The Savage AccuTrigger represents a significant improvement in factory triggers in that it is user-adjustable and very consistent. It has prompted other manufacturers to upgrade their standard triggers.

Trigger pull is one of the most-overlooked aspects of hunting accuracy. I’ve never understood why there has always been a distinction made between “hunting-grade” triggers and “target-grade” triggers. Personally, it’s always seemed to me that the moral responsibility of putting a precisely-aimed shot into a living, breathing animal is a lot more important than hitting an inanimate, lifeless piece of paper, cardboard or steel. Yes, a few-ounce “breathe-on-it” trigger for a benchrest competition rifle, used only under controlled competition conditions, is probably not what you want on an elk rifle that you’ll be rough-hauling up and down mountainsides, but I’m definitely not satisfied with the stiff, creepy six- or seven-pound trigger pulls you get with many average hunting rifles, either.

Why shouldn’t a hunting rifle have a solid and safe, glass-crisp 21⁄2-pound trigger? (Solid and safe being the operative terms.)

Trigger pull does make a difference in the success of your hunting shots. When you’re sighting-in at the benchrest, or competing in a rifle match, you’ve got time to prepare yourself, settle-in and focus on trigger pull--giving attention to any trigger irregularities that might be present. In the field, everything can happen unexpectedly, all at once, in an instant. The last thing you need distracting you, or affecting your aim, is a shoddy trigger pull. Also, the longer the shot, and the quicker you have to make it, the more important a crisp, light, trigger pull becomes. If you have to be conscious of your trigger’s pull, if you have to think about it to keep from pulling off the shot--not good.

How much difference is there between your accuracy with a good trigger and a poor trigger? A lot. A few years ago, I acquired a new .22-250 varmint rifle that had a particularly stiff trigger. The trigger mechanism on this particular rifle has mechanical adjustments (although breaking the shellac-sealed screws to make adjustments voids the warranty and is officially discouraged by the company), but every adjustment I tried still left it with a very heavy seven-pound-plus “stack” at the moment of break-off--even at the closest adjustment possible before interfering with the manual safety function. Stoning the interfaces didn’t help. The rifle shot well, but even when I applied extreme concentration at the bench, with very deliberate trigger control, I couldn’t get anything consistently better than 11⁄2- to two-inch groups at 100 yards with 24X magnification. Not what you want on a long-range prairie dog (or coyote) gun.

Finally, I broke down and installed a JARD, Inc., two-lever Trigger Upgrade Kit, consisting of a replacement sear, trigger and trigger spring (about $62). JARD kits are drop-in, and easily installable for anyone with a modicum of mechanical ability (or by your local gunsmith), and for this model rifle are available with your selection of ten different trigger spring weights running from nine to thirty-two ounces. I selected a fourteen-ounce spring, which is about half the weight I’d want on a big game rifle (up to a certain point, a crisp trigger pull on a big game rifle is more important than an extremely light trigger), but for a precision varmint gun it’s just what I like.

The difference it made was impressive. With the rifle’s preferred ammunition, my 100-yard benchrest groups shrank instantly to about a third of what they’d been before--without any other modifications to the gun.