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| Also own a Winchester 9422? - click here |
| When I bought my first Winchester/Miroku 1892 (20"
octagon .45) from Legendary Guns in Arizona, I was very impressed with the
quality of the rifle. After shooting it, the rebounding hammer, 84 lbs.
lawyer trigger, and stiff action soured me a bit on the rifle and it seems
many Pards have shied away from these fine rifles for the same reasons.
I took my rifle apart and watched how the hammer and hammer strut worked
together to create the rebounding hammer and realized that cutting off the
lower leg of the strut would eliminate the rebound. That began the process
and what follows is what I did to my rifle and it is a whole 'nother rifle
now and I love it. In fact, I liked it so much I bought a 2nd Miroku - this
time a 24" round barrel .45 (pictured above in the header). If you
have any questions, comments, suggestions, improvements, etc. that you'd
like to pass along to myself & other Miroku owners, please email
me with your feedback and I'll add it here.
NOTE: These instructions assume you have a working knowledge of the Winchester/Miroku 1892 action and can, at least, disassemble/assemble the hammer and trigger assembly. You'll need a hacksaw or grinder to cut down the hammer strut and a small file to fit the wedge for the trigger/sear assembly as well as some good screwdrivers and common hand tools - Vise Grips™ come in handy when changing the hammer spring. As always, make sure the rifle is UNLOADED before working on it. NOTE 2: Cover my Ass Statement: I pass this on as something that I did to my rifle to make it function the way I wanted it to. If you use any of this information, please understand that you do so on your own responsibility and any damage to your rifle or mishaps you have because of this alteration are your responsiblilty, not mine. |
| 1. Grind or cut off the lower leg of the Y on the hammer strut - see image. Cut off enough so it no longer contacts the hammer even when the hammer is fully down. To be on the safe side, be sure your strut is long enough so that with the hammer all the way down, the rear end of the strut is still in the strut support on the lower tang. On both of my rifles, it is long enough but there is little extra; it should be no less than flush with the back of the strut support. The hammer will now go fully forward and stay |  |
| there - no rebounding hammer. Next, I used a cutdown Wolfe 18 lbs hammer spring for the Ruger BH (from Brownell's) in place of the original Miroku hammer spring. I cut the spring so that it was about 1 coil longer than the original spring. Use whatever length/strength spring gives you the action you want and will still fire your primers. Install the spring with UNCUT end toward the strut support. The lighter spring will not only lighten the lever operation, it will also lighten the trigger pull. |
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2. Remove the trigger by driving out the pivot pin from the left side of the lower tang (the right side of the pin is knurled to lock it in the lower tang) and then remove the lawyer trigger blocking parts on the lower tang by removing the pin on the lower tang that sits right behind the trigger pivot pin. Again drive out the pin from the left side of the tang as the right end of the pin may be knurled. Modify the trigger/sear assembly as shown in the images. The little spring between the sear and trigger is not needed. I used a small piece of welding rod to act as a wedge between the trigger and sear to lock them together. I filed 2 flats on it so the welding rod would go down a bit into the space between the sear and trigger. Any piece of metal will do; use whatever you have on hand. Use a little black silicone adhesive behind and in front of the wedge to make sure it stays in place. I used silicone but any adhesive can be used that can be removed without damaging the original parts. I also used silicone because it's flexible and there's no chance it'll crack from the jarring of recoil. Let the silicone setup overnite. Note: one Pard (Manatee) left his trigger as is and just modified the hammer strut; you can experiment with what works best for you safety wise. Just removing the rebound from the hammer and using a lighter hammer spring will work wonders. 3. Optional: take your action completely apart and do a little polishing on working surfaces. The Miroku's are much better finished internally than the Rossi's and so polishing is optional. Installing a lighter lever detent spring also helps as the Miroku spring is quite strong. I didn't find the ejector springs on my Miroku's to be overly powerful so I left those springs stock. 4. Reinstall the parts and viva la difference!! |
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| 5. In this modification, you will have a
safety position but it is more a ledge than a notch and the trigger can
be pulled from this position and the hammer will fall. If you want to carry
safely with the chamber loaded, put the hammer in the safety position and
then engage the tang safety which will block the hammer. Obviously, the
safest way is the hammer down on an empty chamber - ala Colt SAA. It would
be possible to grind the sear narrower and cut an actual notch in the hammer
to create an actual safety notch but this requires permanently modifying
fairly expensive parts and a degree of skill beyond what these modifications
require.
6. This modification permanently alters only the hammer strut (available from Winchester for $5) unless you cut down the Miroku hammer spring instead of using a Ruger or similar spring. So with a new strut from Winchester (check with them to make sure they have the part in stock if that is a concern for you - Parts Dept. ph# is 800-322-4626), the rifle can be easily returned to its original configuration. SAAJim |
| Also own a Winchester 9422? - click here |
| revised 10/17/03 |