SA Range Officer back from Custom Shop

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have you checked to see if it's trigger bounce?

lock the slide back.
grip the gun so that the grip safety is not blocking the trigger.
hold the trigger forward.
drop the slide.

if the hammer falls it's an issue with the sear or sear spring tension on the left leg.

if it doesn't do it, then i would add some tension to the center leg.
 
Quack, I was thinking the same thing.

One other question-
Did you adjust the stop screw on the trigger?

Try giving that a half turn in and see if the problem goes away.
 
I can't check a thing, because it's back at Springfield's custom shop.........they can check anything they want :rolleyes:
 
It can't be a great job, then.

Yeah, I know. I wondered why I wrote that after I thought about it. Maybe I was talking about the job they did with the parkerizing and dehorning/widening the rear sight................and I did send it back.
 
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Wow, sorry for your experience here, lame.

FWIW, $100 for a 1911 trigger job is about double what it should cost, regardless of what you may have or may not have heard, especially with all the 1911-nonsense on gun boards, a 1911 trigger job is not the brain surgery it's made out to be. A 3.5lb 1911 trigger on stock parts that doesn't follow is 100% doable assuming the original trigger feel is just too heavy or maybe too long, and didn't start out in the dog poop realm, if the break is ok and it just needs to be lighter, shorter, and lose some unwanted creep the stock angles/cuts on the hammer and sear are probably close enough to get it done. A decent DIYer can do it with nothing more than a little 600 grit, and just more than a little patience. Cutting and shaping hammer hooks and sears is better left to someone who knows what they're doing, everything else is easy as long as you're willing to perform the necessary safety checks each and every time you change something.

The thing is, the hardest and most time-consuming part is tearing down the gun and putting it back together over and over again to get things right, and it comes down IMHO to how informed you make yourself about how things go together, it might take you 2 tries, but it might take 10 times to get things "just so". Every 1911 owner IMO must learn how to detail strip their gun with relative ease, if just thinking about it worries you, seems hard at all, or makes you want to run to a gunsmith then you just need more practice, that's all. I can tear down a 1911 in 1-2mins no problem, there are some guys would rather wrestle a grizzly bear and will tell you detail stripping your gun without a gunsmith's help is plain crazy, don't believe them, they're wrong, I'm no gunsmith and if I can do it, you can do it.

600 grit: around a popsicle stick it can de-burr the trigger bow channels for you or to polish the sides of the disconnector that contact the sear, laid flat on a flat surface you can de-burr, smooth, and polish the sides of your hammer (probably one of the #1 causes of heavy/gritty triggers) and of course the outside sides of the trigger bow (don't bend it, be careful) and sides of the trigger shoe itself, you can also use it this way to polish the sides the sear so there's no unwanted friction happening anywhere. Remember, you want the trigger bow assembly to literally "drop" into the frame, no bind at all, you should be able to hold it over the frame with it facing the ground and literally just drop it in, same goes for the hammer, the hammer assembly should just slide right in, no bind whatsoever against the frame, you want these things to be so smooth they'd probably work without any oil.

Beyond that, it's bending the sear spring, this is the part where you'll need to be taking apart the gun and putting it back together (short of grips of course) possibly over and over again, bending the spring is key and one of the main factors determining how the trigger feels, do it as many times as you need to, bending is trial and error there are no set rules just stay patient and sooner or later you'll be able to dial in what you want, if the sear spring is a mystery to you look at it like this in layman's terms: the tallest leaf on the left controls most of the trigger's pull weight, say 90%, and bending it so it's curved-in towards the sear and trigger clockwork increases the weight, bending so it bows back lightens it, I've never seen one make it past straight up before it didn't work right, so a little goes a long way, start by just taking a little bit of bend out of it, each time reassembling and testing, over and over until you get it right... the middle leaf controls your trigger's reset/return and maybe contributes 20% to the overall pull weight, same things/rules apply as with the first leaf, a little goes a long way when it comes to decreasing the bend, and if you like a positive "snappy" reset then sometimes you're better off leaving it alone and tuning it last... the leaf all the way to the right bent back towards you controls your grip safety, you can increase the bend to "sensitize" the grip safety if you like just be careful as too much will not work right...

Don't worry about the hammer-hooks or sear cut/angle, dry-fire and just plain shooting it will do all that is needed here, again these are left to the experienced.

Going lower will mean new parts, the best stuff you can get on the planet only costs $125 and is almost drop-in so be weary of over-priced trigger jobs, most times a lighter $25 trigger like an STI polymer one is all that's needed to make it happen, a lighter trigger is less likely to cause problems like bouncing back against the sear/disconnector ("trigger-bounce") or fail to reset then a heavier trigger as are the common 3-hole and solid ones on stock guns, because duh, they're lighter (less inertia).

Cheers, there, at Springfield's prices you owe me 500 bucks, as it sounds like they went into far less detail than I did above...;)
 
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Polishing a hammer , trigger, sear etc does very little to effect the actual pull weight.

The real key to a very light weight target trigger is the angle of the cuts on the sear, hammer, trigger etc, and the amount of travel required to drop the hammer and also the other key thing is light weight springs. Polishing the contact areas and pivot areas only contributes a little to the actuall pull weight.

Popsicle sticks and sand paper will do nothing to changing the pull weight
 
One thing ive learned in doing 1911 trigger jobs even if im a bedroom gun tinkerer.
You don't test for hammer follow with an empty gun, Always use snap caps and then lock the slide back and release it with the slide release lever. The round acts as a buffer and slows the slide down and the slide wont slam home making the hammer follow due to the hard slamming action.

If it doesnt hammer follow with the snap caps a range trip would be in order for further testing, And ive found that with a few hundred rounds will work the new parts together for a better fit and even stop the hammer follow with no round chambered like it first did.


In the immortal words of John McLaughlin.....WRONG!
 
In the immortal words of John McLaughlin.....WRONG!

Oh please wise one, Teach me thy things you have mastered and i am so foolish about?

In a forum like this one in this section i think you will find almost everyone who does a 1911 trigger job is slightly different in how they do it whether its new parts or polishing or angles being altered.

But go to the gunsmithing section i think you will see a better pattern of what should be done and is suggested. The difference is people there may actually be gunsmiths or worked on 1911's for 50 years, But this section you will get answers from guys who did their first one last week.

Ive admitted im no gunsmith but have learned by doing and by research and questions when help was needed on how to do 1911 trigger jobs. Ive even messed a few up, So that proves i know what im doing. You can only learn whats right by doing whats wrong first so you never do that again. Yet im a noob and have much to learn, But when i make a statement that i find true from experience i do take some offense too be told im wrong with no proof from you.
One good thing is you will never have to shoot a 1911 with a trigger job that you say im wrong about, I work for myself and only my guns so only I know if what im saying was true for me or not.

I would really like to hear an update from the OP on his gun if hes gotten his gun back yet and what SA had to say and if they ever changed their tune on how they were treating him.
 
The Quote:

"You don't test for hammer follow with an empty gun."

All triggersmiths that I know of do it with an empty gun. The reasoning is that...if it won't follow when the gun is empty...it won't do it when it's feeding. Now, granted, this test is only done once or twice...but it is done. The pistol will tolerate it occasionally.
 
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