Hammer - hardest ever experienced

[RobfromME]

Good morning,

Has anyone else run into the following problem, and if so, what brand of hammer?

I have a 1911 hammer I purchased in 2008 that I never used, but this week began fitting to my 1911. It is a tool steel, US made hammer, but I bought it from a company that re-brands parts with their name. I am unable to identify the original fabricator.

Here's the problem:

This is the hardest hammer I've ever experienced. I believe it to be over-hardened, but would like opinions from those with a bit more experience than myself. A file would not cut it, and I had to use ceramic stones to reduce the hammer hook height to the .020" that I typically use. Further, the Brownells hammer hook file could not be used to square the hammer hooks. They are slightly less than 90 degrees so the sear has to "push up" on the hammer before release.

It did a job on my ceramic stones, too. I typically use them for what they were made for: truing up a surface and polishing (depending on the stone), but this hammer was only workable with stones and they suffered the effects.

Up until this point, I've worked mostly with Wilson fire control parts and they are outstanding....you can file them, but they are plenty hard to hold their angles and edges indefinitely. They are typically Rc 50, give or take a point or two, so a file (typically Rc 61) cuts it fine, and a stone polishes. However, I've found the Wilson's rarely need work unless the gun is out of spec.

I'd forgotten about this re-branded "brand name" hammer and wanted to try it out, but it's now going in the "bad parts" bin and a Wilson is in it's place.

Have any of you folks run into a hammer this hard? If so, who was the manufacturer? There's no discredit to the hammer maker; it is a fine hammer, but just much too hard for my liking. I want to avoid them in the future.

Thank you in advance for your time.

Warmest regards,

Rob

Edited November 20, 2011 by RobfromME

[yoshidaex]

PM sent

[superdude]

i had that problem with a ambi thumb safety once. a file wouldn't touch it. man it was hard!

[GunBugBit]

I didn't know steel could be made that hard. I'm no metallurgist or materials specialist, just curious about this.

[Bob Hostetter]

got a picture of it?

[RH45]

I thought they were supposed to be to hard to cut with a file.

[DT Guy]

I didn't know steel could be made that hard. I'm no metallurgist or materials specialist, just curious about this.

Untempered high carbon steel will hit 63+ on the Rockwell C scale, a bit harder than a file-right out of a hardening bath, pre-tempering, a file will skitter across full hard tool steel.

Assuming it's a new, quality file, I'd be leery of using a part that the file couldn't cut.

Larry