Shade tree 1911 trigger work.

[Cosmic_Charlie]

You learn pretty quickly that reducing spring weight is not all there is to it. A 19lb. hammer spring along with a quality reduced power sear spring is certainly low enough. I got my recently purchased Springfield Armory Garrison down to just under 3.5 lbs. with nice feel. Not sure what it was from the factory but i know it is much improved now. I finally got a sear jig, a simple and reasonably priced one from Ed Brown. I used the stones from a Lansky knife sharpener and they did fine following the detailed instructions on Ed Brown's website. I could do better if I had all the specialized stones for smoothing out the trigger and sear ways in the frame. There are many surfaces that have movement on a 1911 action.
This Garrison has proven to be an accurate gun, certainly on par with some of my revolvers with similar barrel lengths. Improving the trigger and sights has been very worthwhile.

[Winger Ed.]

A well tuned 1911 is a dream to shoot, and will make Stevie Wonder look good at the range.
Also, it's kind of fun to shoot against the urban commandos with their latest , fully accessorized Tupperware pistol.

[Cosmic_Charlie]

Well I certainly missed having a 1911 in the stable. Right with the world comes to mind and also that amazing appreciation of John Moses's genius. The man was like the Einstein of industrial age firearms development.

[schutzen-jager]

i have built at least 6 when parts were cheap - polished all contact surfaces, hammer + sear including side surfaces, mainspring housing, trigger bow inner + outer surfaces +frame where it contacts, disconnector + slide surface where it contacts - allcaame out with safe, creep free, lite pull with no take up slack -

[Gtek]

I started with wooden popsicle sticks and or cutting them to the correct width and glue (3M contact spray) crocus, 320, 600 wet on them to polish internals. Then go buy that fat oversized aluminum trigger and fit using black Sharpie for marking indicator to REAL sticky on 320 wet then smoooooooth with 600 wet on plate. Keeping in mind corner/edge radius can bite you, ask me how I know, break the edges before you start. If you can find small gauge wire pins and clearance check after polish using old trigger, then measure out mapping from loop top and bottom you will have ballpark on new. Top, bottom, top, bottom, ooh a little more top, now some more bottom, checking all four corners, tedious yes but when your done no up and down wiggle. Then ooooo-ahhhh yes! I have all the stones now and it just saves you making sticks time. The 1911 can be a marvelous/frustrating thing.

[45_Colt]

Don't forget to check the operation of the thumb safety. Trigger work changes the sear/hammer relationship which also changes how the thumb safety interacts with the sear.

At times it is required to replace & fit a new safety. On rare occasions a little peening takes care of it.

45_Colt

[376Steyr]

After performing your trigger work, I recommend starting testing with one live round chambered and a dummy round in the magazine. I found out about "doubling" the hard way.

[Cosmic_Charlie]

The 1/4" x 1/4" fine india stone from Norton works well for deburring the hammer hooks followed by a ceraminc stone for some polish. A light touch here for sure. After that it is all about the primary sear angle which the Ed Brown jig handles nicely. The jig comes with an 0.020" feeler gage "shim" that you rest the stone on. This is the fine adjustment ( there is a set screw that the sear foot rests against that is a rather coarse adjustment and I screwed mine in about 1/8 of a turn. I think it would be handy to have a 0.010" feeler gage for a final adjustment once you are in the ball park.

[DougGuy]

Any time you work over the top of the existing sear, the bottom or foot moves away from the lug on the thumb safety that keeps it from moving far enough to discharge the gun. Putting the gun back together while temporarily leaving out the grip safety will allow you to view the engagement of the thumb safety and the lower part of the sear.

With the thumb safety engaged, pulling the trigger will let you see any movement in the sear. I have had factory guns that would allow a surprising amount of movement, but still wouldn't fire the gun. One I had to actually TiG weld some filler metal back onto the lug and refit it. There was enough movement in the sear to be scary!

[Cosmic_Charlie]

My thumb safety works as it did before I stoned the sear. No sear movement with the safety engaged. Shot about 50 rds. with it this morning and all is well. Got a pleasing "send it" break now.