Posted: 11/1/2012 7:38:50 AM EDT
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I just bought my first 1911/2011 and of course I want to mess with it. Trigger now is about crisp 4.5lbs and I want 2.75-3. What can I do? I wont be taking it to take it to a smith, I'm mechanically inclined and do work on my other guns.
Without getting into spending a lot of money replacing every single trigger control part. I know about bending the two legs of the leaf spring. Is this good? Is there a problem with the spring settling back to where it originally was? What about the stress on the spring from bending it? |
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A crisp 4.5 pound trigger pull is perfect IMO, especially if this is a carry gun. I would shoot it about 500 to 1000 rounds and it will lighten slightly to 4.0 to about 4.2 in my experience. If your pistol functions perfect i would leave it alone.  I agree for a carry/defense gun. This will be 100% competition gun, I should have mentioned that in the OP. So shooting/dry firing will lighten it? That's good to know, I'll see where it settles and see how drastic I want to be. |
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It ain't broke. Don't try to "fix it". Give it a good break in first, and if you still want to change things, take it to a pro.
If you insist on fiddling with it yourself, (like me  ) you could do worse than one of Cylinder & Slide's Hammer Sets. I've got the 1911 Marine Corps 3.5 lb. Trigger Pull (5 piece) Set in a Springfield GI, and honestly wouldn't want the pull to be any lighter.
Sounds like you might want to register over at http://forums.1911forum.com/. There's lots of excellent guidance for folks who want to learn to do their own 1911 work over there. If you don't already have them, I also recommend the Kuhnhausen 1911 books. |
| This is not just one of your "other guns". Start by picking up Jerry Kuhnhausen's books, (two volumes), and reading them so that you might begin to understand how this gun works and how it's parts relate to one another. There are many steps to a 1911 trigger job and very few of them can be performed without the proper fixtures, jigs and stones. You can bend the sear spring and reduce the mainspring weight. Polishing parts will help but this should be done on a flat piece of granite or ceramic. Polishing the channels where the trigger rides can help, (you will need the stones for this). Is it a series 80? Polishing or removing these parts can help. Since you have specified a competition weight trigger there is no need to retain these safety parts as the gun will no longer be safe for carry. Changing and matching the geometry between the hammer and sear is the most important part. For this you will need a jig and polishing stones and proper instruction on the procedure. This will need to be done even for "matched, drop in parts" since no two frames are truly the same. Since you are probably not going to be doing hundreds of trigger jobs these tools will never pay for themselves. There are many great 1911 smiths in your state. You would be way ahead, both in money and safety, to let one of them perform an action job and a reliability job on your pistol. Incidentally, a crisp 4.5 pound trigger is perfect for a carry gun. |
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Thanks for the info everyone. It's a lot to digest. Would a factory reduced leaf spring work as well? I hate bending springs, seems to introduction failure points. Every sear spring installed must be bent (tension) for correct function. A flat spring can be bent with no worries. |
| Bending or changing the sear spring will have little noticeable affect on the weight of the trigger pull. As has been stated the spring must be tensioned correctly. Simply bending it back to reduce trigger pull will have an adverse affect on other aspects of the trigger. Contact Don Williams at Action Pistol Works in Chino Valley AZ He does excellent 1911 work at very fair prices. |
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Bending or changing the sear spring will have little noticeable affect on the weight of the trigger pull. Bending the sear spring legs will have a significant affect on trigger pull weight. Too many 1911 shops simply throw in a spring with far too much tension to get the gun working and moved on to the next station in the assembly line. All sear springs are similar, and the tension of each leg must be adjusted individually to ensure proper and safe function, without an excess amount to hinder the trigger pull. The idea of just buying a "lighter" sear spring to toss in to replace the factory spring without adjusting it is not the proper way to go about it. There really is no shortcut here. The proper way is to understand what each leg does, and then adjust each one to a minimum safe weight. A trigger pull gauge can be used to determine this. Jack Weigand recommends a minimum weight of 8 oz on the sear leg and 8 oz on the disconnector leg. In some guns (with rough trigger tracks and steel trigger shoes) the minimum weight may not be enough to return the trigger reliably and the weight might need to be increased. Of course when you adjust the sear spring this light, you can uncover other problems that will need to be corrected before the gun is safe. A heavy trigger may trip the sear with its inertia when the slide slams home. A trigger system with insufficient pretravel will do the same. The hammer and sear may have a neutral or negative engagement angle and the sear may slip out from under the hammer hooks when jarred by the slide going into battery. You can see how just tossing in a heavy-bent sear spring can save Springfield or Kimber a whole lot of fussy troubleshooting and potential safety issues. In an otherwise unimproved gun, I believe 16 oz per leaf is safer while still yielding an improved pull... but it all depends on the particular gun. I routinely get down into the 4 pound range with untouched factory internals on most guns simply by adjusting the sear spring. |
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I have a question about the sear spring. In the brownells article it says to put just the disconnector in and adjust the pull so it's 8oz. Then put in the sear so it adds another 8oz.
But then they go on to say " Here is an example for a 3½ pound trigger pull: Disconnector Spring Weight - 16 oz. Sear Spring Weight - 32 oz." I don't get this. They say to adjust it to 16oz total initially then later claim adjusting it to 32oz yields a 3.5lb pull. www.brownells.com/.aspx/lid=10297/guntechdetail/2-lb-Trigger-PullWhich is it? |
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Quoted:
I have a question about the sear spring. In the brownells article it says to put just the disconnector in and adjust the pull so it's 8oz. Then put in the sear so it adds another 8oz. But then they go on to say " Here is an example for a 3½ pound trigger pull: Disconnector Spring Weight - 16 oz. Sear Spring Weight - 32 oz." I don't get this. They say to adjust it to 16oz total initially then later claim adjusting it to 32oz yields a 3.5lb pull. www.brownells.com/.aspx/lid=10297/guntechdetail/2-lb-Trigger-PullWhich is it? easy Main focus of the article is for a 2.5lb trigger pull. Then he "talks" about a 3.5 lb tp and how it is achived by doubling the ozs. on each leg of the sear spring. |
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Quoted:
I have a question about the sear spring. In the brownells article it says to put just the disconnector in and adjust the pull so it's 8oz. Then put in the sear so it adds another 8oz. But then they go on to say " Here is an example for a 3½ pound trigger pull: Disconnector Spring Weight - 16 oz. Sear Spring Weight - 32 oz." I don't get this. They say to adjust it to 16oz total initially then later claim adjusting it to 32oz yields a 3.5lb pull. www.brownells.com/.aspx/lid=10297/guntechdetail/2-lb-Trigger-PullWhich is it? easy Main focus of the article is for a 2.5lb trigger pull. Then he "talks" about a 3.5 lb tp and how it is achived by doubling the ozs. on each leg of the sear spring. Haha okay that was a dumb question, I should have read the title of the article. Oh well, I'm excited my sti comes today. |
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Quoted:
It ain't broke. Don't try to "fix it". Give it a good break in first, and if you still want to change things, take it to a pro. If you insist on fiddling with it yourself, (like me ) you could do worse than one of Cylinder & Slide's Hammer Sets. I've got the 1911 Marine Corps 3.5 lb. Trigger Pull (5 piece) Set in a Springfield GI, and honestly wouldn't want the pull to be any lighter.
Sounds like you might want to register over at http://forums.1911forum.com/. There's lots of excellent guidance for folks who want to learn to do their own 1911 work over there. If you don't already have them, I also recommend the Kuhnhausen 1911 books. I second the recommendation of Kuhnhausen books.They are excellent. |