Travis Bickle
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
- Location
- Upper Lower Middle Alberta
Not a lot of information for complete dissasembly on the net for the TT33. Love it or hate it, she is a venerable old beast. I personally love the design. I like the size of the grip. I like how I can reach slide lock and mag release without even breaking a full firing grip on the pistol. They are not all created equal though. Many new comers to the shooting sports don't have a lot of money and are drawn to the TT33 the same reasons I was and still am: cheap to buy, cheap to feed, abundant, simple, reliable and some pretty cool history. Plus it's crazy overpowered, loud and they are quite accurate for a military pistol despite all the BS you may read on this forum...
I'll try and keep this as brief as possible but I intend to cover.
-Full Disassembly. With detailed pics to help people understand how the gun works.
-How to greatly smooth the action.
-How to smooth the trigger/sear for much cleaner break
-Tips for new shooters on choosing a TT33, holsters etc
I'll start with
FULL DISASSEMBLY:
Break the pistol down to the standard field strip
Using a punch and small hammer drive the extractor retaining pin down through the slide. (DO HAMMER ANYTHING WITH ANY FORCE. Very little force is required to drift out any pins on this pistol)
Remove the extractor and then carefully tilt the slide forward until the tiny little extractor spring fall out.
Next drift out the Firing pin retaining pin from the side with the split ends. Keep a finger over the end of the rear of the pin as it may shoot out.
Remove the firing pin, firing pin spring and retaining pin (I APOLOGIZE I DID NOT HAVE A SPARE FIRING PIN IN MY PARTS BIN FOR THIS DEMO I didn't want to strip my tuned TT33 lol)
Next look up into the left grip and find the steel lever with a notch in it. Use a screwdriver to push the lever over to the left.
Pry down on the inside of the grip gently with the driver and the grip should pop off the frame.
Look inside the space into the right grip. Use a screwdriver to rotate the retaining clip.
Tap the grip out of the frame with the screwdriver.
Next drift the magazine release button out of the mag catch from the split end pin side.
Lightly tap it through. May take slightly more force than you used up to now.
Remove the mag release, spring and mag catch.
Inside the grip push the trigger return spring to the rear of the grip and then push/pull the rear of the trigger down into the grip.
Remove the trigger and then tilt the spring forward to the front of the grip and lift the bottom of the spring out of the retaining notch in the rear of the grip.
Now the trigger group, drift out the large center pin (hammer pin) Careful as there is a large spring inside the hammer, it may fly once you drift her out so cover it with your hand.
Remove hammer and long hammer sping.
Using punch drift out the sear/sear spring combo and the trigger disconnect. If group is oriented as my pics, it's the lower left pin.
Remove the sear/spring and the disconnect.
You now have the TT33 completely stripped!
Now, your TT33 has a gritty trigger? Maybe it's brutal to rack the slide back when there is a mag in and the hammer is decocked? Maybe your magazines don't drop free when you press the mag release?
SMOOTHING THE ACTION/MAKING IT RUN REAL SMOOTH!
Note how the sear engages the spurs on the hammer. The top spur would be half ####/safety. The bottom one is the full #### and the one you're going to feel when you start squeezing the trigger.
The rear of the trigger actually physically pushes the bottom of the sear to the rear pivoting the edge of the sear away from the bottom spur on the hammer. That friction between the two surfaces and tension of the hammer spring is what makes the feel of the trigger.
The machining on these can be surprisingly rough.
So here's what we're going to do,
Using 400 and then 600 grit sandpaper, start polishing the top edge of the sear where it contacts the bottom of the hammer spur. Not filing or grinding, we are not removing steel we are just slightly polishing the surface first with 400 and then again with 600 grit. Do it until it looks shiny and smooth.
Do the same very lightly under the lower hammer spur. Just a few passes on that one.
Inspect the sear. You find that the contact surface is very rough, has burrs or both. Again use the 400/600 paper to lightly polish the surface of the sear. DO NOT USE HEAVY PRESSURE AND DO NOT ROUND ANY EDGES. You are simply poslishing/smoothing the surface of the steel.
Next take a look at the sides of the hammer.
The sides of them were it would be sitting in the frame of the trigger group. One of the big causes of a rough gritty action. If you physically #### the hammer by hand with your thumb you can tell if yours needs some work. Even if you think it doesn't do it anyway! All of these combined will drastically improve your pistol. Again with the 400/600 combo start doing circles on both sides of the lower surfaces of the hammer. Do it until the surfaces are smooth, shiny, slick and polished!
Next area is the slide. See in the pic how the bottom rear of the slide (and where) actually contacts the hammer. This is the part where they connect on the rearward travel of the slide when you rack the action manually or during firing. Take a look at the edge on that spot here! It's rough as hell and was actually sharp and jagged to the touch. There was a large rough burr on the edge where it should be a rounded smooth edge.
I lifted the hammer and you can clearly see where it was contacting the hammer face. You can see where it was cutting into the hammer. This is the main spot (along with the disconnect and under the slide we'll get to later) that it's so damn hard to draw the slide back on some TT33's and not others.
First do the 400/600 on the hammer face. You can see in the pics were the edge of the slide made some nasty gouges in the steel. It's the darker spots after the polishing.
Next flip the slide over and use a thin file to round the horrid edge off that slide where it contacts and pushes the hammer down.
I file a 45 degree into the edge with the file. Then slowly round it out with slow methodical strokes. Then hit it with 400/600 combo. Now rounded and polished and buttery smooth:
Now the disconnector. I've seen some that have a nice soft round edge/angle at the top. The slide moves rearward and contacts the top of it which then pushes the disconnector down into the frame. Do the 400/600 polish in the top of the disconnect only. If your angle is very sharp, then polish it a bit more until it's softer to the touch.
Next do the 400/600 on the bottom of the frame on the long rectangle of steel underside. These can vary from pretty smooth already to machines with a potato terrible! Years may vary!
Polish the whole underside of the slide which rides over the disconnect and the inside of the trigger group frame:
Reassemble the trigger group. Just follow the steps above in reverse order. Put the disconnector in first. Then put the sear into place. Put the spring into it's slot and then drive the pin back in.
Next put the spring up into the hammer. Put the bottom of the spring onto the cross bar, and push the hammer downward until the holes line up, drop the pin into the hole. I like to put the long prongs of the trigger frame on the edge of a table, then push the hammer down all with the right hand, when the holes line up, be quick with the pin in left hand to just pop it right in.
The mag release is simple. Place the catch in the hole on the right side of the frame, flip the pistol over so that there is a hard surface under the mag catch and tap the split ends of the pin and the spring into the hole the same as it came out.
Put the trigger spring back in the grip/frame. Then install the trigger as well.Put the trigger group into the frame also.
Now, see the disconnect on top of the frame? Hold the trigger group down with your hand and push down on the disconnector. Take a look at what's happening with the trigger as you do this. The disconnector actually physically pushes the trigger bar down.
This is the reason that some TT33's won't "drop free" the magazines when the slide is to the rear/empty magazine!
Take out your trigger again. Look inside the trigger collar, where the magazine slides up into it. Again depending on production year, the insides of these can be bent, edges can have large burrs or the machining can be very rough. Pay special attention to the rear/back of the inside of the collar as this is the area that (if very roughly made) will contact and rub the spine of the mag when the disconnect is pushing it down (slide locked to the rear on empty chamber) that's why your mags wont drop free in this state! Also can be the cause of the "gritty" feel of the initial slack/trigger pull with the old TT33!
Clamp it in a vice and go to fackin' town on the inside of that sucker with the 400/600 combo again. If it's a war production pistol I'd even take a fine file to the inside of the thing first then 400/600. Pay much attention to the inside rear like I said. Give it some extra elbow grease.
You can see in the pics how uneven the metal was inside mine after filing/polishing.
That's it! Clean it well. There is a whole bunch of fine metal powder in there now all over.
Clean it, oil it and then put some cheap grease on the rails inside the slide.
Reassemble and test it out! You will amazed at how much smoother and easier it is to draw the action, #### the hammer, insert and drop mags etc.
The trigger both initial slack and actual release of the sear should be drastically improved.
Run through the function test: Rack the action. Hold the slide to the rear, pull the trigger to the rear and release the slide, release the trigger slowly, ensure disconnector works and trigger re-engages the sear.
Pull the trigger to make sure it drops the hammer. Place the trigger at half ####, try to rack action, try to pull trigger, hammer should not drop, slide should be locked.
#### hammer to full ####.
Place an empty magazine in gun, rack the action. Ensure the empty magazine locks the slide to the rear.
Push the magazine release and ensure the magazine drops free.
Push the slide release lever and ensure the slide returns to battery.
Fire the action.
WHICH TT33'S IS FOR YOU?
There are some differences in the design through the years of the TT33. If you are a collector then you know what you're looking for already. However if you're like me and you just like shooting the s**t out of your Combloc hardware then I recommend the following on selecting a TT33 for this purpose:
- Get as late a model as you can. For a couple reasons. The maching on the wartime pistols are brutal! I'll even say it; actually some of them are terrible! The later ones can have almost professional finishes to them. It will reduce the amount of work you will need to do to make them run like butter. Always try and buy one in person so you can select a good example to start.
- Get the sharp serrated slide serrations! There a couple types of serrations on the slides on these. I've owned 3 different types. The only one that actually works is the sharp serrations similar to those on a standard USGI 1911A1. Again found on the later models I've owned. The others are just shallow divots in the slide and it's like tying to pull an oiled up I-beam with your thumb and index finger, terrible! If you have to rack the action sometimes you will grab too much of the slide and the rear sight can even cut your hand. Yes you could wear gloves but that's for pussies and you still won't be able to rack it easily! Find the small, thin sharp serrations. The example I used in this post has the bad type. It's my "parts" gun/doner gun. My pride and joy has the good type.
-Get two! Get a real good one. Later production, sharp serrations on the slide, good machining, strong bore. That's the one you do all this work to! Then buy a run of the mill whatever the hell year off the EE for as dirt cheap as possible. Strip it down to parts and keep it in a ziplock bag. The TT33 is as hard as a Russians liver but like all things made by man, they can and do fail.
The parts that I have actually broken on mine after thousands of rounds are:
Tip of the firing pin
Extractor and
Worn out Extractor spring.
That's it. I've shot crates through a couple of them over the years and have never had any single other part fail. But when they do, good luck finding parts in our s**thole gun market in this country. If you find parts it's at some shop were the smith is charging you $75 for a firing pin..... It's cheaper to just buy a whole second gun and then if anything goes, you have every single part you need. Shoot the barrel out? Just drop the new one it et al I have found them on EE for as low as $160 shipped!
HOLSTERS AND SHOOTING
After just walking around gun clubs, firing ranges with my unloaded TT33 tucked into my jeans pocket and mags in the ass pockets, I started looking into getting a holster. There aren't many. Actually there are a few but they are almost all terrible. And they are also expensive and terrible.
I ended up sick and tired of searching and wasting money and made one out of Kydex. Kydex is dirt cheap. I'll put some pics here in case anyone is looking for a starting point or ideas. I used medium thick 0.06". It works awesome. Looking at it now I would change a few things but it holds it solid enough to flip it upside down and I can draw it easily and quickly with one hand.
Hit it with some spray paint and clear coat.
So how do you carry the TT33 if you're actually going to use it on a range in a holster? Some say the TT33 does not have a safety, sure as Russia invented Communism, it does! It has a half #### safety. That being said if you chose to chamber a round and put the gun on half #### (I actually used to use this method although I physically inspected the sear and the hammer on mine disassembled). While half #### with a loaded chamber in a holster will make some prissy safety queens pass out and p**s themselves, I did not stop doing this because I had any fear of the gun or lack of confidence in the design etc It's actually just not very practical because you still have to draw it and #### the hammer with your support hand once you get it pointed away from you in a safe direction.
This is the best method I've found with a holster: Place a loaded magazine in the pistol, #### the hammer to full #### and place it in your holster.
If you need to draw (especially with your smoothed out gun now) you draw and when the pistol is half way up and in front of you with the muzzle now pointed at the ground/semi down range, rack the action and then take up the space on the grip with your support hand as you are starting to push the pistol out to engage your target board. It's surprisingly quick once you practice and put it into a fluid motion. I've heard tactical armchair experts on here call this the "Israeli Draw" I don't know if that's what it is. Meh whatever, it works really well!
If anyone has any questions or problems with the TT33 feel free to contact me!
Hope you all can get some use out of this.
I'll try and keep this as brief as possible but I intend to cover.
-Full Disassembly. With detailed pics to help people understand how the gun works.
-How to greatly smooth the action.
-How to smooth the trigger/sear for much cleaner break
-Tips for new shooters on choosing a TT33, holsters etc
I'll start with
FULL DISASSEMBLY:
Break the pistol down to the standard field strip
Using a punch and small hammer drive the extractor retaining pin down through the slide. (DO HAMMER ANYTHING WITH ANY FORCE. Very little force is required to drift out any pins on this pistol)
Remove the extractor and then carefully tilt the slide forward until the tiny little extractor spring fall out.
Next drift out the Firing pin retaining pin from the side with the split ends. Keep a finger over the end of the rear of the pin as it may shoot out.
Remove the firing pin, firing pin spring and retaining pin (I APOLOGIZE I DID NOT HAVE A SPARE FIRING PIN IN MY PARTS BIN FOR THIS DEMO I didn't want to strip my tuned TT33 lol)
Next look up into the left grip and find the steel lever with a notch in it. Use a screwdriver to push the lever over to the left.
Pry down on the inside of the grip gently with the driver and the grip should pop off the frame.
Look inside the space into the right grip. Use a screwdriver to rotate the retaining clip.
Tap the grip out of the frame with the screwdriver.
Next drift the magazine release button out of the mag catch from the split end pin side.
Lightly tap it through. May take slightly more force than you used up to now.
Remove the mag release, spring and mag catch.
Inside the grip push the trigger return spring to the rear of the grip and then push/pull the rear of the trigger down into the grip.
Remove the trigger and then tilt the spring forward to the front of the grip and lift the bottom of the spring out of the retaining notch in the rear of the grip.
Now the trigger group, drift out the large center pin (hammer pin) Careful as there is a large spring inside the hammer, it may fly once you drift her out so cover it with your hand.
Remove hammer and long hammer sping.
Using punch drift out the sear/sear spring combo and the trigger disconnect. If group is oriented as my pics, it's the lower left pin.
Remove the sear/spring and the disconnect.
You now have the TT33 completely stripped!
Now, your TT33 has a gritty trigger? Maybe it's brutal to rack the slide back when there is a mag in and the hammer is decocked? Maybe your magazines don't drop free when you press the mag release?
SMOOTHING THE ACTION/MAKING IT RUN REAL SMOOTH!
Note how the sear engages the spurs on the hammer. The top spur would be half ####/safety. The bottom one is the full #### and the one you're going to feel when you start squeezing the trigger.
The rear of the trigger actually physically pushes the bottom of the sear to the rear pivoting the edge of the sear away from the bottom spur on the hammer. That friction between the two surfaces and tension of the hammer spring is what makes the feel of the trigger.
The machining on these can be surprisingly rough.
So here's what we're going to do,
Using 400 and then 600 grit sandpaper, start polishing the top edge of the sear where it contacts the bottom of the hammer spur. Not filing or grinding, we are not removing steel we are just slightly polishing the surface first with 400 and then again with 600 grit. Do it until it looks shiny and smooth.
Do the same very lightly under the lower hammer spur. Just a few passes on that one.
Inspect the sear. You find that the contact surface is very rough, has burrs or both. Again use the 400/600 paper to lightly polish the surface of the sear. DO NOT USE HEAVY PRESSURE AND DO NOT ROUND ANY EDGES. You are simply poslishing/smoothing the surface of the steel.
Next take a look at the sides of the hammer.
The sides of them were it would be sitting in the frame of the trigger group. One of the big causes of a rough gritty action. If you physically #### the hammer by hand with your thumb you can tell if yours needs some work. Even if you think it doesn't do it anyway! All of these combined will drastically improve your pistol. Again with the 400/600 combo start doing circles on both sides of the lower surfaces of the hammer. Do it until the surfaces are smooth, shiny, slick and polished!
Next area is the slide. See in the pic how the bottom rear of the slide (and where) actually contacts the hammer. This is the part where they connect on the rearward travel of the slide when you rack the action manually or during firing. Take a look at the edge on that spot here! It's rough as hell and was actually sharp and jagged to the touch. There was a large rough burr on the edge where it should be a rounded smooth edge.
I lifted the hammer and you can clearly see where it was contacting the hammer face. You can see where it was cutting into the hammer. This is the main spot (along with the disconnect and under the slide we'll get to later) that it's so damn hard to draw the slide back on some TT33's and not others.
First do the 400/600 on the hammer face. You can see in the pics were the edge of the slide made some nasty gouges in the steel. It's the darker spots after the polishing.
Next flip the slide over and use a thin file to round the horrid edge off that slide where it contacts and pushes the hammer down.
I file a 45 degree into the edge with the file. Then slowly round it out with slow methodical strokes. Then hit it with 400/600 combo. Now rounded and polished and buttery smooth:
Now the disconnector. I've seen some that have a nice soft round edge/angle at the top. The slide moves rearward and contacts the top of it which then pushes the disconnector down into the frame. Do the 400/600 polish in the top of the disconnect only. If your angle is very sharp, then polish it a bit more until it's softer to the touch.
Next do the 400/600 on the bottom of the frame on the long rectangle of steel underside. These can vary from pretty smooth already to machines with a potato terrible! Years may vary!
Polish the whole underside of the slide which rides over the disconnect and the inside of the trigger group frame:
Reassemble the trigger group. Just follow the steps above in reverse order. Put the disconnector in first. Then put the sear into place. Put the spring into it's slot and then drive the pin back in.
Next put the spring up into the hammer. Put the bottom of the spring onto the cross bar, and push the hammer downward until the holes line up, drop the pin into the hole. I like to put the long prongs of the trigger frame on the edge of a table, then push the hammer down all with the right hand, when the holes line up, be quick with the pin in left hand to just pop it right in.
The mag release is simple. Place the catch in the hole on the right side of the frame, flip the pistol over so that there is a hard surface under the mag catch and tap the split ends of the pin and the spring into the hole the same as it came out.
Put the trigger spring back in the grip/frame. Then install the trigger as well.Put the trigger group into the frame also.
Now, see the disconnect on top of the frame? Hold the trigger group down with your hand and push down on the disconnector. Take a look at what's happening with the trigger as you do this. The disconnector actually physically pushes the trigger bar down.
This is the reason that some TT33's won't "drop free" the magazines when the slide is to the rear/empty magazine!
Take out your trigger again. Look inside the trigger collar, where the magazine slides up into it. Again depending on production year, the insides of these can be bent, edges can have large burrs or the machining can be very rough. Pay special attention to the rear/back of the inside of the collar as this is the area that (if very roughly made) will contact and rub the spine of the mag when the disconnect is pushing it down (slide locked to the rear on empty chamber) that's why your mags wont drop free in this state! Also can be the cause of the "gritty" feel of the initial slack/trigger pull with the old TT33!
Clamp it in a vice and go to fackin' town on the inside of that sucker with the 400/600 combo again. If it's a war production pistol I'd even take a fine file to the inside of the thing first then 400/600. Pay much attention to the inside rear like I said. Give it some extra elbow grease.
You can see in the pics how uneven the metal was inside mine after filing/polishing.
That's it! Clean it well. There is a whole bunch of fine metal powder in there now all over.
Clean it, oil it and then put some cheap grease on the rails inside the slide.
Reassemble and test it out! You will amazed at how much smoother and easier it is to draw the action, #### the hammer, insert and drop mags etc.
The trigger both initial slack and actual release of the sear should be drastically improved.
Run through the function test: Rack the action. Hold the slide to the rear, pull the trigger to the rear and release the slide, release the trigger slowly, ensure disconnector works and trigger re-engages the sear.
Pull the trigger to make sure it drops the hammer. Place the trigger at half ####, try to rack action, try to pull trigger, hammer should not drop, slide should be locked.
#### hammer to full ####.
Place an empty magazine in gun, rack the action. Ensure the empty magazine locks the slide to the rear.
Push the magazine release and ensure the magazine drops free.
Push the slide release lever and ensure the slide returns to battery.
Fire the action.
WHICH TT33'S IS FOR YOU?
There are some differences in the design through the years of the TT33. If you are a collector then you know what you're looking for already. However if you're like me and you just like shooting the s**t out of your Combloc hardware then I recommend the following on selecting a TT33 for this purpose:
- Get as late a model as you can. For a couple reasons. The maching on the wartime pistols are brutal! I'll even say it; actually some of them are terrible! The later ones can have almost professional finishes to them. It will reduce the amount of work you will need to do to make them run like butter. Always try and buy one in person so you can select a good example to start.
- Get the sharp serrated slide serrations! There a couple types of serrations on the slides on these. I've owned 3 different types. The only one that actually works is the sharp serrations similar to those on a standard USGI 1911A1. Again found on the later models I've owned. The others are just shallow divots in the slide and it's like tying to pull an oiled up I-beam with your thumb and index finger, terrible! If you have to rack the action sometimes you will grab too much of the slide and the rear sight can even cut your hand. Yes you could wear gloves but that's for pussies and you still won't be able to rack it easily! Find the small, thin sharp serrations. The example I used in this post has the bad type. It's my "parts" gun/doner gun. My pride and joy has the good type.
-Get two! Get a real good one. Later production, sharp serrations on the slide, good machining, strong bore. That's the one you do all this work to! Then buy a run of the mill whatever the hell year off the EE for as dirt cheap as possible. Strip it down to parts and keep it in a ziplock bag. The TT33 is as hard as a Russians liver but like all things made by man, they can and do fail.
The parts that I have actually broken on mine after thousands of rounds are:
Tip of the firing pin
Extractor and
Worn out Extractor spring.
That's it. I've shot crates through a couple of them over the years and have never had any single other part fail. But when they do, good luck finding parts in our s**thole gun market in this country. If you find parts it's at some shop were the smith is charging you $75 for a firing pin..... It's cheaper to just buy a whole second gun and then if anything goes, you have every single part you need. Shoot the barrel out? Just drop the new one it et al I have found them on EE for as low as $160 shipped!
HOLSTERS AND SHOOTING
After just walking around gun clubs, firing ranges with my unloaded TT33 tucked into my jeans pocket and mags in the ass pockets, I started looking into getting a holster. There aren't many. Actually there are a few but they are almost all terrible. And they are also expensive and terrible.
I ended up sick and tired of searching and wasting money and made one out of Kydex. Kydex is dirt cheap. I'll put some pics here in case anyone is looking for a starting point or ideas. I used medium thick 0.06". It works awesome. Looking at it now I would change a few things but it holds it solid enough to flip it upside down and I can draw it easily and quickly with one hand.
Hit it with some spray paint and clear coat.
So how do you carry the TT33 if you're actually going to use it on a range in a holster? Some say the TT33 does not have a safety, sure as Russia invented Communism, it does! It has a half #### safety. That being said if you chose to chamber a round and put the gun on half #### (I actually used to use this method although I physically inspected the sear and the hammer on mine disassembled). While half #### with a loaded chamber in a holster will make some prissy safety queens pass out and p**s themselves, I did not stop doing this because I had any fear of the gun or lack of confidence in the design etc It's actually just not very practical because you still have to draw it and #### the hammer with your support hand once you get it pointed away from you in a safe direction.
This is the best method I've found with a holster: Place a loaded magazine in the pistol, #### the hammer to full #### and place it in your holster.
If you need to draw (especially with your smoothed out gun now) you draw and when the pistol is half way up and in front of you with the muzzle now pointed at the ground/semi down range, rack the action and then take up the space on the grip with your support hand as you are starting to push the pistol out to engage your target board. It's surprisingly quick once you practice and put it into a fluid motion. I've heard tactical armchair experts on here call this the "Israeli Draw" I don't know if that's what it is. Meh whatever, it works really well!
If anyone has any questions or problems with the TT33 feel free to contact me!
Hope you all can get some use out of this.
Last edited:
