What did my gunsmith do?

Kjm1971

Kjm1971

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Picked up my 1911 after some minor work, new trigger, Wolff sear spring, and some work on the front sight. Trigger felt awful, but still decided to put it through safety checks (unloaded). Noticed the tension on the grip safety was weak, and could get it to fire without squeezing it(by pointing down and rattling the gun while squeezing the trigger), then managed to make it fire just by gripping and squeezing hard(!), after messing with it I managed to "jam" it so it kept "firing" on each cycle (would have fired like an auto). I've worked on other 1911s, and can detail strip one quickly, without problems, so I pulled it down, went through everything, and aside from a minor adjustment to the sear spring tang for the grip safety(slight increase in tension), everything was fine. I reassembled it, and everything seemed fine(and the trigger was way smoother/lighter. I did every combination of check I could, dozens of times, and could not make it malfunction again. Went to the range, 1, then 2 in the mag, then dropping slide, beating it around, everything I could do to ensure it was safe before a full mag. Put 200 round through it, and it was flawless..
What could he have done? Sear spring jammed in wrong? or what other assembly mistake could have caused this?
Sear and hammer are perfect, not messed with.
Is a proper smith, with a shop, not a shade tree mechanic.

Anyways, not looking to beat up on the guy, just want to understand what might have happened as a learning.
 
I be guessing the sear spring ...maybe moved when reassembleing the pistol...had a similar issue when I stripped my first 1911..
 
+1

The sear spring was offset, and not seated in the grove when the mainspring housing was slid on. Should never left the smith without a function test.

just because he has a shop doesn't mean he isn't a hack either, there are many gunsmiths that know nothing about pistols
 
Maybe give the gunsmith a call and let him know. I think he could at least let you know if he felt the same thing. You don't seem like the kind of guy to point fingers and I think the gunsmith will be glad to help a customer out.
 
^As mentioned above, the sear spring was incorrectly placed when putitng the main spring housing in place. It can be easy to do, I have done it myself, and it is easy to correct. The gunsmith should have checked it before sending it off. I wouldn't mention it to him as it is in reality, very minor. Nice thing with 1911's is that most of the work you can do yourself. The only thing that I would have a gunsmith ever do is the fitting of a barrel or slide, as they have the jigs to fit them 100% correctly.
 
abb1 said:
^As mentioned above, the sear spring was incorrectly placed when putitng the main spring housing in place. It can be easy to do, I have done it myself, and it is easy to correct. The gunsmith should have checked it before sending it off. I wouldn't mention it to him as it is in reality, very minor. Nice thing with 1911's is that most of the work you can do yourself. The only thing that I would have a gunsmith ever do is the fitting of a barrel or slide, as they have the jigs to fit them 100% correctly.
Click to expand...

That's what I figured, just wanted to make sure I did not overlook anything obvious, I'm far from being an expert on them, so knowing what caused it helps me learn.
 
If the smith did not function test or signed off on it as being acceptable, I'd avoid taking anything else to have work done by him.
 
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