Timney Trigger Causing Light Primer Strikes

Has anyone had this issue with a Timney trigger in a Remington 700? I did a lot of research online and apparently it's been a common problem over the years as their sear is shorter and the cocking piece/firing pin does not get pulled back as far when cocked compared to a factory trigger/sear. I compared it to another 700 of mine with factory trigger and the cocking piece is flush with the shroud on the timney 700 and protrudes on the standard trigger 700.

Threads I read were from 2010-2014ish and apparently back then if you emailed timney they would send you a longer sear to install but someone said they eventually started installing the longer sear as standard and my Timney is a newer V2 so I would have assumed it already has a longer sear. Buggered If I know but it's failing to ignite the primers on a lot of rounds.

my brno started doing it out of the blue and ended up needing the tip of the firing pin reshaped, had it a different time in my tikka 280 and put a stiffer spring in the rifle to overcome it. but it ended up bieng a handloading issue of excessively bumping back the shoulder

just on the off chance that its not the trigger causing the light strikes

I've disassembled the bolt and degreased/cleaned it and very lightly oiled it before reassembly. There was a lot of oil in there so perhaps the excess oil was causing a hydraulic effect preventing full firing pin protrusion. If that doesn't fix it I'll swap whole firing pin assembly with spring and shroud etc. from my other gun into this bolt and see if that fixes it. If not then swap the original trigger back in and see if it is indeed the Timney causing it. Will waste a heap of ammo in the process no doubt but ah well what can ya do.

A few years ago I put a Timney trigger into my K98 8x57 and bought some cheap ammo from Belmont. The cheap ammo mostly did not have sufficient firing pin strike, all sporting ammo worked fine so I put it down to the cheap ammo having a particularly hard primer, now reading this I suspect it is probably the trigger. None of the gunsmiths I spoke to ever mentioned this possibility.

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Originally Posted by C.T.

I've disassembled the bolt and degreased/cleaned it and very lightly oiled it before reassembly. There was a lot of oil in there so perhaps the excess oil was causing a hydraulic effect preventing full firing pin protrusion. If that doesn't fix it I'll swap whole firing pin assembly with spring and shroud etc. from my other gun into this bolt and see if that fixes it. If not then swap the original trigger back in and see if it is indeed the Timney causing it. Will waste a heap of ammo in the process no doubt but ah well what can ya do.

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Do you handload? Just prime up some cases that will be cheep as chips


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Originally Posted by Bill999

Do you handload? Just prime up some cases that will be cheep as chips


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Should be someone local who can flick you some of their old primers. Even if you don’t reload you can still
deprime and reprime with a hammer a nail and a piece of wood with the right shaped hole drilled in it.

Went back to the range last night. Sako ammo has not failed to fire on any occasion. Hornady failed to fire the other night, but with cleaned out bolt it did not fail to fire last night. Cheap Perfecta ammo has failed to fire both times even with cleaned out bolt. Must have harder primers but I am certain it is the trigger that is causing the issue by not pulling back the firing pin as far as factory trigger does. I will swap the factory trigger back in and try the perfecta ammo again and report back. Even if I was to carry on using the rifle as-is and only use Sako ammo, murphy's law will be that when i'm lined up on a trophy stag the bloody thing will just go click. Will either have to find a different trigger or maybe get a stronger firing pin spring but I worry that a stronger spring will decrease accuracy. I'm assuming there is a sweet spot in terms of spring force.

A mate in the last two weeks had exactly that issue on a stag that was the best of the trip
He threw the bullet away as he was worried it might go off later which is a shame but it was well struck
Have a look at the firing pin tip to make sure it isn’t beginning to mushroom and contribute a little to the problem


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I'd check headspace on dud cartridges, a small piece of lead against the back of cartridge (not against the primer!) and close the bolt on it, micrometer that.

A few fractions of mm difference in firing pin travel will not make a significant difference to primer indentation. Primer cups are super WEAK relative to the (factory) spring forces on a firing pin. What stops the firing pin is the firing pin shoulder, not how hard or soft the primer cup is. That's why you can dry fire a rifle without worry: primers don't buffer firing pins.

Yeah mate, I think you could be onto the issue. I fitted one to my Rem 5R and found it suddenly had an awesome half-cock. That told me that the firing pin wasn’t coming onto the sear till the bolt was partially rotated closed. Never gave me any issues though.
Good faulting would have you swap the triggers on your two Remingtons and the fault should follow across.

Bit of an update for anyone still interested. I swapped the factory rem trigger back in and it's still bloody misfiring on the cheap perfecta ammo. I compared the primer strikes/indents from all the cartridges fired from this gun compared to my other Rem 700 .270 and even on the ones that fired the indent is much shallower than the other rifle with no issues. This is now leading me to believe the issue is perhaps the firing pin length/protrusion is not what it should be, or there is too much headspace.

This is a 2nd hand gun, new to me. Purchased from a gun store. Think i'm going to take it back and ask for a refund. I really don't have the patience for them to try and fix the issue i've known friends with lemon guns like this which took numerous trips to the gunsmith before the real issue was identified and fixed. Would rather just buy a different gun that has no issues from the get-go.

The primers that do fire have some cratering as well. Firing pin hole feels a tad bigger than my other Rem 700 so perhaps that is causing the cratering but don't think it would cause misfires/light primer strikes?

hard primers are the first to start not firing when the tip of the pin is mushroomed


if you compare both firing pins you have you may be able to see if there is a difference

could be excessive head space too but thats usually far more exciting IE blows the back of the bolt off
you can check it by putting a layer of tape neatly on the back of a new bullet and seeing if it will chamber

Checked the protrusion, looked the same if not more than my other rifle so don't think that is the problem. Pin tip isn't mushroomed. See pic below though, the firing pin hole is definitely bigger than it is on my other rifle. I believe this is causing the cratering see the pic of the two cratered primers with light strikes versus the normal strike on the other one from my different gun. But yeah the hole size shouldn't cause light strikes. Will have to check headspace.

Attachment 195595
Attachment 195596

Primer appears to have flattened on the good rifle, and is not flattening on the bad one with light strikes. Is that flattening normal? Don't tell me that rifle has issues too haha.

I honestly couldn't tell that mine was mushroomed but @gundoc got it sorted and its never showed up again

rounded might be a better description. needed to be more pointy

Sounds like the trigger timing is out of wack given there is a measurable difference of protrusion at the rear of the bolt when cocked. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DWnv58mfVZY

Yes, I've had this problem. I contacted Timney and they knew straight away what the problem was and posted a replacement sear to me. No questions, no cost.

Standard trigger...

Attachment 195614

Timney trigger...

Attachment 195616

Mine still isn't perfect. Federal 205 primers go off much more reliably than CCI 450's but even they aren't 100% including getting a click on that wallaby headshot in the 7.62x39 subsonic thread.

I've got a speedlock kit coming next, as the gunsmith reckoned the heavy remington firing pins were contributing to the problem.