Hammer Follow 2011

[SSGJohnV]

Hello All,

I just recently got my new Edge 2011 in .40. I took the advice of some of the guys here on the forums and bought a Brazos Custom Gunworks fire control group along with a donated SVI trigger. I installed it all myself with little fuss besides fitting the safety and making sure there was clearance with the grip safety.

I took it to the range today to do some load testing and about 30 rounds in started having hammer follow. It was not touching off the next round, but it was definitely hammer follow (have it on video, actually) and was able to recreate it without firing any more. About half the time when I work the slide I feel no "clicks" of the hammer hooks, half-cock or full-cock.

I stopped shooting for the day and took it home to disassemble, and found the problem. Please let me know if I need to post pictures to get this resolved.

So, with the grip and thumb safety removed I can see that the left leg of the leaf spring is barely touching the sear. When I pull the trigger that leg is either almost, or does in fact, fall off the sear. Now, I have the stock FCG that came with the gun, but I would very much like to get this FCG working.

So, what can I do to rectify this short of just re-installing my old FCG?

Is this a common problem?

What can I do to prevent this in the future?

Thanks.

-John

[StraightUp_OG]

Wrap a little masking tape around the base of the sear spring. That should snug/center it up and get the finger on the sear. If not then you may need a new sear spring.

Edited March 29, 2014 by StraightUp_OG

[bountyhunter]

Can't you just bend that leaf a touch to get some tension on it? Been a while since I set up 1911 triggers, but I recall that I adjusted the spring leafs independently to get about equal tension on the trigger itself and the sear.

If you hold the hammer fully back and use a precise trigger pull gauge: the first tension is the leaf against the trigger and then an increase when it starts to deflect the sear. I think I set those up for about ten ounces on the first and then about 20 ounces for both together.

Anyway, you should be able to tweak it in.

Edited March 29, 2014 by bountyhunter

[SSGJohnV]

I think I fixed it. I did some reading and apparently SVI triggers are a bit different from STI triggers. I replaced the trigger with the STI one I was running and I think I cleared it up. A shame, as I love the feel of it, but not worth it right now to screw with it. I'll get it fixed by a competent smith when I get other major mods taken care of.

And bounty, the problem wasn't the tension. It was the spring not being long enough it seemed to keep the sear under tension after the sear released the hammer. When the trigger was pulled, bang, then the spring would fall off of the sear, and then hammer follow.

If anyone else has an idea of what else I could do please let me know. Thanks again.

-John

[Shadow]

I think I fixed it. I did some reading and apparently SVI triggers are a bit different from STI triggers. I replaced the trigger with the STI one I was running and I think I cleared it up. A shame, as I love the feel of it, but not worth it right now to screw with it. I'll get it fixed by a competent smith when I get other major mods taken care of.

And bounty, the problem wasn't the tension. It was the spring not being long enough it seemed to keep the sear under tension after the sear released the hammer. When the trigger was pulled, bang, then the spring would fall off of the sear, and then hammer follow.

If anyone else has an idea of what else I could do please let me know. Thanks again.

-John

Use an SVI sear spring.

[mjohn]

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^Yeppers................That will solve the problem.

[Pat Miles]

The SVI trigger bow is longer than the STI's. The extra length will leave the sear on the ragged ass edge of the hammer hooks and obviously a dangerous situation. The SVI bow can be reshaped to make it shorter but is a royal PIA to do so.There are other mods that can be done to the sear but require a milling machine to do correctly.

I like a short flat trigger so I just buy an STI gunsmith fit trigger, which starts life as a very long straight face trigger, and trim it back until I get the length I like. Doing it this way is much less expensive.

Pat

[SSGJohnV]

Good to know. I actually have the STI gunsmith blank trigger already, at it was shaved down to about the length of a short flat trigger. I was gifted an SVI grip and trigger bow, so I thought I was good with installing it on an STI frame. So, if I were to get an SVI frame, the trigger would be fine, or would getting an SVI sear spring do the trick?

I'm going to the range tomorrow to check and make sure the hammer follow is fixed, as it didn't present itself last time until it had been shot a few times. In dry fire and slide racking it seems to be fine, but the proof will be in the shooting, I guess.

Thanks for all the help.

[Pat Miles]

The SVI sear spring will in no way cure this problem. Pull the beaver tail out of your gun so you can see the workings of your fire control group. Look at the inter-action of the trigger bow, the sear and the hammer. You will see that the sear spring will not cure the problem.

Get an SVI frame so you can use the SVI trigger? Outrageously expensive cure for the problem.

Pat

[SSGJohnV]

Pat, I understand that. I was just wanting to figure out what the difference could be in regards to the two.

Also, I'm about to call Brazos in the morning and ask them about this, because this is really odd.

The gun ran fine for over 200 rounds when it was bone stock. I'm trying to figure out what I can do to fix this problem, so I tried troubleshooting it tonight with a lot of the parts I have lying around. I thought maybe I had removed too much from the plastic mainspring housing, so I put in a metal one that came with the SVI grip. Still, there is very, very little engagement between the sear leg and the sear, with both the Brazos and the stock sear, and both the stock sear spring and the brazos sear spring.

Is it the grip that's doing this? Maybe the grip is set up where the slot for the sear spring is too low in the grip to make the sear spring engage the sear correctly?

If anyone has any ideas I would be welcome to them. I'm going to sleep on it tonight and attack the problem tomorrow when I'm less frustrated.

Thanks.

-John

Edit: Couldn't sleep, so I put the stock STI grip back on with the Brazos sear, hammer, and sear spring. During dry fire it seemed to work, but I'm going to the range again on Wednesday to make sure. I'm going to call Brazos tomorrow and talk with them about it and see what they have to say. Match on Saturday, so I'd really like the gun to, you know, work, before then.

Edited April 1, 2014 by SSGJohnV

[Shadow]

The SVI sear spring will in no way cure this problem. Pull the beaver tail out of your gun so you can see the workings of your fire control group. Look at the inter-action of the trigger bow, the sear and the hammer. You will see that the sear spring will not cure the problem.

Get an SVI frame so you can use the SVI trigger? Outrageously expensive cure for the problem.

Pat

The sear leg on the SVI sear springis longer than the springs you have, If your problem is only the sear spring falling off the sear the SVI sear spring will cure it. Yes, sometimes the sear speing postion is off in a grip causing what you are describing, Sometimes the sear springs can be bent at the bottom end to make them a little longer, but its easier to use a SVI sear spring.

Take a look as Pat suggests.

If your problem is a lack of pre-travel, which will create the problem that Pat is describing, you'll need to modify the bow or the sear legs, or switch to a STI bow.

[SSGJohnV]

I talked to Bob at Brazos and he gave me some good pointers. I put it back to spthe stock STI grip with the Brazos FCG and shot about 100 rounds today just fine, so I'm guessing the SVI grip I was given is just a tad too long in the grip, so that coupled with the Brazos sear was giving me the hammer follow. Here's hoping it stays true at the match on Saturday.

Thanks for the advice, gents.