Re: Should I start looking for a trigger now for my 5R
If you can find a pre xmark trigger for a good price either stock or that has been worked by someone competent or find a 40x trigger those would be good upgrades. It would be best to start looking now, they don't come up for sale that often and usually go fast. Have to be a little careful though as there have been different safety versions and you want one someone has not destroyed trying to adjust, or that has been worked over by someone who didn't know what they were doing. Remington still sells the 40x trigger so it may be possible to order one directly from them, not sure.
If you have reasonable expectations the x-mark is not a bad trigger but you can't take them too light. If you want something under 3.5-4lbs the xmarks become inconsistent when set lighter than that. Though I'm still curious why that is, there are not a lot of moving parts to the trigger so the reports of them jumping up significantly in pull weight seem odd, almost as if something in the trigger is chewing itself up, or breaking. Seems no one has figured out in those cases what the problem is that causes the inconsistent pull weight. In every case I've read about though the issues have been with triggers taken under 3.5lbs. For a factory trigger they have very acceptable creep and over travel, the big complaint guys have is they can't get them light enough, and if they try, things seem to go wrong.
If you want something under 3.5lbs that has benchrest trigger quality, then the x-mark is not going to get it done. Myself I don't want anything under 3.5lbs on a field rifle, if it's strictly going to be used for target use there are several aftermarket options, however again many of the best triggers judged purely by feel do not like to be dirty.
