Huber Krag Trigger

[GBertolet]

Does anyone own, or had experience using this trigger? I am considering purchasing one. Are they worthwhile getting, for the advertised improvement over the stock trigger?

[butlersrangers]

I had not heard of a 'Huber Trigger' until your posting.

Then again, I did not realize Teddy Roosevelt led "Marine Rough Riders" up San Juan Hill! (From description on Huber Trigger website). For $97.00, I could do a lot of practice shooting.

In my experience most Krag triggers are not so bad. I suspect an after-market trigger would disqualify a Krag from use in CMP competitions.

IMHO - Kind of another 'interesting solution to a non-existent problem'. Cleaning, lubrication, and knowledgeable 'stone work' are a much simpler and 'match legal' remedy to any creep and roughness.

[psteinmayer]

After market triggers are absolutely forbidden. A Krag must be as issued. This also includes bedding the barrel and action. The lone exception is you can modify the peep sight by enlarging to no more than 0.1 (the Sgt Peep on the 1902 rear sight is hopelessly small at 0.04 dia.). I enlarged mine to 0.07, which is about as large as you can go without ripping open the peep, rendering it useless.

[GBertolet]

I was not planning to use this Krag for competition. It's been sporterized by the previous owner. I just use it as a cast bullet plinker.

[FredC]

I made an improved trigger 40 years ago. I did this because I broke the original and tried to buy a new one, the one I bought was a cast iron piece of junk. Today I would have tried you Huber unit or bought an original from the guys here. Compared with the shop time of building one from scratch $100.00 for a Huber would have been a bargain.
Since no one here has used one of these maybe you could do the trials and tell us what you learn. Perhaps the Huber unit would be great for sporters, and free up a lot of original units for restoration projects.

[butlersrangers]

Original trigger parts are pretty common and cheap on ebay, if one wishes to experiment and improve a Krag's trigger pull.

I personally like a smooth two-stage military trigger and find comfort in the extra sear engagement.

Some of my Krags have very crisp two-stage triggers and some have a degree of creep and roughness. I suspect a good part of any roughness is the fit and variability of original trigger springs.

Dr. Walter Guy Hudson's (1903) book, "Modern Rifle Shooting from the American Standpoint", discussed eliminating roughness from the Krag trigger by carefully polishing sear contact surfaces with emery cloth.

However, back in 1903, a lot of effort went into eliminating the 1st Stage of the two-stage trigger, which was called "Drag".

(I would not do this, but, here is a technique that was used at the time to eliminate "Drag" and create a single-stage trigger).

[Parashooter]

As one can see in this picture from Huber, their trigger adds an adjustment screw (maybe 2?) that enables shortening or eliminating some or all of the first (and second) stages of the pull.

I leave it to potential purchasers to determine if they would like to "adjust out" the robust sear engagement that is the primary purpose of the Krag's two-stage trigger design.

[FredC]

Parashooter,
Things are definitely better than 40 years ago trying to find parts. I sent a check out and got something that looked real ugly. I did not even try to fit the thing. Long distance calls back then were high and who knew where to call. That trigger plus the broken one are still around here, I will post a photo when I run across them again.
I am with you on wanting the long pull on the first stage, I did modify mine to make the second stage shorter and I still like that all these years later. I can not tell if the Huber trigger would let you do that or not. From the photo the workmanship looks fair, as far as the shape and general machining. It looks like the paint or Teflon coating ran a bit though.