Posted: 9/29/2008 5:48:13 PM EDT
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I have a Springfield GI. It has an crisp, but heavy trigger. Today I shot one of those cheap Taurus pistols. I did really well with it and I loved the trigger. What weight are those triggers? Also, I'd like to keep my stock parts on my 1911. What can I do to get a better trigger on mine. What parts do I need to get? Are there good drop-in triggers? Would it be easy to change back and forth? I'm not looking to do it a lot, maybe once a year or so. Thanks 1911 gurus! |
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A drop in match hammer and sear from one of the reputable brands (Ed Brown, Wilson etc - I've used STI and CMC with great results), a reduced power mainspring and some gentle tweaking on the sear spring to reduce tension should get you down near 2lbs. ETA: I could not leave my GI alone. It ended up like this: 
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Change the mainsrping. The mainspring housing is the arched part in the back of the grip. Make sure the gun is unloaded (yeah, yeah) and lower the hammer. You need a good punch to do this job. Get a large punch to push out the mainspring housing pin. This is the big pin at the bottom of the grip. Put the gun on a block of soft wood, or several folded towels so you don't damage the grips and the finish when you do this. Tap the pin out with the punch. The mainspring holds it in place, so expect a bit of resistance. A small hammer or the handle of a large screwdriver will do it. The mainspring housing will drop out of the pistol. You can see the end of a small pin at the back of the mainspring housing. Resist the urge to screw with this pin at this time or a disaster will result. You can see a cap inside the mainspring housing. The hammer spur fits in this cap and compresses the mainspring when the pistol is cocked. There's another cap at the bottom of the spring that restrains the mainspring housing pin. The small pin holds this assembly together and the whole thing is under some tension. The small pin only comes out one way - back to front. It has a flange on the front so it can't push through to the back. Turn the mainspring housing upside down and put the end of the punch in the cap. Push down a little to compress the spring. Clamping the punch in a vise is a good way to do it; if you let the thing get loose, the parts tend to go flying. This is the disaster I warned you about. Once the spring is compressed, the tension is off the small pin and you can push it out with a bent paper clip. The factory spring is 22 or 23 pounds. You can get a Wolf spring kit from Brownell's that gives you a 19, 20, and 21 pound spring. The part number is 26520. Try the lightest spring first and see if the pistol fires reliably. Put it back together: Make sure you put the caps on the top and bottom of the new spring, and make sure they're installed the right way. The concave one goes on top. Compress the spring with the punch and put the small pin back in. Then slide the assembly into the frame and make sure the hammer spur fits into the cap. Press the grip flat on something flat like a counter and you can tap the big pin back into place. You're done. This sounds like a lot, but it should take you no more than ten minutes. A drop in trigger job replaces the sear, the hammer, the disconnector, and sometimes the trigger. This will change the appearance of the pistol. It will look wrong, since what you have is a military styled pistol. It will also cost you a lot more money, and if done properly, it will only serve to show how inadequate the sights and some of the other controls are. The one you've got is a very good gun, especially for what it is supposed to be. It's cheap and enjoyable, also solid as a rock. Once you start tuning up a 1911, it's hard to stop and easy to spend $1000.00 on the project. You're much better off keeping the one you've got as a fun gun and buying another one if you eventually decide you want one with more features. |
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I lightened my trigger by only slightly bending the sear spring. I had tried a reduced power mainspring with little improvement. As for the trigger itself, unless you need a longer or shorter trigger you don't need to change it. If you use it for matches you might get one with an overtravel screw. Getting the hammer and sear prepped by a GOOD 1911 'smith will also help, especially reducing the creep and rough feeling. Be very careful about selecting a smith though. A bad one can cause more problems than they can fix. If all you want is a lighter trigger pull try bending the sear spring first. That alone may be all you need. Check into buying Ken Hallock's .45 Auto Handbook. It helps a lot. Jim |
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The mainspring in the ILS housing isn't the same size as the one in a "standard" housing. If you buy a new MSH, you need to buy a new spring and pins too. I opted to spend 9 bucks with Wolff (www.gunsprings.com) for reduced power ILS mainsprings. I haven't received them yet, but there's no reason they won't help reduce my trigger pull. Mike |
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SGB, thanks for posting that link. It is very useful. Gunsmiths deserve to be compensated for their time and experience, just like anyone else. A lot of gunowners have no interest in working on their weapons. They either think it's too hard or just aren't interested in anything but shooting. That's the same reason some people won't handload. If you want to try working on the sear and hammer I would suggest having spares in case you screw them up on the first attempt. We all have messed up a sear or hammer at one time or other, and you need spares anyway especially if you shoot matches. If you put a lot of rounds through the pistol there are things that will need to be touched up like the engagement surfaces. If you are short of time a prepped set will make life easier. Jim |
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The trigger that comes in a GI is a cheap, poorly fitted piece of junk. I just put a quality, properly fitted and adjusted trigger in mine and it feels so good you dont notice that the trigger pull is still 5 or 6 pounds. For $20 and an hour of your time, I would suggest this before any spring bending or any other mods. |
I have a Springfield Loaded 1911 that i upgraded the trigger on. I bought an SVI trigger, hammer, sear, disconector, leaf spring. And I bought a wolf 17lbs mainspring from brownells. However after installing these parts, the thumb safety and grip safety no longer functioned properly. So i had to order a new thumb safety and grip safety and fit them. I found out that working on 1911's is not as easy as the AR-15, parts are not drop in, they have to be fitted. Of course now I have a very nice trigger. 
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If you drop the sear spring tension and install a lighter MS you may end up with hammer follow (sear bounce) unless the sear and hammer have perfect contact. What's perfect contact? That's why gunsmiths charge so much for trigger jobs. I looked at a nearly new 1911A1 from SA, the hammer hooks like they were chewed instead of machined. Drop in parts are only as good as the frame they go in. Not all "drop in" parts are equal either. I've had good results (drop in) from EE parts. EGW sears on NOT drop in, nor are they advertised as such. Great sears, just not drop in. |