Hammer dog shims for gp-100

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stonebuster

stonebuster

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I have successfully installed hammer shims on my GP's to eliminate the hammers rubbing frame. Now I'm planning on installing hammer dog shims to lessen the slop in the hammer dog. After pushing the hammer dog to one side and measuring with feeler gauge the gap measured .019. It seemed like quite a lot of slop to my untrained eye. I know I need to allow a minimum of .002 on each side of the dog so I'm planning on installing a .007 on each side of the dog. How many of you GP owners have bothered to do this and did it make a difference? Is there a reason why Ruger leaves this much play in the hammer dog? On these cold winter days I like tinkering with the easy stuff to pass the time and I'm not sure if it will make a noticeable difference in the action.
 
My GP100 was dimensionally just like yours. I put .007" on each side and it tightened up nicely. Does it help much? I'm not sure. But I am sure having all that play can't help things, and the better the alignment of the hammer dog with the trigger the better the chances of consistent operation.

I put mine in at the same time as the hammer shims, which definitely helped a lot. My hammer was dragging and getting rid of that made a big difference. I was able to drop the hammer spring weight without side affects once the drag was gone.
 
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Most guys don't shoot DA enough to feel the difference between with or without shims on the dog.

They're cheap, no reason NOT to add them.
 
I installed both hammer and hammer dog shims on a GP and Redhawk a couple days ago. I shot them both today and have dry fired them quite a bit prior to shooting.

The Redhawk received a trigger job and trigger shims at the same time, so we can discount the resultant difference on that gun. But the GP100 had already received a trigger job prior to the shim installation, and there is a perceptible difference in the consistency of the DA pull.

How much difference the hammer dog shims alone can have seems likely very small. But the overall difference between this new GP of mine, before any work was done, and now that I have completed a trigger job and shimmed various areas of excessive friction, is really pretty astounding.

So yes, I'd try some hammer dog shims.
 
ray15 said:
My GP100 was dimensionally just like yours. I put .007" on each side and it tightened up nicely. Does it help much? I'm not sure. But I am sure having all that play can't help things, and the better the alignment of the hammer dog with the trigger the better the chances of consistent operation.

I put mine in at the same time as the hammer shims, which definitely helped a lot. My hammer was dragging and getting rid of that made a big difference. I was able to drop the hammer spring weight without side affects once the drag was gone.
Click to expand...
What weight hammer spring did you end up using and where did you get them? I might try a lighter hammer spring in my 5" GP and test it for reliability/light strikes at the range. It's never going to be a carry gun anyway so if I had a light strike it wouldn't be a big deal and I'd put the old springs back in. While I've got the gun apart I'll use some Mother's polish on the hammer and pivot pin to smooth them up. I'm admittedly a rookie when it comes to these issues but it seems like it would be an improvement if the hammer dog mated with the trigger in the same place each time instead of wandering around.
 
Where do you find these shims ? My hammer moves close to .012" to the left when you double action it.
 
ray15 said:
The stock hammer spring is reputed to be 14lbs. I replaced it with a 12lb. spring from Wollf. I also changed the trigger return spring to 10lb. Nearly any GP100 that isn't dragging on the trigger or hammer will be reliable at this level - these are the heaviest aftermarket springs available.

https://www.gunsprings.com/RUGER/GP-100/cID3/mID52/dID233#434
Click to expand...
Thanks for the link. Do you have to replace the trigger return spring when you replace stock hammer spring with a 12#. I'm a little reluctant to start taking the trigger mechanism apart. Like Dirty Harry said "a man's got to know his limitations." Another vote for Lance from triggershims.com. I've ordered twice from him and he shipped my order the same day as he received it. You can also tell him how many of what thickness shims you need if you don't see what you want in the assortments he offers.
 
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Yes, you can change the hammer spring independent of the trigger spring. But you really need to change the trigger spring as it is heavy and lightening it doesn't affect hammer speed. It's not really that hard to change.
 
But here's a hint -- if you ever have to send the gun back to Ruger, replace all the springs, etc. with the original stock springs and take out the shims. If you don't, Ruger will return everything to stock configuration, and you're out the cost of your springs and shims.
 
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