1911 Trigger Bounce Questions

[Patrick Gookin]

Hey all, I've got a handfull of trigger bounce questions. A little history: the pistol is a Series 80 with God knows how many tens of thousands of rounds through it. I plan on replacing the fire control parts and fitting them myself, but I'd like to understand the error in the current fire control parts.

My hammer follows when the slide is dropped on an empty chamber (not feeding a round). It does not follow when I hold the trigger back before releasing the slide. I understand that this is caused by trigger bounce and it can be alleviated by increasing the tension on the disconnect spring and thus the trigger.

However, every now and then, even when I hold the trigger down, the hammer will follow. This does not happen every time and is difficult to re-create, but it will happen every now and then. Is this a fault with sear spring tension, the sear / hammer engagement surface, both, or neither. Or is it impossible to tell without an actual gunsmith holding it in his hands while experiencing the symptoms?

An interesting test on the internet I saw was to cock the hammer to half-cock, bring the slide back to the hammer (still at half-cock), pull the trigger, then bring the slide back into battery. When I do this, my trigger does not reset. I can't understand what is going on with my fire control parts. Can anyone help me understand what is happening inside?

 

[rehorne]

Where in NC are you. It might be a good idea to look up 1911Tuner over by Lexington way. He IS the 1911 GURU around here. He is on this board also. He should chime in soon.

Good luck with yer 1911

 

[Patrick Gookin]

I'm in Greenville, NC which is about a 3.5 hour drive. If I lived in California, I would gladly drive to NC to see him. I figured if anyone answered this thread with knowledge, it would be him.

 

[1911Tuner]

Sounds like the sear isn't resetting completely, and grabbing the tips of the hammer hooks.
It's really hard to make a call without seeing the pistol.

 

[rcmodel]

+1
I was thinking disconnector length or reset issue of some sort, maybe?

But my crystal ball is in the shop getting detailed and clearcoat buffed & waxed this week.

Sometimes stuff like this just jumps up and grabs you with the only answer, with the gun in your hand.

But this could be one of a lot of things, or a combination of several without putting paw prints on it..

BTW: I sometimes like to Coonfinger them while pondering the problem too.
It helps, me at least.


rc

 

[Patrick Gookin]

Gotcha, I'm never really sure what to expect when I post something on the forums. I'm new to this all, so I never know if it's a common issue that everyone knows about, or if its something more like this thread where it's impossible to tell without eyeballing it. Anyway, thanks for the time guys.

 

[RogersPrecision]

Sounds like it might be related to your sear spring.
I like a minimum of 1.5lbs of trigger reset weight.

 

[1911Tuner]

Patrick said:

It does not follow when I hold the trigger back before releasing the slide. I understand that this is caused by trigger bounce and it can be alleviated by increasing the tension on the disconnect spring and thus the trigger.

However, every now and then, even when I hold the trigger down, the hammer will follow.

 

[1911Tuner]

The sear spring is probably involved, but his intermittent problem...following with the trigger pulled and held...removes the sear spring and disconnect from the equation.

That's the one that'll be tough to nail down without seeing the pistol.
Maybe somethin' simple. Maybe not so simple.