1911 hammer question

moparmatt383

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Good morning all,

I have an old custom bullseye 1911 that was made from a Remington rand that has a problem. When you release the slide sometimes the hammer will drop to the half cock position. Otherwise the pistol functions perfectly and it does not do it consistently.

Any thoughts?

Matt
 
. . . 1911 that . . . has a problem. When you release the slide sometimes the hammer will drop to the half cock position. Otherwise the pistol functions perfectly and it does not do it consistently. Any thoughts?
Stop shooting it and take it to a gunsmith who knows 1911s inside and out. Falling to half-cock means the sear isn't engaging the hammer correctly, for a variety of possible reasons. If it misses the half-cock notch, you can get multiround bursts.
 
The hammer and sear faces may need to be freshened up. they may have become rounded or the angles are wrong. The sear spring might need more tension too

Take it to a gunsmith that knows 1911s, try Lou at business end customs
 
Dick at Patriot Arms in Ipswich could probably take care of that pretty quick, he's a guru on 1911s, particularly USGI and loves working on them. Very reasonable too. He smoothed out the horrible trigger on mine in a day or two and replaced a spring, etc. and it is so much better now.
 
Stop shooting it and take it to a gunsmith who knows 1911s inside and out.
^This.

At worst, half-cock notches (shelf- or hook-style)
have been known to shear off from repeated use.
And the hammer following the slide down during dry fire
seems the most violent way to stress the notch.

At best...

The hammer and sear faces may need to be freshened up. they may have become rounded or the angles are wrong.

Even if sear/hammer damage is not the cause of the problem,
it may be that some damage has accumulated in consequence of the problem.

Many people obsess over trigger pull force or trigger feel,
so it's probably not a hard sell that the surfaces
might need a slight tune-up after the problem's solved.

Continuing to run the pistol in this condition isn't going to improve it.
 
A bullseye 1911 most likely has a 3.5# trigger. And short hammer hooks. It is not good to drop the slide without a round being stripped of a magazine like this. The stripping of a round off the top of the magazine dampens the bounce the hammer and sear interface with get. Also if its was set up for bullseye , that means 185grain wadcutters in most cases. The exemption to that would be a dedicated CMP "Hardball" gun with a 4# trigger.
 
An old trick for disengaging the hammer/sear surfaces when dripping the slide is to hold the trigger back, and it was once common practice by bullesye shooters. This is generally not an accepted practice these days.
 
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You have "hammer follow." .Not entirely uncommon, and usually an easy fix by the right guy. I recommend Greg Derr. Derr Precision, 879 Old Main St. Ext., Marshfield, MA 02050 781-834-3225.
 
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