the post.

As an aside, many of the Steyrs that have been purchased recently sat in cases in a warehouse
for years… cocked. It is entirely possible that the springs have taken a set during that time which
is causing the issue. Also, if you’re going to be storing your Steyr for any length of time, it’s a
good idea to de-cock it (pull trigger) before storing it, so that your spring doesn’t take a set.
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So you don’t want to go bonsai and just start stretching this thing all out, because it will eventually
all be crammed back onto the guide rod and have to ride and slide against the inside of the firing
pin as it is compressed during trigger pull. I would try to get scientific.

Measure your spring’s static length, the length while it is uncompressed and off of the guide rod.
th
Tug on it until its static length is 1/8 of an inch longer. Re-assemble gun and test as before.
Continue adding preload and dry firing until you have successfully reached 200 consecutive,
malfunction-free dry fires before trying live ammo.

If you’ve stretched it beyond ¼ of an inch, and you still have trouble, check out the next possibility
before you get distraught. It shouldn’t take much tugging to achieve a satisfactory result, so
again, don’t go bonsai.

4) The sear is held down by friction and as the firing pin comes forward, the tang passes it. Since
the tang is in front of the sear, the trigger is not reset.

This is ultimately what proved to be the problem with both of my pistols.

We know that the firing pin is released and allowed to travel forward when the sear falls off of the
post and the tang travels over the sear. It is therefore necessary that the sear go down again as
the tang comes flying past it during recoil. Then spring 12 works its magic and holds the sear up
so that the sear can be pushed forward and onto the post again. BUT… it is possible that there
is friction, courtesy of a burr causing a groove in the face of the post that prevents the sear from
climbing back up the face of the post as the tang comes flying forward. If the sear is down when
the firing pin comes forward, the firing pin tang will merely bypass the triangle on the sear. If you
happen to have light primer ammo, slide inertia can be enough to detonate said light primer,
causing an involuntary double tap. It could potentially go full auto and empty a magazine. A
plunger safety is of no value, because with the trigger pulled to the rear, the plunger safety is
defeated as the gun comes into battery anyway. I have known a Glock (with a plunger safety) to
unload a magazine.

Disassemble your sear mechanism following the previous tutorial. You will see where your parts
are rubbing together because the black painted parts have started to lose their paint where they
rub. This is in no way indicative of a problem. But it is indicative of where parts rub each other
during normal operation. The key area to focus on for repairing a reset issue, that hasn’t
responded to the other, simpler fixes, is the portion of the mechanism where the front of the sear
engages the post. A burr or even a kind of like sharp edge on the front of the sear can scratch a
groove onto the face of the post. This groove now captures the burr and holds the sear down.
This would explain why your Steyr started out life great and 200 or 600 or 1500 rounds in, you
develop a problem.

Step one is to polish the groove out of the face of the post. Use 1000 grit sandpaper which is
sitting on something flat. I mean, really flat. Precision ground granite surface plate would be
ideal but a common mirror works just as well. Use light back and forth motions until any visible
marking/scratching is gone. Don’t worry about taking off too much. It would take you a long time
with 1000 grit. Just polish till it’s uniformly shiny with no imperfections.
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Next, polish the top of the post, where the sear rests. Use a motion that simulates the arc of the
piece. You don’t want to alter its profile, just make it shiny and smooth.

Next, make a couple of light passes right on the edge that you just created. You just want to
soften the edge slightly. It will help the sear get back on the post as well as improving the feel
when the sear falls off of it.

For the sear, relatively aggressively knock off the corners as they are a very likely spot for a burr.
Then, hanging the sear off the edge of the mirror, polish the bottom of the front of the sear, where
it engages and rests on the post. Be sure to keep this flat. Holding the sear vertically, gently
polish the very front of the sear. You will notice it has a flat and sharp bottom edge and a little
more profile in the form of a slight radius on top. This helps it to climb the face of the post after it
has been pushed down. Try not to alter this profile. Just make it nice and smooth. In the pic, the
sandpaper is folded over the edge of the mirror and I am pulling up on the part. This smoothes
the edge which falls off of the post. In the second pic, the corner I refer to knocking off (relatively)
aggressively is the corner that is visible in the pic.
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This solution ultimately fixed my problems. I’ve gone thousands of rounds since without a hiccup,
without ordering a part, and without sending my gun back.

However, there is also the potential that a burr is getting into the drop safety. Look at your drop
safety. Do you see paint removed or do you see a line/scratch gouged into it. Keep in mind that
the drop safety moves backwards and forwards with the sear anytime the sear moves backwards
or forwards. But the drop safety does not move up and down with the sear as it is contained by a
roll pin (#9) and pin #14. So, even if something has totally gouged your drop safety, it probably
isn’t inhibiting the ability of the sear to move up or down. You can, if you wish, polish the side of
the drop safety that rubs the sear, and polish the mating surface of the sear where it rubs the
drop safety. You will have to use a small screw driver or other device to really get into the cut out
for the trigger bar in the sear.

But… be careful. Spring #12 only pulls on one side of the sear. If you remove a lot of material,
you will start noticing that the sear is now becoming more diagonal in the sub-frame. This turns
into diminishing returns. For every bit of material you remove, the sear gets more diagonal and
more prone to seizing. It is very likely that it is this diagonal condition which caused the groove in
the left side of the face of the post. Which, incidentally is why I encourage relatively aggressively
knocking off that corner of the sear.

Hopefully one of these solutions will solve your reset issue. Undoubtedly, others will tackle their
own repair and hopefully they will post their problems and solutions. That’s why steyrclub is so
great.

Please go on to the trigger tune up tutorial that will show you how to get a smooth, consistent,
light pull with a crisp reliable and repeatable break.

BigTaco
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