New Recoil Pad

The next item I'm going to change is the recoil pad. The pad I chose is made by Limbsaver and they claim it will reduce felt recoil by up to 70%. Now I don't know how they make this claim but they do. All I know is just about anything would be better than what I had.
 

If you notice in the picture above, this pad is made for a different gun that I own but on Limbsaver's website, they have a chart with all their different size pads listed along with all the dimensions and this one was very close to what I needed. It's a little small in one area and a little large in another but that doesn't bother me at all. I removed those two tabs sticking out so they would clear one area that was in the way.
 

Here I'm getting ready to glue on my new pad with the same epoxy I used earlier. I used some rough sandpaper on the pad and on my rifle stock to make sure they bonded well. Notice the steel plate under the recoil pad. I used this as a weight to apply pressure on top of the pad while things were drying.
 

I let the pad dry overnight and so far everything looks great. Notice the rough area on the right side of the pad. I tried sanding this area to make the fit better but I quickly found out I wasn't doing something right because it stated to tear the rubber instead of cutting it. At that point, I left it alone and called it a day.
 

New Trigger

The last thing I'm upgrading is my trigger. My original is over 40 years old and has seen better days. The one I'm going to use is made by Triggertech and they have a very different design internally. If you get a chance, be sure to take a look at how these triggers work because they're very unique.

Triggertech makes three models for my Remington 700 depending on your needs. And all three models are adjustable for pull weight. The one I chose is adjustable from 1.5 to 4.0 pounds, which is perfect for a hunting rifle. I'll probably set mine to three pounds but not any lighter so it's safe while in the field.
 

Before I removed anything I checked the pull weight of the original trigger. It was right at four pounds with my low dollar trigger pull gage. This was no surprise because I messed with this trigger many years ago and reduced the pull weight of it. However, I didn't know what I was doing back then and I'll show you what I'm talking about soon.
 

If you look close you can see I didn't completely remove the two pins from the action. And note the pins are sitting in two different directions like I mentioned earlier. The reason for this is because the front pin hole is partially blocked by a small area near the top of it. But the rear pin could be removed from either side. However, if you do it this way, it holds another part in place while you swap things out. By the way, the hammer that you see below I made in High School and worked great for this.