Yes, decock it. Basically, you just drive out the cross pins. There's only a few parts in there. There's not really much in there to "smooth". The only parts that touch are the sear surfaces and you'll find that smoothing them will have little effect on trigger pull. Before you even take the gun apart you can lift the sear spring off the leg of the sear and pull the trigger. Even with the sear spring tension removed, you'll probably still have a heavy trigger pull. If you remove the hammers be prepared for a little problem putting them in if you haven't done this before. Basically, put the receiver in a padded vice, put in the hammer spring and hammer and then put a flat blade screwdriver on the sear surface and push it in. (Don't forget the cocking rods if you removed them. They go in front of the hammer. Pain to have to remove the hammers again to reinstall the rods.) Almost takes three hands to push on the screwdriver and get the cross pin started. Resist the idea of weakening the hammer springs or you might start getting misfires. The Stoeger simply is not a precision instrument.