1911 trigger improvement questions...

[KurtM]

"Every time a 1911 owner f***s around with his gun to make it "better", a gunsmith gets his wings."

Not too sure about that one. I know quite a few 1911 owners that aren't gunsmiths that do incredibly good trigger work as well as very good 1911 building, fitting, and modifying. Rob Leatham, Bruce Piatt, Jerry Miculek, Benny Cooley, Sterling White, Miller brothers, Brian Enos, etc.....none are gunsmiths and yet all can produce a very reliable 2# trigger weight that outlasts the barrel.

 

[SPDguns]

Ya gotta be careful- A full auto 1911 is fun if it's on purpose. A full auto 1911 accidentally- not so much.
I will rarely stone the sear/hammer hook a customer's gun. If they go home and do something stupid, they are gonna blame me that I made it unsafe blahblahblah. I'm a fan of quality drop in parts and then tuning them.
FWIW........

 

[KurtM]

Don't blame you there for customer Gunsmithing! There are a few makers parts I will stone and fit, but that list is fairly short, and it isn't for others.

 

[Fr Mulcahy]

Ya gotta be careful- A full auto 1911 is fun if it's on purpose. A full auto 1911 accidentally- not so much.
I will rarely stone the sear/hammer hook a customer's gun. If they go home and do something stupid, they are gonna blame me that I made it unsafe blahblahblah. I'm a fan of quality drop in parts and then tuning them.
FWIW........

Sometimes you have to stone the sear to fix it. We have a Les Baer 1911 that has the two halves of the frame misaligned by a few thousands of an inch. The manufacturer wouldn't help, and about six gunsmiths at Camp Perry tried to fix it. We ended up stoning the sear and it works great.

 

[Hooper]

Good advice.

We have been very lucky to take eight weeks of 1911 classes with Rick Kennedy at Murray State. That's one two-week class four times.

The first two-week class felt like trying to drink from a firehose. The second one started to make sense. After the third one, we felt like we had a pretty good understanding of how the 1911 works, and how to fix them.

I have seen gunsmiths just bend the sear spring to lighten the trigger pull. It can be done, but I don't recommend it. I have seen the trigger pull smooth out by just taking the 1911 apart and putting it back together. I can't tell you why it worked, but it did.

The point of this rambling post is just that I would live with a less than ideal trigger if I had no experience with a 1911 and I couldn't find a competent gunsmith. You might be ok doing it on your own. But you might not, and it only takes a small mistake in the pistol to create a big mistake coming out of the muzzle.

Awesome. I wish I were closer to Murray.
Did you see any examples of a 1911 going full auto, unexpectant?

Dan Combs a past OHP firearm instructor had a 1911 discharge while he was at the range, I do not know if it was holstered but was in the appendix area. It did a great deal of damage, he drove his self to the Hospital and survived the accident. Returned to duty and joked about it. I learned of the story from a close friend who worked with and was trained by Dan and Respected him greatly. Dan was a master with firearms, there are a few videos of him on YouTube.
He was buddies with Delf Bryce another master with a revolver and rifles, but revolver was his strong point to say the least. There are many pictures of Delf with a firearm while He trained the FBI back in the day, but no videos to my knowledge.
If you get a chance check the Dan Combs videos out. He was very fast, Delf was even faster.

 

[Gunbuffer]

"Every time a 1911 owner f***s around with his gun to make it "better", a gunsmith gets his wings."

Not too sure about that one. I know quite a few 1911 owners that aren't gunsmiths that do incredibly good trigger work as well as very good 1911 building, fitting, and modifying. Rob Leatham, Bruce Piatt, Jerry Miculek, Benny Cooley, Sterling White, Miller brothers, Brian Enos, etc.....none are gunsmiths and yet all can produce a very reliable 2# trigger weight that outlasts the barrel.

I saw the Miller Brothers in Vegas once. Tom and Dick were geniuses. I think Shecky Greene opened for them

 

[Hooper]

Not having EVER done this before, I just wanna ask a couple of questions before I screw anything up... I've only field stripped a 1911, never taken it apart past that.
I know that a proper trigger job will include attending to the sear, disconnect, trigger bow and the mainspring. Is it possible to just make adjustments to the middle leaf of the mainspring to lighten the trigger a bit, or would that one action be a waste of time without attending to the other parts?
I am a little leery about making adjustments to the sear and hammer because I def don't want to go too far on those.
should I just take it to a gunsmith and have them do a complete trigger job? Buy a drop in trigger kit and replace the factory stuff?
Thanks in advance for advice/direction!

One method to fit a 1911 sear spring​

Go to https://www.1911addicts.com/

Look at the post of ;

One method to fit a 1911 sear spring​

It is very nicely detailed with pictures, and can lead you to some info on triggers of 1911's.
It might help you decide to learn and do it yourself or not.

The guy who posts it, just seems to do a lot of research, and he will tell you if he finds out he is wrong,
and updates his info. Like some who post bad info and never retract it, Steve stays on top of his info,
He needs to put out a manual for beginner's, like us.
Hope this helps out.
know its been a while, but correct procedure is of crucial importance with arms.
Thanks Sir.

 

[Hooper]

What I do sometimes is, buy a prepped sear from Extreme Engineering and a 19 pound mainspring. Makes for a a better trigger without sacrificing reliability.

I could not find, Extreme Engineering, for gun parts, does it have some more to the name?

 

[Hooper]

Every time a 1911 owner f***s around with his gun to make it "better", a gunsmith gets his wings.

And an unsuspecting gun owner shoots his toe off. (just joking< but it do happen)

 

[C_Hallbert]

I Have three 1911s: Ruger 10mm SR1911; .45 ACP Colt Stainless Steel Series 1970; and Wilson .45ACP Combat CQB. The Colt was modified by Karl Lippard paralleling his patented 1911 .45 ACP CQB Model. The Trigger Group was replaced by Lippard with a differently designed system and, in my own humble and dubious opinion, it is so excellent and so perfect as to stand as the paragon of form and function among all Trigger Groups ever made, or that shall ever be made by man, perhaps only to be outdone on the forge by Hḗphaistos, himself! Ah, but I fear that my praise for this amazing weapon may so understated as to do it a terrible injustice. As to the others: the Wilson Combat’s factory trigger pull is short and crisp at about (4.25) lbs( no complaints); and the Ruger SR1911 was surprisingly good out of the box. Hmmmm….. Did say enough about Lippard’s work?