Light Hammer or Heavy Hammer?

[kneelingatlas]

I got my first pistol at 11 and it was a Walther OSP2000 with a 47 gram trigger, so needless to say I'm hooked on light triggers. Right now my CZ75 TS breaks at 1#, 4oz with polished, stock internals, which I'm pretty happy with. On my Production Jericho, I finally got an 8.5# hammer spring running 100% with whatever primers I feed it; that one comes in around 2#, 4oz SA and 5#, 10oz DA.

It has seemed to me, both intuitively and empirically that a heavy hammer can break primers more consistently than a light hammer driven by the same spring, but I see a lot of custom race guns with bobbed/lightened hammers? I understand that a light hammer spring is not as critical to a light SA trigger as it is to DA, but are these guns running heavy hammer springs? I would imagine a light hammer would make the fire and cycle faster, is that the reasoning?

I am interesting in speeding up my TS (the slide is currently at fat camp losing two ounces), but before I start chopping up hammers, I thought I would seek some advice from the pros!

[EkuJustice]

Light hammer travels faster than a heavy one with the same spring and gives it more if a jolt which makes it easier to set the primer. The heavy hammer is like a push the light one is like a jab

[kneelingatlas]

Thanks for the input, I've got some spare hammers I'm going to start cutting up this weekend!

[Racer377]

I wonder why no one has done a "hammer energy calculator" that does the physics/math for light n fast hammer momentum vs. heavy and slow hammer momentum.

[ltdmstr]

Light hammer, heavy spring. Most people use a lighter spring to try to decrease trigger pull weight. What they end up with is a mushy trigger and sometimes inconsistent ignition. A proper trigger job with a heavier spring yields crisp trigger and reliable ignition.

[Shadow]

The lighter hammer decreases lock time.

[kneelingatlas]

I wonder why no one has done a "hammer energy calculator" that does the physics/math for light n fast hammer momentum vs. heavy and slow hammer momentum.

I think that's a really complicated model into which you would have to plug a lot of assumptions; it's probably easier/cheaper to chop up some hammers and shoot some splits, I just wanted to save some time and ask others to share their experiences.

[kneelingatlas]

Light hammer, heavy spring. Most people use a lighter spring to try to decrease trigger pull weight. What they end up with is a mushy trigger and sometimes inconsistent ignition. A proper trigger job with a heavier spring yields crisp trigger and reliable ignition.

This is becoming clear to me; before I started polishing parts I used light springs to lower the force needed to overcome friction and now I'm lowering the frictional coefficient for the same effect. I'm also toying with the idea of center milling the trigger plunger and disconnector on my Jericho to reduce the surface area the over which the friction acts.

[mpolans]

The lighter hammer decreases lock time.

This is the only reason.

Edited December 7, 2012 by mpolans

[ltdmstr]

Not the only reason. If you have a light trigger pull due to reduced hammer/sear surface, a heavy hammer (or trigger) can bounce and cause doubling. This is another reason for using a heavier vs. lighter hammer spring.

[mpolans]

Not the only reason. If you have a light trigger pull due to reduced hammer/sear surface, a heavy hammer (or trigger) can bounce and cause doubling. This is another reason for using a heavier vs. lighter hammer spring.

My bad, forgot about that.

[Resjudicata]

The revolver guys run lightened hammers to go along with lighter springs and get better ignition from it. It could have something to do with a difference between how the revolver hammer spring works on it's hammer vs. an automatic. I'm not smart enough to do the math. But, I got better ignition on my revolvers with lightened springs after shaving weight off the hammers.

Chris