Detail stripping and trigger job fun on a Beretta 92FS

Last nite I attempted to detail strip my Beretta 92FS, and perform a trigger job on it. I ended up finishing at close to 4 o'clock in the morning. The threads over at Berettaforum.net have helped tremendously. Extra thanks to Texas guy for his videos at www.beretta92fs.com

Texasguy's videos helped me a LOT, videos are much easier to watch than looking at pictures, but even pictures from the guys at beretta-e.org.

It took me about 6 1/2 hours to finish everything, starting roughly after 10pm and finishing around 3:45am. I'm a slow learner, I also polished the sear and hammer as mentioned.

I'm surprised by how rough the hammer was. It also didn't help that I polished everything using only a cotton cloth and polishing cream. I think I'm going to have to re polish a few parts using fine grit sandpaper. There are some parts that still aren't smooth, such as the parts on the hammer and the back of the trigger bar where it meets the sear. The trigger bar was really rough, and my cloth couldn't help it at all.

I had a heck of a time trying to get that sear spring. It took an hour and a half for me to get the sear pin thru the sear spring. I tried using paper clips, bobby pin, tweezers from a swiss army knife, safety pins.... I finally got it with a push pin. It was pretty easy then.

Next was the damn trigger spring. I first found out I put it in backwards, and fixed it using the extra fine knife of my swiss army knife to get the trigger spring to ride atop the trigger bar.

Lastly, that damn mag catch. Putting it in was quite frusterating. That took about half an hour, but I think I still have no idea how to put it in. I got lucky, I doubt I'm gonna take that apart again since it was irrelevant to anything.

Oh yeah, upon being frustated trying to get the stock hammer in, I actually put the freaking hammer upside down at first. No wonder it wouldn't line up with the hammer pin hole! LOL

After putting everything together... My DA still sucks balls. Its still long and I can feel it a little gritty. My single action has lost the creep, but its still heavy as well.

I do have a D-spring coming in via Mr. Brad Taylor from www.berettacollection.com ... hopefully it comes in soon. I can't wait to see how it'll help with my trigger pull.

It did help my single action... but I doubt it did much that I could tell of my DA trigger pull. I'll have to re-polish certain parts as I mentioned earlier, and see how it goes.

...and I thought detail stripping a 1911 was difficult...

 

I've taken apart a 92FS lower half before as well, and agree it can be real tricky. It is a LOT easier if you make up some special tools to handle the springs. Get some dental picks, or go to your local auto parts store and find O-ring pullers which are basically the same thing.

 

every possible source of friction should be a mirror, wax on, wax off . and look up those diagrams on BerettaForum if it's not clear what portions of the hammer are the DA and which are the SA. The D Spring or even the Competition spring should help as well.

P.S. don't forget the Hammer Strut polishing.

 

The hammer spring is the fastest and easiest way of improving your trigger. I know the D Sping is a big deal but the Comp sping is only a 12lb 1911 sping from what I hear.

When I found out that 1911 spings would work in the Beretta, I ordered a three pack of 13lb spings and installed them. I chose 13lb because I wanted extra oomph so reliabilty woud still be 100%. They quickly improved all three gun and were reliable. One of my Berettas already had a sweet trigger that was smooth as glass but I could tell it was a little lighter after the spring swap. The other two were dramatic improvments. I have two Beretta 92G Centurions that had less than great triggers. They were heavy and not very smooth. Now they are light and feel smoother but can use a trigger job still.

I would start with a new spring and see if you are happy before tearing into any gun. Start simple and you may not have to do the more complex stuff. That is how I trouble shoot during repairs as well. A lot of times, the simple fix works fine and you don't have to drag out the gunsmithing tools.

 

I've never heard of a 13# 1911 mainspring. Are you sure you don't mean 18 or 19#?

 

Thanks guys for your insight. Just to update, I finally got my D spring in on Christmas even and installed it. Also lightly polished the hammer strut as suggested earlier.

The D spring does noticeably lighten the trigger pull in both DA and SA. My SA is still heavy however, and my DA pull is not as smooth as I'd like it. But as I stated in my original post, I only polished by hand, so the really rough parts I couldn't do much to change it except slightly smooth out the surface.

I'm not sure how to smooth out the lower portion of the hammer. Plus the hammer seemed to be finished differently than the sear. As much as I would polish the recommended portions (via hand) it didn't seem to change any.

I am happy though in the end, I got the trigger from pretty bad to acceptable. I will get some fine grit sandpaper and work on it sometime later... but it'll do for now