Hello All. Questions about lightening trigger pull on Taurus PT 92 AF

[Nickodemus]

This is my first post on this forum, I would like to thank all of you for taking your time to help out other people on sites like this one. I enjoy a professional response and look forward to gaining some knowledge from you all.

I am looking for someone to give me advice who has owned, worked on, or otherwise has credible experience with working in triggers of the Berretta 92F or Taurus PT 92 AF pistols.

I am in posession of a Taurus PT 92 AF 9mm Para. Serial no. L 074XX.
The handgun is completely stock. I was loaned this pistol to enjoy at the range and try to get some smithing done on it. Since my girlfriend and I enjoy shooting together and have bought a nice collection of guns, her father asked if I could use this one and get the trigger pull lightened for him, at his expense.

I would like to do something nice for him, and I thought maybe I could do above and beyond for this small favor, and just give it back to him around the holiday season and tell him it was on me.

Primarily I want to get the trigger pull lightened. This is the only thing he requested, besides me to burn up some 9mm with it. Specifically lightening the single action. Double action is heavy but feels safe and OK. The single action is reasonably smooth and short, but feels heavy. I don't have a scale on it and am just going by feel comparing it to other guns with known trigger pull weight, and it feels like it is between 4-7lbs. I would like it to feel about half that, around 2.5-3lbs. I already field stripped and removed the grips, then blew some gun scrubber through the trigger mechanisms, after that I lightly oiled them. That didn't seem to help, it was clean to start with. I wonder if I can buy some replacement Beretta 92F springs with lighter tension to achieve what I want? Or do I need to get it to a competant smith to go polishing on it or something? OR- am I stuck with what I have?

I thought it would be nice to replace these pretty but useless smooth wood grips with some houge or pachmayer ones. Any suggestions as to one over the other with this particular model handgun? I own both but on 1911 and sig, they both seem fine in my grip.

I see that there is a recoil buffer for the Beretta 92F, would this fit in the Taurus? Is it worth it, is there any noticable difference? Since it's not broken I am not inclined to fix it, however I am open to hear what you all think.

Last I thought if I was feeling really generous, getting him somehow set up on this thing with adjustable tritium sights. The rear looks like it could be drifted out, however it would have to somehow attach to the front sight. I may not do this because it could be cost prohibative (ie: more then pistol cost ) and I don't think it would be good to do anything that was not reversible. Just because it is not mine.

I hope you are not sensative to misspelling. Thanks for helping out.

 

[ktd]

The Taurus was one of the first pistols I ever owned, and was a good shooter.

One of the first things I did was have a Trapper bullseye spring kit installed. The springs are lighter than factory, but were still reliable. So the trigger pull was lighter, but it needed a lot of shooting for the double action to smooth out. The single action break on this design is pretty crisp, so it was pretty good from the start, and most of your shooting is going to be single anyway. There was a good article on how to do that yourself about ten years ago in Peterson's handguns. I still have it if you want a copy. Gunsmith wise it is not hard to do, but you need one very annoying to get punch (you have to grind down a small one into an even smaller one), a pretty handy person can do it themselves if they are comfortable, I just had a local gunsmith do it. Find a gunsmith who knows how to work on Beretta M92/M9 and they should be able to do it. If you wanna spend the money you can get one of several "service pistol" gunsmiths to work on it, use the search function in this forum to find them.

Grips are personal, use whichever one you like, personally, I like the pachmayrs, but had to replace them every couple of years because they wear fairly quick and I used to carry it a lot.

The recoil buffer should fit with little or no fitting. The pistol is a decent design mechanically so I personally would not bother too much, though some buffer setups are designed to reduce felt recoil, which may help the old man. I use mine with light reloads and have probably put 10000 rounds with no real issues. If shooting is going to be a couple hundred rounds a year or something I would not bother.

The front sight is the stickler, and on the older 92s, is also a very low front sight. There are some sights that are add-ons, like the Millett that pins over it, and I guess you can have the front sight ground off and a new one dovetailed like on some Berettas.

As far as adjustable rears, most of the drop ones are so-so, I would suggest everyone shoot it, and if it shoots close enough, don't fix it.

For tritium, you usually need to send the slide in so they can install it on the front. Rather than tritium, I would suggest the fiber optic sights. Those use ambient light rather than providing their own. Many people really like them for recreational or poor eyesight shooting. They work great in bright light, and good in indoor ranges. Also cheaper. Tritium is more of a bad light, defensive situation sight.

Some people have issues with Taurus quality, but their 92/99 have usually been good guns, and one of the better buys for a starter piece.

k

 

[Nickodemus]

Alright KTD, I appreciate the info. I think I may end up mail ordering a spring kit like the one you mentioned, and then taking the pistol to a smith. I found with most of with these guys here, at least if you order what you need yourself you get the work done a lot sooner (presuming you ordered right ). I am tempted to go at it myself, but am not fond of working on small parts with springs.

After that I am thinking all I will do is install some pachmayers and maybe paint the front site. I could then just buy him a couple mags.

 

[ktd]

The springs are easy, it is the fracking roll pins that are the big pain, especially the one in the safety. heh, my front sight wore my girlfriends most obnoxious nail polish for many years, and it worked great.

Brownells or maybe Midway will have a spring kit.

 

[berettaman]

Follow the link to this site and order a D spring.
http://www.olhasso.com/beretta
It'll be about 4bucks. When it arrives,remove the grips,remove the pin that holds the hammer cap/lanyard loop in.Swap out the spring and reassemble.
Two minute job.
You can also use a 16lb 1911 MSH spring.just about the same as the D spring.
Or clip 2 coils off the existing hammer spring.

 

[Nickodemus]

If I can get away with not replacing all the springs so much the better. Is this the one:



It looks to me like you have to overcome this ones tension to fire. I don't know how the whole trigger mechanism operates though, so please inform.

 

[ktd]

That is the trigger return spring, it makes sure that the trigger resets forward after you pull it back. It is not really that strong, so it cannot be reduced too much, and does not add too much to the trigger pull anyway. My old spring kit had a replacement for it, but looking at current kits in Brownells, they look mostly like they just replace the mainspring like berettaman recommends. The mainspring is what is going to work against you the most in the trigger pull, especially the double action. In single action, I would think the sear mechanism would play a greater role as well.

You could just have the mainspring replaced and see what happens I guess. It is not that hard or expensive. If that does not fix it, then you probably have some sear grittiness or something, and probably want a gunsmith to smooth the hammer/sear/trigger bar parts.

Or you could just shoot it a lot.

k

 

[Steve C]

This is a file I'd saved from another site on doing a trigger job on a Beretta 92 and the same principles should apply to the Taurus 92 which is a licensed copy of the Beretta with minor modifications.
BerettaTriggerJob.pdf

 

[berettaman]

Please remember that if you are not very mechanically minded and very very carefull or experienced in polishing the hammer and sear,and change the angle of the surfaces,you will have a dangerous and probably non functioning gun.Just replace the main hammer spring and you will be OVERLY IMPRESSED with the difference.

 

[ktd]

I would second that advice on doing your own stonework, especially when one is not experienced in messing with that and especially when someone else is going to use the pistol.

k

 

[Nickodemus]

OK thanks for all the info guys.

I am going to try and replace the main hammer spring.

I was thinking about the sear/hammer polishing. I am not going to touch it, unless for some unnatural reason the spring mod does not do it for me. If I do go after the sear, I thought maybe I could use steel wool and then some never dull, just to clean it off and polish it up. I do not want to use a dremel or even very fine grit sand paper for fear of taking off to much metal. I still haven't seen those parts in this pistol, so if I remove them and the finish is real rough I will just look into getting a new sear/hammer. It is most likely that all I am going to do is the spring.

So, from berrettaman I know I can get the spring from this site: http://www.olhasso.com/beretta/parts.htm It is part HS-001 right?

I want to try and save on shipping, so could any of you suggest a site where I could get the rubber grip and also some high visability sight paint? Color is kind of a personal choice, but I am open for opinions - Do you usually do different colored front and rear? What is a good color scheme to use for shooting at paper, and possible but not probable use as a defense pistol.

 

[ktd]

Go to Brownells or Midway. They have a bunch of gunsmith and shooting accessories. But getting that hammer and stuff out will be a pain though due to the roll pins.

Sight color really depends. For straight target shooting in good light or well lit targets, black works great, but when in shadows a bright color is often preferred, and is traditionally red. In the old days, three dots were white. Most of the fiber optic/tritium these days is green. If you are undecided, pick up one of the multi color kits and figure it out for yourself.

k

 

[Nickodemus]

OK grip and spring are ordered. While I was at it I ordered another mag for the Sig. I think I will use some of my girlfriend's nailpolish on the sight, that way if he doesn't like it he can scratch it off, and I have ohh so many colors to choose from

I will let you know if I have trouble with installing the spring and need some help. Thank you for your input.

 

[Nickodemus]

The pachmeyer signature grip is great, I really like it. The D-spring cleared my bank account on 10/27/06, but I haven't gotten it in the mail or any shipping information yet.

 

[ktd]

funny thing, my buddy just asked me about the trigger return spring on the beretta last night, while my old bullseye spring kit had a direct replacement for it, there are companies (I forget which) that make a widget replacement for it. Looking at it, it looks like it is meant to make the trigger return smoother, and that can feel like a lighter pull I guess.

He eventually decided not to mess with it, we are both armourers but dislike working on the beretta/taurus, they are like the italian sports cars of the pistol world, nice pistols, run great, but intricate and not the easiest to tinker with. Fieldstripping is easy, but detail takedown is a pain and requires special tools.

The mainspring should be easy though. Be sure to let us know how it works out.

k

 

[Nickodemus]

I got emailed back and the spring should be on its way in the mail. Hopefully it will install easily and make a noticable difference.

 

[Nickodemus]

My mainspring came in the mail today!

Something I noticed - If this horizontal bar in the center of the photo is allowed to lift off the pistol frame, the trigger will not engage and drop it for the single action sometimes. I noticed this happening and thought it was because I had the new grip screwed too tight at the top and it made too much friction for that bar to move. I lossened the screw a bit and it got better but it still happens. Any suggestions to fix this?


To replace the mainspring I tried to knock out this pin, but I don't have the right size punch yet. I tried tapping it while putting pressure on the lanyard loop also. No sucess, I set it down so I won't scratch it up and can take my time later. These two photos show both sides of the pin. Should I get a replacement for it and force it out or am I doing this wrong?

 

[berettaman]

The roll pin can sometimes be reused if you dont have to beat on too hard to get it out.This being said,if it is buggered after removing it I'd replace it with a solid pin.The grip pannels cover the ends of the hole so just as long as the pin is sturdy,it doesn't have to be a roll type pin.Beretta used to use roll type pins but they have changed to solid pins.On a Beretta usually just by depressing the lanyard loop and shakeing the gun,the pin will fall out.

 

[Nickodemus]

Do you know where I can buy the right size pin to replace it? Is it a specific mail order part or do I stand a chance at the hardware store?

 

[jon_in_wv]

Nick I've heard that the main spring can be replaced with a spring from a 1911 commander or officers model I don't know which. Supposedly this reduces trigger pull dramatically. Also I believe that if you sand away a little on the back of the grip panel near where it conatacts the drawbar that should allow you to tighten your grip down without interference. I'm guessing on that one though. If you can't get it fixed, its obviously junk. Email me and I'll give you my address so you can send it to me for disposal.

 

[Nickodemus]

I have the "D" spring. I just am not getting the pin out without using enough force to deform it.

 

[berettaman]

You can try the hardware store but better yet,just get a drill bit the correct size and use the shank of the bit.Cut it to size,insert it and bob's your uncle.

 

[Nickodemus]

Good idea, I have everything I need to do that. Thanks!

 

[Nickodemus]

Thank you, specifically Berettaman and KTD. I have sucessfully installed the the D-spring. It was a little shorter then the stock mainspring. The trigger pull felt gritty the first few times but is fine now. I would say the pull went from heavy to moderate from changing that spring. I am happy with it. I just got done cleaning it up and conditioning the metal. It feels great with the lighter pull and the new grip. I put a dab of red nail polish on the front sight and I am done with it. Thanks again for your help.

 

[ktd]

If this horizontal bar in the center of the photo is allowed to lift off the pistol frame, the trigger will not engage and drop it for the single action sometimes.

I do not quite understand your wording, but that is the trigger bar (or stirrup), peope who think they know better say that you can discharge the firearm by pushing on it, but I have never gotten it to do that. There is a lot of leverage in that linkage, so I doubt the grips could cause enough friction to stop it, especially the pachmayrs. It is however, held in by the grips, and without the grips can slide in and out at the trigger pin. If the linkage at the back is off a bit, it does tend to mess up the linkage, but that is hard to tell from your pics (they seem a bit fuzzy). Look at the spring, it fits into little recesses in the frame at the bends, make sure it is in there good. Look at the back end of the trigger bar, and make sure it is in whatever track it is supposed to be in.

also, I do not remember with the Beretta/Taurus, but mainsprings are best worked on with the pistol uncocked.

k