[fishdoggydog]

Another story about a set trigger. Back in "92 I was on my second muzzleloader elk hunt. My rifle swelled up so badly from hunting in 3 days of rain that it was not functioning, so I started to use my brothers TC with a set trigger. I had a lot of experience shooting matches with my .36 with a set trigger so that was not a problem. I stalked a band of elk all day to get above them and around a side of rock to get in range, it was about 6 PM and the thermals were going to change as the sun went down, so I startrd to move on where they had been all day. 50 yards in front of me I see about 5 cows and calves standing , I look for the bull, he is about 75 yards down the mountain, quartering away, looking at me over his shoulder as the rifle goes to my shoulder. I pull the set trigger, line up the sights and brush the fire trigger, click. I look to the hammer, it is in position, back like it should have been, as I pulled it back as the gun went up. Try the triggers again, same click, I start to panic, try the hammer, it is back, the elk are starting to leave at a fast walk, I pull the back fire trigger with about twenty pounds of force and the gun goes off. But the bull had started to move and maybe was more than quartering away, I was also into the shakes, could barely reload. I move down the mountain looking for signs of a hit, and he stands down the mountain, in the open at about 200 yards. I sit, see him limp forward, and try to put another into him as he stands broadside. The same result with the triggers, pulling fire trigger hard sets it off. I miss, bull limps out of sight, and over a pass, it starts to rain, it gets dark and I head to camp, but next day back with help we do not come up with him, that night it is back home. The trigger had a set screw to adjust the sear, it had backed out in days of riding over rough roads, the set trigger was trying to tap the sear from tumbler, but it was buried in it, hence the twenty pound trigger pull. Two years later same camp, two MO men pull in, said they intend to hunt same country, we talk of the past hunts we all had been on in that spot. They ask if one of us had wounded a big bull with muzzleloader two years prior, and I said yes. They had been in there first rifle season, the one guy killed a big 6X6 with a limp, he said my ball had entered shoulder, broke through the blade at thick part and stopped on a rib. I do not hunt with a rifle that has set triggers now.