[HECKATHORN]

Shooting this Savage is awesome! But I'm curious... It's
chambered in .222, with the bolt down safety set to fire and not cocked
I will cycle the bolt, up-back-forward-down. The gun is now
cocked. Safety is still up, I can set it to safe and fire just fine.
It won't fire while on safety, and while I have it on fire
pull on the trigger is HEAVY (7-9 lb). No problem to me because
on this it's kind of predictable when it will break. (I know that
was the long way to say cycle the bolt and pull the trigger)
I had to clarify what I was doing.
Now beginning again... Not cocked-safety is set to fire. If I push
down on the safety it will not go all the way down. It stops half
way. I raise the bolt up-back-forward- and before down I press
the safety down in case cycling the bolt has moved it. Then finish
with closing the bolt. Now pulling on the trigger is less than a lb.
?????????
Yea my thoughts too.!
Question I have is if you have one of the rifle are you able to do this?
I have spoke to a guy, that has one in 30-30 and it does it.
Why would it do this?
The gun fires flawlessly, and does not fire when it is not supposed to.

 

[Bindernut]

Normally, you shouldn't be able to engage the safety on a 340 until the action is cocked. If the action is not cocked, the safety should only move down about 1/16" of an inch or so before it stops against the uncocked sear. That's how my current 340 functions.

Your "hair trigger" condition is most likely being caused by the sear lever not fully seating in the sear notch when the action is cycled with the safety half-applied as you described above.
I would definitely check out (or have it checked out by a local smith) your trigger and not use it in this condition...that erratic sear-seating could caused an accidental discharge just by flipping the safety from SAFE to FIRE.

It sounds like someone in the past tried to force the safety on with the action uncocked and possibly bent or burred up one of the sheetmetal pieces inside the trigger group, most likely the little tab on the end of the safety lever.
Another possibility is that the safety lever itself or it's detent ball/spring setup are sticky or is weak or gummed up and the sear spring doesnt' have enough oomph to push the safety lever back out of the way as the action is being cocked.

I would start with a good thorough cleaning (if you haven't already) to see how freely the safety lever can move. My next suspect would be a weak sear spring or the sear itself dirty/binding.
Check for any parts that looked burred up while you're in there cleaning.


Otherwise, that 7-9lb trigger pull is about normal for an untouched 340 trigger. It can be cleaned up but not lightened up much beyond that.
The 340 has fairly heavy trigger and sear pieces so they do need a reasonably strong spring to prevent the trigger from getting released by a good bump test (thumping the buttstock against the ground with the safety in the fire position).

 

[HECKATHORN]

Bindernut
Very informative! Thank you as for that. It may be any one
These problems and I will do a complete check on all parts.
The internals when I bought the gun were gritty with ears of
Grease, dirt, dust and cob webs I cleaned it all up from what
I could wipe away with an oil moist rag leaving it smooth again.
I'm sure there can be more done as far as flea ing and will do so
From what I could tell of the safety, And what I could see inside the
Seems fine, but maybe not. I will do what I can to figure it out.
Thanks again for the help

 

[Bindernut]

That's how most of those old 340/840s wind up...dirty, gritty, rusty, etc. They were bargain rifles and everyone that I know that's had one bought em for cheap "truck guns" so they got abused. The .223 340 that I had before my current .222 was in that shape when I saved it from the pawn shop. It hadn't been cleaned in years and the safety lever wouldn't even move anymore because the detent ball was rusted into the hole.

As ugly as they are, they are great shooting little rifles and are still usually dirt cheap when you find em. Hope you get yours sorted out!