Well tonight I decided it was time to play with the 1911 trigger a little.
<span style="font-weight: bold">
First and foremost a list of what tools I had</span>
-Ed Brown Sear Jig
-Ed Brown Sear
-RIA factory sear
-RIA Hammer
-Ed Brown Hammer
-RIA factory sear spring
-Ed Brown Hardcore Sear Spring
- 6"x1/4"x1/4" India fine stone (square)
-Brownells 1911 Auto Hammer Slot Stone
Total money spent was probably around <span style="font-weight: bold">200 bucks</span> when all was said and done
<span style="font-weight: bold">Some initial thoughts, observations, and prefaces:</span>
-The factory RIA trigger is not bad, but it damn sure ain't good.
-I have spent countless hours researching, watching, and talking to 1911 smiths about trigger jobs and the proper angles and how to go about doing it.
-The directions that come with the Ed Brown Sear Jig are very helpful and easy to understand. The kit comes preset from Ed Brown and includes a .020 shim.
-The RIA has some terrible tool marks inside and when looking at it, the sear was not making full contact with the hammer hooks, the hammer hooks were almost double the height of the shim, so they were close to .040 tall. The trigger pull was long and what I would guess about 6.5 pounds.
-The trigger bow and shoe were binding in their raceways, a quick polish of the trigger bow and trigger raceway (and I mean quick, you only want to remove the burrs) allowed the trigger to remain fairly tight in there and freely move.
-My initial idea was to see how bad I could tear up the RIA sear first
so I would have a back up and a learning experience.....the plan the whole time was to install the Ed Brown parts, so I was ok with not being able to do it right on the RIA parts
<span style="font-weight: bold">Actual Work</span> (sorry I don't have any pretty pictures as I was kind of in the zone while doing this)
-First you want to disassemble the pistol all the way down, and take the sear and sear pin and install them in the jig. They go with the rear of the sear (part that sits facing the muzzle) down along the angle of the jig. Once installed you want hold firm pressure against the bottom of the sear so it is sitting tight against the set screw.
-Take the .020 shim and put some oil on the jig itself to allow the shim to slide freely and to kind of hold it against the jig
-Place your stone flat on the face of the sear, and keep even firm pressure against the stone and go back and forth (i like to make the stone cut on the forward stroke) also if the sear is sitting lower than the shim, throw it away as it is to short to be used any further
-After a few strokes of the stone, take a look at the sear and see how its coming and see where material is being removed and polished (my RIA sear was higher on one side than the other)
-Keep stoning it until you have a full 100% polished surface that is even and without tool marks
-Once you have this accomplished you must stone the relief cut, the relief cut is supposed to take up about 30% or 1/3rd of the primary angle
-I did this by hand and with my calibrated eyeball and magnifying glass, got to that 1/3rd of the primary angle
-Now onto the hammer hooks, as I said earlier they were almost double the height they should have been
-I took the same fine India square India stone and laid it flat across the hooks and made sure there was full parallel contact with the top of the hooks, took them down to where the hammer hooks and shim were even in height
-After I got them to the right height, its time to polish the surface that interfaces with the sear....now keep in mind you want to keep this angle at a perfect 90 degree angle....for this I used a Brownells 1911 Auto Hammer Slot Stone as it has a sharp 90 degree angle specifically designed for this task
-After I polished this and was satisfied with my work, i took the magnifying glass, a blue sharpie marker and marked the sear primary angle
-I put the hammer and sear together and worked them like the would interact in the gun and was looking for almost full removal of the sharpie (which I got after a few cycles)
-Now I reinstalled the sear/disconnector/hammer/sear spring/and MSH back into the gun....I purposefully left the grip safety out so I could make sure that the safety was still blocking any sear movement when I put it back in the gun
-Once I was sure that the safety still functioned like it should, I completely reassembled the gun and dry fired it to see if I was satisfied with the trigger pull, it was a tad to light for my liking as I may have gone a little far with bending the sear spring (bend it towards the sear for heavier pull, away from the sear for lighter and as a side note, I was told that you want the sear arm and disconnector arm to be as one when you look at if from the side.
-After I got the sear spring back to where I wanted it and reassembled the pistol and function checked it and was satisfied with its performance it was time to head to the range
-My local range stays open until 9 PM and I decided it was a good of time as any to test fire it.....loaded up the truck with said pistol and 400 rounds about 100 of those already pre-loaded. Got to the range and not a soul in sight (just the way I like it) proceeded to fire all 400 rounds and not a single problem with said trigger job
-I am thoroughly impressed with the RIA now after this little surgery, this seemed like a very daunting task while I was researching it but after doing it, it just takes some understanding, balls, and patience. I was so impressed with the RIA factory parts (after working them over) that I have decided to leave them in there until they start to go tits up on me at which time I will replace them with the Ed Brown internals
<span style="font-weight: bold">Closing Thoughts:</span>
-Doing a 1911 trigger job will save you no money over sending it to a smith, but it is pretty rewarding once its all said and done and working correctly
-The voodoo of working on a 1911 is just that, voodoo (its nothing that any person with a decent IQ and the right tools and understanding couldn't do)
-I know see why the 1911 smiths charge what they do for these pistols, its a lot of little cuts and polishing here, reassemble, test said part, disassemble and repeat
My post was in no way meant to be a guide to trigger jobs for the 1911, just my experience and hopefully gives some of you the courage to mess with it and see what you can do.....but please under no circumstance should you try this yourself if you do not feel you can do it or do not have the right tools (and no a Dremel and file ain't gonna cut it
) Keep in mind that if you have a so-so understanding of this you will more than likely be throwing away parts because you have made them useless.
Hope you guys enjoy my little write up....comments, concerns, f-yous??????
<span style="font-weight: bold">
First and foremost a list of what tools I had</span>
-Ed Brown Sear Jig
-Ed Brown Sear
-RIA factory sear
-RIA Hammer
-Ed Brown Hammer
-RIA factory sear spring
-Ed Brown Hardcore Sear Spring
- 6"x1/4"x1/4" India fine stone (square)
-Brownells 1911 Auto Hammer Slot Stone
Total money spent was probably around <span style="font-weight: bold">200 bucks</span> when all was said and done
<span style="font-weight: bold">Some initial thoughts, observations, and prefaces:</span>
-The factory RIA trigger is not bad, but it damn sure ain't good.
-I have spent countless hours researching, watching, and talking to 1911 smiths about trigger jobs and the proper angles and how to go about doing it.
-The directions that come with the Ed Brown Sear Jig are very helpful and easy to understand. The kit comes preset from Ed Brown and includes a .020 shim.
-The RIA has some terrible tool marks inside and when looking at it, the sear was not making full contact with the hammer hooks, the hammer hooks were almost double the height of the shim, so they were close to .040 tall. The trigger pull was long and what I would guess about 6.5 pounds.
-The trigger bow and shoe were binding in their raceways, a quick polish of the trigger bow and trigger raceway (and I mean quick, you only want to remove the burrs) allowed the trigger to remain fairly tight in there and freely move.
-My initial idea was to see how bad I could tear up the RIA sear first
<span style="font-weight: bold">Actual Work</span> (sorry I don't have any pretty pictures as I was kind of in the zone while doing this)
-First you want to disassemble the pistol all the way down, and take the sear and sear pin and install them in the jig. They go with the rear of the sear (part that sits facing the muzzle) down along the angle of the jig. Once installed you want hold firm pressure against the bottom of the sear so it is sitting tight against the set screw.
-Take the .020 shim and put some oil on the jig itself to allow the shim to slide freely and to kind of hold it against the jig
-Place your stone flat on the face of the sear, and keep even firm pressure against the stone and go back and forth (i like to make the stone cut on the forward stroke) also if the sear is sitting lower than the shim, throw it away as it is to short to be used any further
-After a few strokes of the stone, take a look at the sear and see how its coming and see where material is being removed and polished (my RIA sear was higher on one side than the other)
-Keep stoning it until you have a full 100% polished surface that is even and without tool marks
-Once you have this accomplished you must stone the relief cut, the relief cut is supposed to take up about 30% or 1/3rd of the primary angle
-I did this by hand and with my calibrated eyeball and magnifying glass, got to that 1/3rd of the primary angle
-Now onto the hammer hooks, as I said earlier they were almost double the height they should have been
-I took the same fine India square India stone and laid it flat across the hooks and made sure there was full parallel contact with the top of the hooks, took them down to where the hammer hooks and shim were even in height
-After I got them to the right height, its time to polish the surface that interfaces with the sear....now keep in mind you want to keep this angle at a perfect 90 degree angle....for this I used a Brownells 1911 Auto Hammer Slot Stone as it has a sharp 90 degree angle specifically designed for this task
-After I polished this and was satisfied with my work, i took the magnifying glass, a blue sharpie marker and marked the sear primary angle
-I put the hammer and sear together and worked them like the would interact in the gun and was looking for almost full removal of the sharpie (which I got after a few cycles)
-Now I reinstalled the sear/disconnector/hammer/sear spring/and MSH back into the gun....I purposefully left the grip safety out so I could make sure that the safety was still blocking any sear movement when I put it back in the gun
-Once I was sure that the safety still functioned like it should, I completely reassembled the gun and dry fired it to see if I was satisfied with the trigger pull, it was a tad to light for my liking as I may have gone a little far with bending the sear spring (bend it towards the sear for heavier pull, away from the sear for lighter and as a side note, I was told that you want the sear arm and disconnector arm to be as one when you look at if from the side.
-After I got the sear spring back to where I wanted it and reassembled the pistol and function checked it and was satisfied with its performance it was time to head to the range
-My local range stays open until 9 PM and I decided it was a good of time as any to test fire it.....loaded up the truck with said pistol and 400 rounds about 100 of those already pre-loaded. Got to the range and not a soul in sight (just the way I like it) proceeded to fire all 400 rounds and not a single problem with said trigger job
-I am thoroughly impressed with the RIA now after this little surgery, this seemed like a very daunting task while I was researching it but after doing it, it just takes some understanding, balls, and patience. I was so impressed with the RIA factory parts (after working them over) that I have decided to leave them in there until they start to go tits up on me at which time I will replace them with the Ed Brown internals
<span style="font-weight: bold">Closing Thoughts:</span>
-Doing a 1911 trigger job will save you no money over sending it to a smith, but it is pretty rewarding once its all said and done and working correctly
-The voodoo of working on a 1911 is just that, voodoo (its nothing that any person with a decent IQ and the right tools and understanding couldn't do)
-I know see why the 1911 smiths charge what they do for these pistols, its a lot of little cuts and polishing here, reassemble, test said part, disassemble and repeat
My post was in no way meant to be a guide to trigger jobs for the 1911, just my experience and hopefully gives some of you the courage to mess with it and see what you can do.....but please under no circumstance should you try this yourself if you do not feel you can do it or do not have the right tools (and no a Dremel and file ain't gonna cut it
Hope you guys enjoy my little write up....comments, concerns, f-yous??????
