When folks ask me about adjusting triggers, I tell them how I' d do it....and let them adjust their own.
That was going to the next thing I was going to try, asking the gunsmith to teach me how to adjust the trigger, for a small payment of course. But I was able to find a gunsmith shop that was willing to take it down to 2lbs for me. I also like their general attitude better. He even said that a 2lb trigger for a varmint rifle was not unreasonable.
What would you do if your gunsmith shingle hung outside your door?
I would adjust a clients trigger to his desired specs, stopping short of rendering any of the safetys inoperable or creating a mechanically unsafe rifle. I' d understand if a gunsmith objected to setting a trigger at two OUNCES unless it was a dedicated bench rifle only, or if modifying the trigger to get to my desired pull weight would allow the rifle to fire if jarred or make the safety inoperable. But that' s not what I am asking him to do. 2 pounds is not unreasonable for a heavy barreled varmint rifle designed for superior accuracy, which will only reasonably be loaded and fired from a fixed stabilized position, and not carried around loaded while tromping through brush or up and down mountains.
My personal take on the issues is that people make too much of a deal about liability protection for no good reason. If liability were really so much of an issue then Timney and Jewell wouldn' t be able to see their triggers, and no gunsmith in their right mind would install them. But, as we all know, aftermarket triggers are fairly common and gunsmiths install them all the time. What about the gunsmiths that custom build ultra-accurate rifles for their clients? I' d bet theiy aren' t building rifles with heavy trigger pulls for their clients. The fact of the matter is that the Ruger 2-stage trigger is an adjustable trigger system, which means that its weight, creep and overtravel can be adjusted by turning three screws in just a certain way. This is NOT the standard Ruger M77 trigger that is designed to not be adjustable by normal means. Fortunately I found a gunsmith that understands that the trigger should be adjusted for the purpose of the rifle.
The greedy idiots who sue to get rich aren' t interested in the little guy like a private gunsmith because they know that they can' t get any proverbial blood from a turnip so it' s not worth the trouble to sue him. The big manufacturers are at the biggest risk for lawsuits (which is hopefully about to change) because they have the money to pay big judgments or simply settle without a fight. That' s why the big boys have to build their guns to be lawyer proof. Their size and wealth make them worthwhile targets, while the gunsmith making 20-30k a year isn' t even going to get on a greedy lawyers radar.
If somebody can show me proof of a lawsuit ruling against a gunsmith for working on a trigger, I' ll concede that I' m wrong about this guy' s paranoia. Until then I think he' s being unreasonable.
Mike