u/Additional-Art4508 — reddlx

I recently bought a Howa 1500 used and it looks nice and in great shape, rifling looks strong, no surface rust i can see, and hardly any signs of handling.

There's just one big issue with the gun.

The trigger seems to have been hit with a bubba trigger job. It looks to be the factory HACT trigger group but the adjustment screw does not adjust the trigger in one direction. From what I've been able to gather its supposed to be a 2 stage trigger. Mine absolutely is not, it has 0 travel and I'd estimate a little under 2 lbs. If i adjust the screw to lighten the trigger further it works as expected and dry fires the gun. However, backing the screw out has no effect on increasing the pull weight.
The big issue is: when you hold the trigger while on safe it doesn't fire but if you continue holding it and move to fire it releases the firing pin immediately, instead of the sear holding it until the trigger is released and pulled again.

From what I understand, this is not correct behavior and may indicate insufficient sear engagement or a modified trigger.

My questions:

Does this behavior confirm a sear engagement/safety issue?
Is this safe to use at all, or should the rifle be considered unsafe until repaired?
Is this likely due to an improperly adjusted/modified factory trigger, or could it indicate wear or damage elsewhere?
Would replacing the trigger with a timney fully resolve this, or should I be concerned about the receiver/sear surfaces as well?

I’d prefer to keep the rifle rather than return it, so I’m trying to determine whether this is a straightforward trigger replacement or something more serious.

I tried reaching out to the seller and they wanted to just refund me, I'd really like to not do that and Legacy says its out of warranty. I'm kind of considering just getting a Timney for it and calling it a day