1911 hammer follow, freedom ventures saves the day

Shanks4300

Shanks4300

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Picked up a used Spartan 9mm, got it today, was excited for two minutes until I realized the hammer follows the slide into battery 9 times out of ten when racked. If I rack the slide by holding the butt of the gun below the grip safety (ie, not engaging the safety), the hammer resets properly. If i #### the hammer manually, it stays back.

All the safeties function on the gun and it feeds, extracts and everything else. Just a small issue of potential full auto 1911 fun.

Someone has done a trigger job, the box says "3lb trigger done" on a label on one end, what could have been done wrong to cause the grip safety to not allow the hammer to reset?

Yes, I've talked to the seller, he claims he put 50 flawless rounds through it and then parked it in the safe til he sold it to me. He won't refund, says I should talk to the previous owner about the trigger job so I'm out of luck on that end.

Could a screwed up sear spring be the cause of this, or would you mess with the disconnect or in some way to lighten the trigger? With the hammer cocked I pushed like h3ll on it and the hammer doesn't move, so it holds ok.

Thanks in advance.
 
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Someone tried to get too light a pull. A final test should always be to release the slide with the grip safety depressed, and the hammer must not fall. Find a competent 1911 smith and have him correct either the three leaf spring pressures or the engagement angles on sear and hammer. They can only be set properly with the appropriate jigs and stones.
Dr Jim
 
Sounds like a hammer/sear issue, possibly from the trigger job? Another possible cause or combination of problems could be how they tweaked the leaf spring or grip safety.

First thing I'd recommend is to do a complete strip, clean and reassemble to see if the problem persists. If it does and you're not too familiar working with 1911s, I suggest taking it to a qualified 'smith and have them fix it for you.

Sounds like the seller is one stand-up guy and the primary reason why I won't buy used guns from people I don't know.
 
Shanks4300 said:
Someone has done a trigger job, the box says "3lb trigger done" on a label on one end, what could have been done wrong to cause the grip safety to not allow the hammer to reset?
Click to expand...
I bought a Spartan from Armco a few years ago and I seem to remember that he had written something like that on the box...although mine worked fine. You may wish to contact him.

Shanks4300 said:
Yes, I've talked to the seller, he claims he put 50 flawless rounds through it and then parked it in the safe til he sold it to me. He won't refund, says I should talk to the previous owner about the trigger job so I'm out of luck on that end.
Click to expand...
The thing is, the seller is the "previous owner" of the pistol as far as you're concerned and to me he has the responsibility to ensure that the pistol works correctly, as long as it hasn't been modified. He's being a little unfair on this one.
 
Master-G said:
The thing is, the seller is the "previous owner" of the pistol as far as you're concerned and to me he has the responsibility to ensure that the pistol works correctly, as long as it hasn't been modified. He's being a little unfair on this one.
Click to expand...

Or he's just trying to offload a defective pistol, provided the OP did nothing to the pistol of course.
 
You need a new hammer & Sear
after you have removed too much material you have removed the heat treating and any new work to fix it (without replacing parts) will not last long

I woulds also replace the 3 leaf spring at the same time
 
Could just be the 3 leaf spring - and if the seller is a regular 1911 shooter, he probably never dry dropped the slide and may have not known that the issue existed. Light triggers and dropping the slide on empty do not go together.
 
trigger jobs are a bad idea. they're usually done by someone that has no clue what they're doing and create a dangerous gun.

that's just my opinion....and I'm sure there's gonna be a ton of people that say a trigger job is mandatory on a 1911. just like stippling is mandatory on a Glock

take the gun apart and look at the hammer hooks and sear with a loupe. they're probably stoned down to barely anything holding them or they're rounded or not square to each other. also your sear spring might not have enough tension

the hammer spring could be cut or a weaker spring used. you might want to check the safety to make sure it's properly fit while you're at it....if a gunsmith can't do a proper trigger job I wouldn't trust him to fit a thumb safety neither.

you'll probably need to buy a new hammer, sear, and thumb safety since once you change those parts the geometry changes and the old thumb safety probably won't work
 
enefgee said:
Could just be the 3 leaf spring - and if the seller is a regular 1911 shooter, he probably never dry dropped the slide and may have not known that the issue existed. Light triggers and dropping the slide on empty do not go together.
Click to expand...

I never dry dropped it either, I loaded a magazine with snap caps and racked it; hammer followed. Never touched the pistol other than to pick it out of the box and check its function.

Can't get it to go into half #### either, I get the feeling it needs quite a few of its guts replaced.
 
That's probably what I'll try first, then send it out if it doesn't help. Bottomed line is that if the grip safety is engaged, the hammer follows, won't manually #### at either the full or half #### notch.
 
You need a new sear. Take the hammer out of the gun and measure the hooks. If the hammer hooks are less then .018" you will also need a hammer.
 
Dec 11/14
Turns out the pistol only needed a sear spring, plunger spring and recoil buffer. Sean fixed it up for the cost of the parts alone, didn't charge any labour. That's pretty great service in my book considering I never bought it directly from them. Should have it back soon.

Been said lots on this site but I will say it again....Freedom Ventures good. Very good.
 
I found with 1911's theyre soo easy to mess up, I just send them out if I have a safety issue. I got 2 and been running a STI internal 2.5# trigger since 2007.
 
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