Worked on my Trojan 9mm Today

[blind bat]

I'm still trying to tune up my 9mm Trojan for use as an ESP gun this summer. It's been performing OK with Tripp Cobra and Wilson ETM mags and 124gr MG JHPs but the recoil never felt right to me and I have occasional extraction failures. So far I've swapped in a 10lb ISMI recoil spring and I cut a coil off my Wilson 10rd mag springs so they'd seat reliably with a full mag.

The slide still felt sluggish and but OK with the 124gr bullets. The slide felt sluggish and odd with 147gr bullets. With WWB 115gr the slide felt quicker but clunky. I decided to to try a "lighter" main spring, figuring that the hammer might be slowing the slide down causing the clunky feel.

According to STI's website, they use a 15lb main spring in their 9mm guns but I've heard rumors around the Benoverse that the STI website is wrong. I even tried calling STI but their "spring expert" wasn't in that day. I bought an 15lb ISMI main spring to try. The first thing I noticed was the ISMI spring was more than a coil shorter than the STI spring. According to my ghetto fish/trigger gauge it took 3.5lb to cock the hammer with the STI spring (while depressing the trigger) and only 1.5lb for the ISMI spring. Racking the slide feels lighter and smother than before the spring change.

I've also heard horror stories of ejector breakages with the stock STI 9mm/extended ejector. Supposedly upward pressure cause by interference with rounds and magazine lips lead to ejector fatigue and failure. I checked both my Tripp and Wilson mags while I had the top end off of the Trojan. Sure enough both the top round in each mag hit the ejector and so would the feed lips when the mag was pushed all the way up like during a reload. I took off about 1/16" from the bottom of the ejector so the mags would clear. That was enough that the original bevel on ejector was gone. I could feel the top round of the mag still rubbing the underside of the ejector so I filed a bevel into the inside lower edge of the ejector. The Wilson mags use a spacer at the back of the mag while the Tripps put it at the front. The bevel had to be filed about half way down the ejector for clearance with the Tripp mags. If I only used the Wilson mags the bevel would have been about half the length due to the space being at the back of the mag. I checked a stock Wilson mag and even with the ejector mods it still required a really hard slam to get the mag seated with 10+1 so the mag spring mod is still necessary.

I removed material evenly from the bottom of the ejector "nub". Knowing how much was require to be removed I would have left more metal at the back of the nub where there was no chance of contacting the mag.

Range report to follow.

[twodownzero]

I suspect you'll have light strikes with that 15 lb mainspring, but let us know how it works.

[oak hill]

Keep your 15# spring fresh and you shouldn't have any problems using primers from Fed. or Win.

[ck1]

The stock "15lb" mainspring that came in my Trojan was a good amount stronger than the 17lb ISMI mainspring I dropped in, seems that's the norm. From what I've experienced seating a full 10rd mag from any brand/company out there with the slide closed and a round in the chamber requires a strong whack, I've read of guys clipping coils off mag springs to fix this only to get caught later with feed issues from weakened mag springs, be careful you're not fixing one problem by introducing another... IMHO when it comes to 9mm 1911's, learning to smack mags home goes with the territory.

Also, If you haven't already put in a call to STI to get a hold of a .38/.40 you should because that's what it takes and what comes in newer production Trojans

[Victor_R]

I'm switched to a 12lb recoil spring and have a 17lb mainspring. I also bumped up my load. I was getting 1030-1035 velocity and after the bump I'm at 1065-1075 velocity with 124gr. I noticed a big difference on how my slide reacted. Was a lot snappier.

[blind bat]

Good news: I finally got to shoot outdoors. Whooo Hoo. I had to reset the plate rack by hand because the guide wire and pulley were still frozen into the the ground but it was still fun. No problems with ejection.

Bad News: I was getting occasional light strikes even with Federal primers. I didn't realize how light a 15lb main spring was until I started this thread. The slide didn't feel clunky but was still on the slow side.

I've got a 17lb and 19lb spring showing up on Monday. I'm going to try swapping the 10lb recoil spring for a 9lb.

[RH45]

Good news: I finally got to shoot outdoors. Whooo Hoo. I had to reset the plate rack by hand because the guide wire and pulley were still frozen into the the ground but it was still fun. No problems with ejection.

Bad News: I was getting occasional light strikes even with Federal primers. I didn't realize how light a 15lb main spring was until I started this thread. The slide didn't feel clunky but was still on the slow side.

I've got a 17lb and 19lb spring showing up on Monday. I'm going to try swapping the 10lb recoil spring for a 9lb.

Even though I never had any light strikes, when I had my .40 Trojan in for trigger work, the gunsmith replaced my stock, firing pin with an extended one. He said he couldn't believe it fired.