Trigger happies
**Warning** You shouldn't do any trigger work unless you're a "qualified gunsmith".
Ok, had to do that or I'd feel guilty. My .22Mag Marlin had the most pain in ass trigger ever and my squirrel hit percentage was going down because of it. The trigger was heavy, with a long pull to it. The pull is just as long but I figured out how to fine tune the mechanism. The biggest problem with mass market cheap triggers (not all .22's are cheap products, shoot a Sako quad if you don't believe me) is that they are usually cast which leaves rough edges all over the place. I took my handy dremmel and smoothed out any two surfaces that rubbed together in any way. Just that ~2 hours of work mad a difference in the feel of the pull, but the pull weight was still about the same.
To fix the pull weight you've pretty much gotta look to your bolt. Most (from what I've seen) bolts have (overly generalized) 3 main pieces; a outer tube which normally is attached to the operating arm, an inner assembly with the firing pin and the rotating assembly which cocks the pin back, and a large spring constant spring to move the firing pin. Marlins' triggers move a lever in the valley of the bolt's travel backwards a tiny bit to move a corresponding nubbin out of its goove backwards and lets it slam forward (while rotating along the x-axis). This "nubbin" is connected to the inner bolt, the movement of the inner bolt forward and backwards is why on a lot of rifles you see a red mark/dot on the back end of the bolt when it's cocked. How much efford from the trigger to move this "nubbin" out of its groove is determined by the interior trigger spring (because the spring wants to push forward to actuate the firing pin) as well as by the coefficient of friction between the "nubbin" and the bolt body (outer bolt). Thus to reduce that movement/force you should (CAREFULLY) smooth down all of the surfaces and if you want to be really brave slightly shorten the inner bolt spring. If you are going to shorten the spring, only cut off MAYBE 1/4 of a turn at a time, if you shorten the spring too much then it won't push the firing pin forward enough and your won't shoot anything, other than the wad of money for a new spring.
OR, if you can find one for your rifle, you can just buy a competition trigger assembly
