hammer spring tension

S

Sharps '63

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I trained my wife to thumb #### the spur hammer on her R1 prior to inserting a mag and chambering the first round. This way she doesn't have to fight both the recoil and hammer spring tensions. She does this well.

Then she acquired a brace of SR1911's with the ring hammer and finds cocking the hammer difficult. Same for her GSG 1911. Hell- so do I! All my 1911's have spur hammers and will continue to wear them, including my tricked out Gold Cup.

I'm considering lopping off a few coils from the hammer spring. Is there a rule of thumb to apply here before ignition becomes erratic? I'll likely start with the GSG to see what spring tension will reliably ignite .22 RF ammo.

BTW - her first SR1911 came with a wide safety lever that has a 90* corner on it's rear edge. I rest my right thumb on it and find that it's very annoying. Her more recent SR1911 has a slimmer profile 'tactical' configuration like that on my Swenson and Ed Brown safeties. Looks like Ruger got some customer feed back and made a mod.

Right now it's moot as her first gun wears a Kimber tactical ambi and a second one is on order for her back up.
 
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Careful ....

Changing the tension on a 1911 type hammer spring could be a problem. "lopping" off a couple of coils will change the tension on the sear / hammer combination and may inadvertently result in sear "slippage" and cycle fire issues, eg doubles, etc. The better alternative is to have a good gunsmith setup the hammer spring tension, sear leaf spring tension and disconnector leaf spring tension as a whole package, ensuring no cycle firing.

Just my two cents .....
 
That's what I'm thinking - a couple of coils at a time. I agree with subvet49, but I've also had issues with some 'professional' tuning and gunsmithing over the years. That led me to shooting a lot of guns basically stock.
While not exactly an apples and oranges comparison, I've noticed in CAS that the guns I see gibble up most often are those that have been "tuned", which really translates to a lot of accelerated wear and over polishing on parts that would have worn in quite nicely on their own.

Hitzy said:
2 coils....that's what I usually do instead of replacing with a 19# spring...I'm cheap lol
Click to expand...
 
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