Trigger shoes got mentioned on another post here....so I thought to bring it on over here rather than keep hi-jaking that post.... for more talk about them and their demise.

Varmint Caller and I were bantering about trigger shoes on rifles & that we both had in the far past purchased some from a mail order house called "FLAIGS"....NOW DEFUNCT! His old timer remembery thinks it was a lawsuit of some sort against Flaigs & their trigger shoe that sunk that ship.  I have heard a similar story over the years also of why they are no longer sold.  Howsomeever, it seems I may have heard about someone marketing trigger shoes again. 

As I recall there were two brands..ACE and FLAIGS...both very similar in design and make. 

So, please chime in with any trigger shoe comments you may have.  I for one still use those I bought so many years ago...installed on some rifles and handguns and one shotgun. 

What's your story?

Always a bunch for sale on e-bay. RD

For Example:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Six-Trigger-Shoes-/330709303334?pt=V intage_Hunting&hash=item4cffcf8026

Edited by Rockydog

yo wingmaster....Tyler's is the one I was thinking of that still makes the trigger shoe..listed for handguns, shotguns, rifles.....but boy are they spendy from them....but then I bought mine nearly 40yrs ago...


RD...checked the link....no way to tell what those trigger shoes fit....found no info on that in ad...

......"Found this at www.tgrips.com"....

it don't work for trigger shoes....comes up with other stuff....

link needs to be corrected by adding a "dash" (-) after the "t"......

www.t-grips.com

may have to cut & paste to work


Edited by Irish Bird Dog

I'm big a fan of trigger shoes.

 

Let's see.  Flaig's Lodge (Gun shop), originally started on East Ohio Street in the northside of Pittsburgh;  by a German guy named Ed Flaig.   he  imported great guns Ferlach, Manlicher, and dozens of others brands.  He was VERY German and during WW-2 was targeted in the yellow journals as a Nazi.  A Book titled "undercover" had a lot of negative slander about him.  He and his business lived thru that stuff.

He emerged even stronger in the gun business as he had everything quality, and lots of mausers that the returning troops liked.

He moved about 10 miles into the suburbs and bought a 35 acre hillside, the Lodge was renamed "Flaig's Lodge up-on-the hill".  the whole business was in a number of German hunting cabins made from logs on the property; a beautiful place to visit.  The machine shops were also log German hunting lodges.  You were always greeted by Mr. Flaig and his pure German bred German Shepard "Heidi"

They had about 6 great gunsmiths (some almost as good as KP).  He was a distributor for lots of impossible to obtain foreign parts and guns, mostly rifles and drillings.

One product that they had was ACE trigger shoes, there were about 40 common models to fit most everything; but they Had 100s of other design and would get what ever you needed.

The trigger shoe business was driven by military ('03, '98, etc ) and foreign rifles.  these were find bolt rifles but most had triggers that were as sharp at a knife.  the Sako L579, l61 were just two models that were all made like the Mauser, in that the trigger extended thru a thin milled slot in the upper trigger guard.  with clearance between the guard and the trigger it meant that the trigger had to be thin.

Enter the ACE trigger shoe sold exclusively by Flaigs.  So from 1950-1975 almost every issue of Amer. Rifle. and also Rifle magazine, had the ACE ad.  Flaigs sold a few years after then when ED died and the children didn't want the business, also some inheritance problems.  And Austrian woman and her husband ran it for a few years, doing primary export business unlike Flaigs which did primary import business!  They finally went under.

A large machine contractor that had made Flaig's ACE trigger shoes was located in Murrysville (25 miles east of Pittsburgh).  Nice people but except for some custom barrel making for Remington, not in the firearms market.  They were making them at least as late as 1990, under the trademark ACE.

These were like all ACE trigger shoes, machined from steel and blued. with two small pointed set screws holding the shoes on the trigger.

I like the ACE shoes and have plenty on all my rifles from the pre 1976 market.  Remington now has a wide trigger as do most other modern commercial rifle.  so the trigger shoe market is limited.  They were tops with bench rest and varmint hunters.  I once order 150 of them in various configuration for a group I represented.

I've reviewed the manufacturing drawings and processes on making them.  They wee not cheap or poorly made.  Automatic tooling made rings that were than split into two halves, two shoes.

If you get to NY, PA, Ohio you will find lots of '98 and FN actions with Flaigs barrels and stocks, usually chambered to 30-06 Flaig Improved.

It was a great gun place, and you could always talk to a gun smith (usually with a German accent).  For at least 25 years that was MY gunsmith.

 

The Flaig was very similiar to the Ackley, you could shoot standard '06 in it.  They still appear in gun shows, and I answer a good number of questions about them.  Remember these were mostly on surplus mausers and were don in the 1950-early '60s.  The only big 30 was the 300 H&H.  The 300 Weatherby was around but was a semi-custom rifle mostly seen with P-14 actions with the ears milled off.

Flaig guns had beautiful stocks with Walnut often cut on the property.  My mother passed away 4 years ago, but she checkered rifles stocks for Flaigs before WW-2.  So I got to now most of the family.

Hey bear...........thanks for all the info/history on Flaigs.....but you said the ACE trigger shoes were $20.....made me wonder...I have a bunch of those trigger shoes and can't believe I had that much $ to spend on them back then....back then for me was in early 1970's probably......went to page 6 and found out you made a typo....they were $2...TWO dollars.....much more reasonable!

but today Tylers is selling them for around $22 each.

who is going to show up with a trigger shoe at MYGAWDS????

Fella's;

I may dig around in my stuff & find a trigger shoe, just to put one on for MYGAWDS.  I just checked a Brownells catalog & couldn't find a listing for trigger shoes, that's odd.  I thought they tried to carry just about every accessory known to the shooting community.

900F

Actually there has already been an ACE trigger shoe at MYGAWDS.  Two years ago I brought a Sako heavy barrel 243 in case  we looked for 'otes.

The day I was leading the way UP the mountain for IBD, the Ace trigger shoe was there.