Single or double trigger?

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In my experience, double triggers = faster follow ups and faster first shot (choke) selection so my preference is for double triggers.
Regrettably, my current hunting gun is a single because that's all anyone seems to make anymore:fire:
No that is not correct. There are plenty of SxS guns made with DT; even cheap ones. My S&W Elite Gold (now the Dickinson) is a DT gun. Anything worth a damn from Spain, France or England will have DT. Ct Shotgun's RBL can be had in DT
 
for most hunting and clay games I don,t see much difference between a sst and dt, but when hunting some of the smaller crafty heavy cover birds it would make a difference with quick choke choice.
 
Most my life I have used SxSs and double triggers. I prefer them

That said I have been using a friends Silver Pigeon for sporting clays and can say you don’t give up much with the SST. I could get used to it. In fact I am casually looking for a Browning Citori Upland.

I agree about the budget guns and the single trigger too. I wouldn’t trust it the way I’d trust a Browning or Beretta or something higher end.
 
No that is not correct. There are plenty of SxS guns made with DT; even cheap ones. My S&W Elite Gold (now the Dickinson) is a DT gun. Anything worth a damn from Spain, France or England will have DT. Ct Shotgun's RBL can be had in DT
So how is it not correct?
 
There are plenty of SxS guns made with DT; even cheap ones.

True statement and I haven’t researched it but I believe single trigger SxS’s are the exception and double trigger SxS’s are the rule with current production shotguns and it has always been that way.
 
It seems. lately at least, that even the better Italian makers are going more to single triggers: Beretta, Bertuzzi, Perazzi, Piotti, Fausti, et al. Probably easier to make with today's technology and machinery - and for many applications, I am sure that will work fine. But for SxS, I am old school, I want the double trigger for instant choke selection when it comes to bird hunting. targets are a different things as you know what to expect.
 
I have a Savage/Fox model B series H with a single trigger. Sometimes it will double up on me. I used to hunt squirrels with it, but if it doubled you got so much shot in the poor thing it wasn't fit to eat. One of these days I'll get it to a gunsmith, but for now it's in the safe. I don't hunt squirrels with a shotgun anymore but I got a Stoeger Uplander SxS double trigger for bird hunting. I like the double trigger much better.
 
Cheap guns are less unreliable withe double triggers. Well-made guns also benefit from instant choke selection as mentioned above.

I have a Stoeger "coach gun" SxS in 20 ga that I use for CAS. It's a double trigger. The forend shot loose in about 100 rounds and needs constant adjustment. The barrels are not well regulated. It's fine for CAS but will not stand up to any volume shooting. Others in CAS that I shoot with who have Stoeger SxS have had broken springs, broken extractors, and broken firing pins. I will never buy another Stoeger.
 
Quality of design has an impact. Stoegers and Chinese doubles are almost notorious for doubling now and then with single triggers. My Ithaca 100 and my 56 year old Browning superposed, both selective single triggers have never doubled. I have several other doubles with double triggers and like the instantaneous choke selection.
 
On a STOEGER, only get the double trigger model. Their double triggers have a good reputation. I have had lots of SxSs and had no real preference one way or the other on a GOOD gun, other than the fact that I preferred Browning's barrel selector switch on the trigger for some reason.
 
id definitely go for a double trigger, most old double barrels have a different choke for each barrel and with a double trigger you can decide wich barrel to fire depending on the distance of the target, animal, etc. for example if you are hunting and an animal is too far for the first barrel youd have to fire the barrel and then quickly re aim and fire again but with a double trigger you can just simply move your finger to the correct barrel trigger in the first place. just my 2 cents
 
I like double guns, I have had several. I don't like cheap ones including Stoeger. I liked double triggers in a nice Spanish SxS, but otherwise I like single triggers. My current guns are single trigger. But Nothing wrong with doubles. I once had a problem on the second shot with a single trailer but I am pretty sure I did not release enough the trigger to reset. Never had a double.
 
Reliability of the trigger system aside, whatever you get used to is the best, single or double.

I started shooting skeet as a young man with my Dad's 28 ga side by side with double triggers. Many years later when I got serious into shooting skeet competitively, I transitioned to an over/under with a single trigger.

On the occasions that I bring out Dad's gun, I always have trouble remembering to change triggers on doubles. My muscle memory is just too in tuned to pulling the same trigger twice.
 
Decades ago, Browning (and later, Mauser via Gamba) produced the best of both worlds, in terms of triggers for double-barrel shotguns. Like most conventional guns having double triggers, the front trigger fired the more open bore; the rear trigger firing the tighter choked barrel. But where this trigger system differed from every other double trigger design, once either trigger was pulled, you could pull the same trigger again and the second (other) barrel would fire.
From what I've read, as good as the idea was, the design was expensive to manufacture and, more importantly, prone to malfunction.
 
And that statement is not correct
Seems to me to be correct. Look at any domestic or Italian manufacturers catalog. Double triggers, IF available, are usually an expensive option on high end models. Admittedly I'm not interested in cheaper SxSs from China, Brazil or Turkey because cheap and double barrel SxS don't belong in the same sentence. Nothing can prevent the extended effects of recoil on poor soldering, soft steel and barrels not in precise registration,
YMMV, of course.
Baikals used to have double triggers standard, but they haven't been imported for quite awhile.
 
Decades ago, Browning (and later, Mauser via Gamba) produced the best of both worlds, in terms of triggers for double-barrel shotguns. Like most conventional guns having double triggers, the front trigger fired the more open bore; the rear trigger firing the tighter choked barrel. But where this trigger system differed from every other double trigger design, once either trigger was pulled, you could pull the same trigger again and the second (other) barrel would fire.
From what I've read, as good as the idea was, the design was expensive to manufacture and, more importantly, prone to malfunction.
Beretta used to have a single pivoting trigger on SxSs---the top of the trigger would fire one barrel, the bottom of the trigger would fire the other. I think this might have been a good thing in the O/U world---intuitive, far more intuitive than using the barrel selector on the safety.
It was short lived and I don't think it was ever used on an O/U.
 
Baikals used to have double triggers standard.....
How far back is “used to”?
I ask because i have a Baikal SXS that I bought more than 20 years ago. It has a single trigger. It doubles.
Pete
 
How far back is “used to”?
I ask because i have a Baikal SXS that I bought more than 20 years ago. It has a single trigger. It doubles.
Pete
All I remember is that I was looking at them once, and the one I looked at came with double triggers. Not sure of the model.
 
I have owned two of the single trigger Stoeger coach guns. Both had the same problem. Watch this video.\I made way back then. Eventually after returning it 4 times, they replaced it with a double trigger model. I was still not pleased by the performance. I eventually owned a Baikal coach gun that has no issues.

 
Had the same problem with a 20 ga. Savage Stevens 311. The front trigger wouldn't always strike the primer. Took it to an old gunsmith and he made a new firing pin for it and I never had a problem again. Hunted over that gun for many many years without a misfire.
 
A single trigger works fine in quality shotguns. Not so much in budget guns.

Howdy

I shoot Trap every week all year with guys with single trigger over and unders. I see plenty of failures to fire. These guys are not shooting cheap guns, they are shooting quality guns. As a matter of fact I have an Orion O/U marketed by Weatherby but actually made by Miroku in Japan. I stopped shooting it because it became unreliable.The little pendulum inside that swung with recoil to allow the trigger to fire a second shot needed adjustment. I finally stopped shooting it.

My main match CAS shotgun is this lovely little old Stevens hammer gun, made sometime around 1908.

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Hammered%20Double%20Extractor_zpssg4gy2dx.jpg




Many classic SXS field guns have a modified choke for the right barrel and a full choke for the left barrel. You fire the right barrel (front trigger) first because a bird will usually be fairly close for the first shot. If you need a second shot you slide back to the rear trigger with the full choke for the farther away shot. It is simple to get used to pulling the front trigger first, then sliding the finger back to the rear trigger for the second shot.

Had a problem one day when only one hammer would fire. That's the beauty of two triggers. Two completely separate lockworks. If one stops working for some reason, the other will probably keep working. So I finished the match that day with a single shot. Later realized that the screw holding the two lockplates together had loosened enough that one of the triggers was not engaging its hammer. Tightened the screw and all was well again.




Last year I bought this L.C.Smith from the widow of a friend. Mostly I bought it just because it had belonged to a friend. I took it to the trap field one day and had to laugh when a youngster exclaimed with incredulity that it had two triggers. I hit 23 out of 25 with it, just using the modified barrel, but it was beating me up pretty bad because it did not fit me all that well.

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Just depends how important reliability is to you. It matters to me, so I don't have any single-trigger doubles. I have a two-trigger Stoeger Coach, and it's been fine. But I'm not comfortable leaving it loaded, and therefore cocked, for home defense. For ultimate reliability and safety, I prefer one of the better hammer coach guns.

Which are the better hammer coach guns?
 
A coupla questions; why are most OU single-triggered while SXS are more commonly double triggered, and are single trigger OU more prone to double like the single trigger SxS seem to be?

(My sole SxS is a Lefever 16 ga double trigger cut down to a 20” coach gun due to major pitting at the end of the barrels while both of my OU are singles; a Baikal 20 and Red Label 28).
Stay safe.
 
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