1911Tuner
Moderator Emeritus
Yep, Jim. A picture would be worth 10,000 bytes in this case.
Some hammers have a half-cock "shelf" instead of a full hook that captures the sear.
I did notice something interesting, however: If you pull the slide back a tiny bit (1/4") the hammer will click into position, and be unaffected by the trigger. The trigger will move, but the hammer will not fall. Thumbing the hammer further back, the half cock notch will engage, and the hammer will fall when the grip safety is depressed and trigger pulled. The half cock would still "catch" the hammer when I cocked the hammer, held the trigger, let the hammer forward, and released the trigger.
CAWalter said:Pre-travel requires the bow go further forward, or the disconnector ears can be thinned to the minimum of .030", and then the sear legs can be thinned to provide the needed pre-travel. Check by pulling to half cock and feeling the trigger, there should be a slight front to back play, which indicates enough pre-travel. Yours if not fully engaging will feel tight.
CAWalter said:Personally I set the pre-travel so when the trigger is held back and the slide forced back just enough for the hammer to engage the half cock and release the slide back to battery, the trigger must re-set when released. Many won't.
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I've read through this thread many times now and am very interested by the exchanges between CAWalter and 1911Tuner. I never miss an opportunity to learn something about the 1911, and the interaction between the trigger, sear, hammer (both notches), disconnector and sear spring in combination with over-travel and pre-travel is fascinating, albeit a little confusing. I can't stand the idea that my 1911s aren't optimized i.e. the best they can be. I don't want "good enough" ... I want "right" ... so ....
I tested my 1911s and only the Dan Wessons (Valor and V-Bob) have noticeable trigger movement with the hammer at half cock, and only the Dan Wesson triggers will reset following the procedure described in the second quote. The triggers of two Ed Browns and two Kimbers with Ed Brown sears/hammers have ZERO movement with the hammer at half cock. None of the triggers will reset following the procedure in the second quote. However, none of the six hammers will fall from half-cock if I pull the trigger with the grip safety depressed. I understand the concept that if there isn't enough pre-travel, the sear may not fully engage the half cock notch in the hammer. So basically, the half cock may work, but it's not the best it can be. I don't use the half cock "feature" so maybe I shouldn't care ... but I do. No one warned me that 1911s can cause obsessive behavior.
If the trigger bow is so long...or if the pretravel tabs set to keep the trigger back so far...that the sear won't reset to a point that will allow the half cock to be engaged...the hammer wouldn't hold full cock, either.
CAWalter said:One of the greatest values of following this thread and experimenting with your 1911s is an increased understanding of how it works and the parts relationship.
I agree 100%!! You and 1911Tuner are providing many of us with an education. This 1911 stuff isn't trivial and it does require quite a bit of thought to understand what, how, why and where. Does the amount of pre-travel have anything to do with hammer follow and why the hammer wouldn't catch on the half cock notch in the event of the hammer following the slide forward? I've read that the hammer drops all the way with hammer follow but I don't understand why it wouldn't be caught by the half cock notch since the trigger isn't depressed.
Duelist said:This is the hammer...don't mind the first-timer duracoat job...
So the DW disconnector ears are thicker than the EB and yet the DW triggers have slack at half cock. The half cock notch on the Ed Brown hammer is quite different (deeper) than the one on the Dan Wesson. The EB notch only contacts the sear in the center (about 1/3 of the sear width) whereas the DW notch contacts the sear across the total width of the sear. The disconnectors are different too. So is it possible that due to the geometry of the notch and/or disconnector that pre-travel may not be attainable with EB sears/hammers?
The EB notch only contacts the sear in the center (about 1/3 of the sear width)
This is the hammer...
SSN Vet said:I think your reasoning has left out a couple of significant factors
1. length of the trigger bow will affect the pre-travel
2. the various frames may have slight variations in the relative positions of the hammer pin hole, sear pin hole and trigger track.
3. The Dan Wesson parts were installed by someone who does it for a living and thus were likely "fit". I'm assuming you dropped in the EB parts.