Model 14/141 Triggerguards

[nambujim]

This is one of those subjects where I could write three chapters in a book and never get you the full story. I'm going to take a stab at it because there are a LOT of trigger guards for sale on various auction sites, mainly Ebay.

First of all most of the guards for sale are stripped which is NOT a good thing because you are going to have to either buy a bunch of parts to make it usable or in the case of the really late 14's and all 141's a butt load of parts. To be clear, only the last 4-6,000 Model 14 guards have a chance of working on a Model 141. Model 14 guards from about 123,000 & up were essentially made with 141 parts. I will add here that "somewhere" in Model 141 production they changed the diameter of the trigger bushing so most 14 bushings are too small to use.

I will buy stray guards for parts because some of the internals are hard to find like the carrier dog spring, tang sight filler screws, and even the trigger spring cap. Remington re-designed the trigger spring cap for the 141 making it much longer and thus making it super easy to install versus the short Model 14 cap. I can't tell you how many freakin' trigger spring caps I launched into oblivion but there must be over fifty littering the corners of my shop, the re-designed cap made it much-much easier.

The basics about guards is this, Remington had at least four patterns for the 14 which means "they all are not alike" and I think they at at least two for the 141. The late guards for the 141 had a milling imperfection on the left front of the guard or a minor bump out on 70,000 serial range guards. The little bump meant that when you went to remove the guard from the frame it was so tight that it was necessary to remove the stock and beat the guard out with a dead blow hammer. It takes about 15 minutes with a Dremel tool to remove this imperfection (once you know where it is) but the fix is super annoying.

So with Remington having multiple patterns for the Model 14 guard your chances of finding one that will fit your rifle without hours of tedious work are slim, the varying patterns become more obvious when you try to install a replacement stock. Keep in mind that Model 14 rifles under about serial 84,000 are VERY parts specific in that the set of parts used were hand fit to "that" specific rifle. Rifles made after serial 84,000 had more uniformity.

Here is my advice if you are thinking of buying a guard:
1) Buy it just for the internal parts.
2) Never buy one that is fully or even partially stripped!
3) If you absolutely need a replacement guard buy one close to your serial!!!
(best if the serial is less than 3-400 either side of your rifle).

Here is my favorite example of the "part" problem with early mid-range serial Remington Model 14's. I have consecutive serial 14's in the 67,000 range, both are all original 90%+ rifles, both are 30 cal., both have the same style stock & sights, and there are more than a dozen differences with the internal parts. The bolts will interchange but the trigger guards will not, they don't even come close to sliding into place...........again, these rifle are parts specific. I have 30-40 guards purchased over the years so when I'm not boring you with these postings I do things like testing to see if any of those guards will fit those consecutive serial rifles. I found one in the 40,000 range that fit both............go figure, and found one in the late 70,000 range that fit one of them.

Finding a replacement guard to fit your rifle is a "crap shoot" but over the last several years when a customer needed one I would select 2-3 that might have a chance, send them to him, and hope for the best. The good news was that in most cases one would fit, sometimes with some minor fitting. The thing that can really "piss you off" is when you find a guard that slips right into the channels but won't function/fire, it happens a lot.

One minor note here is that about 90%+ of 141 guards will interchange but some of those might require a bit of fitting/grinding. My experience in doing repairs is that most 14-1/2 guards will interchange/work without much difficulty, again 90%+.

Now I have to go back and proof read this posting, I hate that but necessary. Hope some part of this is helpful, if not I apologize for wasting your time.

Jim Peterson
Charlotte, NC