1911 80% build issue

[philthephlier]

Hammer will fully cock and trigger will have plenty of pre-travel before engaging the disconnector. If the trigger is held back with the slide off and I depress the disconnector the sear will not reliably reset, it feels like it is catching the edge of the half cock notch and it will hold and then it will catch just enough of the hammer hooks to barely hold but not fully cock and the trigger bow appears to be touching or is very close to the disconnector with the trigger still held back. Any and all help for a newbie + will be greatly appreciated.

[philthephlier]

I was wrong.There is almost no pre-travel of the trigger in either condition. I have read that I need .040" of pretravel. I assume that means when the hammer is fully cocked. So I need to open up the trigger slot in the frame quite a bit. Best way to do this?

[cwheel]

When I was doing these in the mid 70's was getting my parts kits from Sarco and had a load of fitting problems with their out of spec parts. If you are sure the frame is machined to the print, suspect the parts first. All turned out well on mine, but not without changing out several parts to get a basic fit. Biggest offenders were the disconnector, sear and thumb safety. Was amazed how much hand fitting was required. Finally got it down and when mine was done and tested my son made one on the same tooling with our milling machine. Would highly recommend you get a copy of The Colt .45 Automatic by Jerry Kuhnhausen, most of the fitting issues covered very well in his book, good reference later on. More than 10K rounds fired so far in mine. Buy the book, you will wonder how you have got by with out it so far. Pay attention to the section on fitting the disconnector, had mine go full auto before I got it right. Never load more than 2 rounds in the gun until the disconnector proves, one in the barrel, one in the mag. Fun project, enjoy, we did.
Chris

[philthephlier]

This is a Tactical Machining frame. They are new at the 80% frames. I don't know how long they have been making the whole frame. The FCG parts are the Tactical II hammer, sear, and disconnector from Cylinder and Slide. I used these parts in a SA GI model and they worked flawlessly in that gun. I have the book already and I think I have the issue diagnosed. I am wondering what the best way is to remove metal from the frame near the trigger guard to get the pre-travel I need.