1911 trigger job

[alexs]

I bought a new SA 1911 longslide. The trigger was exceptionally bad, not smooth at all and I'll guess 7++ lb. pull on the trigger. I followed on line suggestiond on improving it and now have a muuuuuch smoother, much crrrisper and much lighter trigger that now measures a light 4.5 lbs. If it stops here I won't complain. But If possible I'd like to get it better. I brought the hammer notch to .0020, snipped 2 1/2 coils off the hammer spring, pilished most everything with #600 then polish and a dremmil. Any advise where to go from here? What I particularly had difficulty with is polishing the groove where the trigger bow slides, especially in the corners.
Don't laugh, but the best thing I found for this groove was folding a crisp line in #600 wet/dry paper and wraping a small piece of square cornered wood. I used a cut down paint sturring stick. This is very tedious and doesn't get in the corners well. Please give me a better idea.

Alex

[Paradiddle]

Are you in the LA area? If so have this guy do your trigger. He's a 1911 god - one of the last ones from the old days.

Jim Hoag
8523 Canoga Ave.
Canoga Park, CA
818-998-1510

He did a fantastic job on my Colt.

Jeff

[Mikeb]

etter. I brought the hammer notch to .0020,

Alex

I hope you misplaced a decimal point...
Mike

[B Strong]

I bought a new SA 1911 longslide. The trigger was exceptionally bad, not smooth at all and I'll guess 7++ lb. pull on the trigger. I followed on line suggestiond on improving it and now have a muuuuuch smoother, much crrrisper and much lighter trigger that now measures a light 4.5 lbs. If it stops here I won't complain. But If possible I'd like to get it better. I brought the hammer notch to .0020, snipped 2 1/2 coils off the hammer spring, pilished most everything with #600 then polish and a dremmil. Any advise where to go from here? What I particularly had difficulty with is polishing the groove where the trigger bow slides, especially in the corners.
Don't laugh, but the best thing I found for this groove was folding a crisp line in #600 wet/dry paper and wraping a small piece of square cornered wood. I used a cut down paint sturring stick. This is very tedious and doesn't get in the corners well. Please give me a better idea.

Alex

Alex, I don't mean this as a flame, but I'm not in any way a fan of DIY trigger jobs.

More 1911's end up in the care of a 'smith because of diy monkey business than go there intentional for modification.

Ask any 'smith working on 1911's what their pet peeve is, and it isn't that they're losing money because the diy works so well, it's the pieces that come in the door that need a new hammer amd sear because some guy read an article and thought he was a pistol smith, and went to work.

Take your longslide to Jim Hoag and get the thing set up right.

[SuperTwinz]

Alan Tanaka also does really good work:

AT Custom Gun Works
atcustom@atcustomgunwork.com
17924 South Hobart Blvd
Gardena, CA 90248
310-327-2721
310-327-4641 FAX

[bigcalidave]

Sounds like you took the time to learn how to do it right and are happy with how it turned out. Good work ! I have been teaching myself as well. I've done triggers and polishing and finish work on all my guns now. I learned a lot and I'm learning more. Don't listen to people telling you that you can't do something. Once I learned how everything worked and how to quickly and properly disassemble everything I found that I could feel where the issues were. If something was gritty I could tell exactly what was going on and stone and polish it. You might try very slowly pulling the slide, pulling back the hammer, pulling the trigger. Identify each part moving as you do it. You can find more places to work on. A crisp 4 lb trigger is nice and safe. I personally like a trigger around there on handguns. My 10/22 now has a 2 to 3 lb trigger and its plenty light.