GunnySack
By Charles
E. Petty
Originally Published in American Handguns Magazine
Sept/Oct 2005
Not too long ago I was
very reluctant to talk about anything involving trigger
jobs because anything having to do with cutting
sears and hammers is a bad thing for the untrained. Two
things changed that, the UPS decision to require handguns
to be shipped by air to prevent their employees
from stealing them and the vast improvements made possible
in the manufacture of precision parts by CNC or wire EDM
methods. Overnight shipping charges both ways make it
tough to send a gun to a gunsmith for a simple trigger
job.
Cylinder and Slide Shop now offers a
complete kit, including all the parts for a 1911 trigger.
If you know how to detail-strip the pistol you can
exchange old parts for new. It contains a hammer, sear,
disconnector, sear spring and mainspring. All you have to
do is take the hammer strut off your old hammer and put it
on the new one.
Cylinder and Slide offers a couple
of variations and we elected to install their Ultra Light
3.5 lb. trigger pull set in a new S&W 1911. The Lyman
trigger pull gauge showed a 5 lb 3 oz. average for five
consecutive weights for the new gun. First I installed
everything except the mainspring and recorded a 3 lb. 15
oz. average. Swapping the mainspring yielded an average of
3 lb. 13 oz. Not quite 3.5 lbs. but certainly close and it
would have probably taken only a little bending of the
sear spring to get there.
The parts are beautifully polished
and need no additional work. The sear, hammer and
disconnector all show the marks from a Rockwell hardness
tester and there is a certificate with the actual test
values recorded. Ours were about 52 Rockwell: hard
enough to last a long time but not so hard as to be
brittle.
On the pistol the trigger was crisp
and creep-less. All the safeties worked as they
should and considerable shooting revealed no changes or
problems. But if anything isn't just right call,
they can help.
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