Help with 1911 trigger

[pepperbelly]

I have a Springfield Armory Loaded .45acp that I use in competition- bullseye and falling plates. The trigger is smooth and crisp but a little heavy for match competition.
At one time dad prepped my hammer and sear- he is a good pistolsmith and used a jig and a hard stone to just remove burrs. During that session I said something about the heavy trigger pull and he looked in his goody box and found a Clark competition sear spring. We tried to install it but with the Clark spring we were unable to istall the ambi safety. It installed easily with the stock spring.
Is there something about an ambi safety itself or the SA pistol that could have caused the problem, or do we need to look at that spring?

Jim

[cdrt]

I'm guessing it's the spring. On my Clark .45, the grip safety would not work when they sent the gun back after accurizing. It would also go to half cock when the trigger was pulled. I sent the gun back and they fixed both problems. Not sure how they did it, but I'm not a fan of their sear spring.

My Clark .38 has a std sear spring, since it accurized back in 1984. Have never had a problem with it.

[pepperbelly]

Which spring would be a good choice for a BE pistol? The trigger pull is just a little too heavy, especially for the 50 yard slow fire.

Jim

[DMiculek]

You can always make adjustments to your stock spring

[cdrt]

Sent you a PM.

[jmorris]

I like the ones that sviguns.com sells. As above you can bend the fingers on your stock one.

[JackOfAllTradesMasterAtNone]

Not being an accomplished pistol smith... I know that sear springs are finiky little buggers to tune. And tune they all need. Just the slightest bend and they'll give you fits or be perfect.

Unless you've got a Clark or other smith's tuned trigger down to 3 1/2 pounds or so, then a spring change is in order from a factory setting.

I prefer to start with a reduced power main spring. (hammer spring). SA should be able to tell you the factory value, then you can go from there with a Clark, or Wilson or other.

I dropped more than a 1/2 pound of pull on my Kimber by going from a 21# to a 19# main spring.

-Steve

[Taurus 617 CCW]

You could try burnishing your sear spring. Burnishing is a process of putting a matchless polish on the spring to reduce friction. You take a piece of drill rod slightly smaller than the inside diameter of the spring, slip the spring over it and hit it with a matchless polishing wheel. The spring will spin around the drill rod pretty fast so watch your fingers! I burnished the spring in my Beretta 92 F and it enhanced the trigger pull a little bit, around 20%. It's not a cure-all for trigger pull weight but it is one enhancement you can do to make it smoother. For a lighter trigger pull you can check out Ed Brown's (in brownell's) products or Wolff spring company. http://www.gunsprings.com/SemiAuto/ColtNF.html#SearSprings
You can also check out the Jerry Kunhausen book on the Colt 1911 for enhancing your 1911. It is definitely a book written by a gunsmith for gunsmiths. A lot of the work it explains in the book requires machining experience. Hope that helps. PM me if you have questions.

[orionengnr]

I see that you are in the DFW area. If you attend any of the local gun shows, there are some fairly well thought-of smiths that set up a table.

Ken Crawley (Crawley Custom) is supposed to be pretty good. I have not had him do any work for me (yet) but I got a look at an acquaintance's Colt Defender after Mr. Crawley got done with it. Beautiful work. The owner was quite impressed, and so was I. As soon as I have a few more pennies to rub together, I will probably have Mr. Crawley do some work for me.

I did have a 1911 trigger job done on a Kimber about a year ago by another unnamed 'smith who attends all the shows. While the work was excellent and the price was not unreasonable, the promised two weeks stretched past six plus.

I finally I had to call him and tell him that I would pick the gun up and let someone else do it. Then it got done in a week. :rolleyes: There were a few other issues as well.

It's funny how he kept telling me how busy he was filling LEO AR-15 orders, etc. That's great that you're busy; but if you can't find the time over the course of six weeks to make $100 for a one-hour job, just tell me and I'll go elsewhere...

[mballai]

I would just try a different spring. Sometimes that's all that's necessary.