Hello gang-

My No. 16 does not have a very nice trigger break. I want to pull the stock to look at the hammer full cock notch and probably to reduce mainspring tension slightly. 

I have the two screws removed which run through the trigger plate, through the wrist and into the upper tang. The stock is resisting all of my usual tricks to wiggle it off. And the center section of the No. 16 pistol grip doesn't want to move (it does wiggle slightly), so I can't try to pull the trigger plate separately. 

Any guidance? I suspect it is just 100 years plus of wood shrinkage, but perhaps I am missing something. I pulled the tang sight, even though those screws should not be protruding into the wood. 

I held the receiver in a padded vise, put pressure on the stock to the rear and vibrated the stock by tapping on each side in turn with the heel of my hand. This usually breaks them loose for me. I loosened the sideplate screws, but I don't think it gets me anwhere to pull the sideplate. 

Surely don't want to make a mess of this!

This Maynard surprised me. All of the Maynards I have owned and looked inside of showed careful workmanship - even the Second Model percussion carbine I have. 

But this No. 16 had a terrible "step" in the trigger. You could pull the trigger, feel it move, and hear an audible click. Additional pressure would then release the hammer. You could use it as a crude set trigger, which I had been doing and I am sure the original owner probably did, but I just got tired of tolerating this. 

After I got the hammer out, the full cock notch showed a deep groove over most of its width. Not from wear, but from poor machining or fitting. It took a while to finally get it all stoned out. The trigger now is a bit heavier than most of my Maynards, but crsip, so I can tolerate that. 

I'm just surprised this rifle got out of the factory in such a state! And I'm surprised someone appearantly used this rifle heavily, but never chose to have such a defect corrected.