EGW vs Extreme Engineering Ignition kit

[DrewM]

8 hours ago, MoNsTeR said:

Why on earth would a titanium hammer strut be more likely to fail than a steel one? Titanium is very strong!

 

Has anyone ever actually seen a broken hammer strut of any kind? Or a mainspring cap for that matter! An indestructible part if ever there was one.

Ti is brittle at not as flexible compared to steel.  So if you could do some mythical test of 100 of each in normal cycling however many millions of times, the TI would likely fail more often.  I wouldn't expect either to fail to be honest.  This is getting deep into the weeds/theoretical.  Same with the super-light hammers, they are going to be weaker than a 'normal' hammer...but the chance you break one are getting into playing the lotto levels.  

I've seen mainspring housing crack a couple of different ways (both plastic and the cheaper cast types) and I've seen some MIM parts lose an end, etc.  I just recently bought a 20+ yr old GI model Springer that had the plunger pin break up at some point in its history - gun still functioned fine...was just an extra surprise when you pulled the pin...

[shred]

Titanium also wears faster than steel by and large.  It's got a great strength-to-weight ratio, but less so on ultimate strength.

[ltdmstr]

12 hours ago, MoNsTeR said:

Why on earth would a titanium hammer strut be more likely to fail than a steel one? Titanium is very strong!

 

Has anyone ever actually seen a broken hammer strut of any kind? Or a mainspring cap for that matter! An indestructible part if ever there was one.

 

And how do you know that?  Just because it's titanium doesn't tell you anything about the strength of the part, or the hardness, or anything other than it's lighter than steel.  Just like any other metal, there are many types of titanium.  And what's typically used for gun parts is crap.  The real down side to Ti parts isn't breakage, but flex and galling.  Standard steel parts are actually harder, stronger, last longer and work better.  They are slightly heavier, but the difference is meaningless in this application.  Unless of course you call tell the difference a couple thousandths of a second for lock time (cue the eye roll).

[392heminut]

8 hours ago, shred said:

Titanium also wears faster than steel by and large.  It's got a great strength-to-weight ratio, but less so on ultimate strength.

I agree with this. I bought a titanium hammer years ago and stoned it to a great trigger pull but I kept having to touch it up to keep it reliable. It has been residing in a drawer in my tool chest for years now.

[ComputersAre8ad]

On 5/9/2024 at 2:52 PM, Seakphotog said:

You could also try the Atlas Perfect Match Ignition Kit with Lightened Hammer

 

https://atlasgunworks.com/product-details?id=2267175

I bought this and the sear was a touch too short. Hammer follow (wouldn't go to half cock since it was too short) all day on a 3.5# pull with zero tuning to the pre and post travel on a Staccato P. Will be cutting a long sear at some point for the pistol.

[MoNsTeR]

Brittleness doesn't matter in a part that's not subject to impact, which a hammer strut isn't.

 

It's also not subject to frictional wear in any meaningful way, unlike hammers, sears, frames, slides, etc.

 

Yes, the lock time advantage is probably too small to measure. That doesn't mean the part overall is somehow worse.

 

And again I'll draw attention to the mainspring cap, which someone claimed (I'll spare you quoting it) was also at greater risk of failure. A part that barely moves, and is only under compression load, along a single axis.

 

I'm not some big believer in titanium parts but the criticisms here are absurd.

[ltdmstr]

The titanium used in gun parts isn't brittle.  In fact, it's pretty soft.  At least for the stuff the cool kids were running when it was a thing.  And the parts are absolutely subject to friction wear, which is the problem.  I guess you've never seen a ti ms cap and/or strut chewed up from contact wear.  Was a pretty common problem for a while.  But people wised up and stopped using them for that exact reason (and breakage).  This discussion started because someone suggested ti parts are a must for a perfect trigger.  Maybe check with some knowledgeable smiths and let me know how many use titanium parts in their guns.  None, that I know of.

[donnyglock]

5 hours ago, ltdmstr said:

The titanium used in gun parts isn't brittle.  In fact, it's pretty soft.  At least for the stuff the cool kids were running when it was a thing.  And the parts are absolutely subject to friction wear, which is the problem.  I guess you've never seen a ti ms cap and/or strut chewed up from contact wear.  Was a pretty common problem for a while.  But people wised up and stopped using them for that exact reason (and breakage).  This discussion started because someone suggested ti parts are a must for a perfect trigger.  Maybe check with some knowledgeable smiths and let me know how many use titanium parts in their guns.  None, that I know of.

I sure don’t. lol.

[DrewM]

9 hours ago, ltdmstr said:

This discussion started because someone suggested ti parts are a must for a perfect trigger.  

That is not exactly what I said, I stated none of the 'drop in kits' have the perfect combo of parts (IMO) - half of the kits don't even include a sear spring.  And then I said if you want to show off you can get <list of fancy parts>.  And as we both said, 90% of the parts on the list will do nothing for the actual "feel" of the trigger.

 

I'll stand by the statement that if you want to have the 'perfect trigger' (whatever that is for you) you will need to do a bunch of very small minor-tweakish-type things that most people will just roll their eyes at - and most of the actual parts don't matter too much.  And I'll also say that all the 'big name' drop in kits will get you 80-85% of the way to that mythical perfect trigger without doing all of that extra work.  

I'll also stand by the statement a large amount of shooters wouldn't be able to tell the different between the very best trigger job, a drop in kit, and a 'good' factory trigger job once they are shooting - assuming you could equalize the trigger pull weight between them all.  

And it takes all of about 5 seconds with Google to find Gunsmiths using Ti parts in their guns, even going all the way to using titanium for frames.  A huge majority of production guns come with Ti firing pins.  And on it goes.   

[CHA-LEE]

On 5/18/2024 at 9:27 PM, MoNsTeR said:

Why on earth would a titanium hammer strut be more likely to fail than a steel one? Titanium is very strong!

 

Has anyone ever actually seen a broken hammer strut of any kind? Or a mainspring cap for that matter! An indestructible part if ever there was one.

 

I broke an EGW Hammer Strut and unfortunately it happened in the middle of a stage during a major match which lead to zeroing the stage. It snapped in half like a stick.

[Maximis228]

6 minutes ago, CHA-LEE said:

 

I broke an EGW Hammer Strut and unfortunately it happened in the middle of a stage during a major match which lead to zeroing the stage. It snapped in half like a stick.

I broke 2 myself as well. The EGW strut has a weird kink in the curve where both mine broke. 

[ltdmstr]

35 minutes ago, DrewM said:

That is not exactly what I said, I stated none of the 'drop in kits' have the perfect combo of parts (IMO) - half of the kits don't even include a sear spring.  And then I said if you want to show off you can get <list of fancy parts>.  And as we both said, 90% of the parts on the list will do nothing for the actual "feel" of the trigger.

 

I'll stand by the statement that if you want to have the 'perfect trigger' (whatever that is for you) you will need to do a bunch of very small minor-tweakish-type things that most people will just roll their eyes at - and most of the actual parts don't matter too much.  And I'll also say that all the 'big name' drop in kits will get you 80-85% of the way to that mythical perfect trigger without doing all of that extra work.  

I'll also stand by the statement a large amount of shooters wouldn't be able to tell the different between the very best trigger job, a drop in kit, and a 'good' factory trigger job once they are shooting - assuming you could equalize the trigger pull weight between them all.  

And it takes all of about 5 seconds with Google to find Gunsmiths using Ti parts in their guns, even going all the way to using titanium for frames.  A huge majority of production guns come with Ti firing pins.  And on it goes.   

 

Ok.  But just FYI, some of the people backing me up on this are extremely knowledgeable and have more experience and expertise with the 1911/2011 platform than probably 99.9% of the internet experts you can point to.  Clearly you're sold on the idea of titanium being better.  But, you're not going to convince a lot of folks around here, who tend to know better.  And, btw, titanium firing pins are another really bad idea.  

[DrewM]

13 minutes ago, ltdmstr said:

 

Ok.  But just FYI, some of the people backing me up on this are extremely knowledgeable and have more experience and expertise with the 1911/2011 platform than probably 99.9% of the internet experts you can point to.  Clearly you're sold on the idea of titanium being better.  But, you're not going to convince a lot of folks around here, who tend to know better.  And, btw, titanium firing pins are another really bad idea.  

Yea, folks like Nighthawk, Brazos, etc...just random internet experts, completely unheard of and un-respected folks for sure.  Point out that Ti isn't all doom and gloom and I must be a mega fan boy?  Project much?  

I'm reminded why I don't post much on the internet anymore...sheesh.  

[ltdmstr]

So, Brazos sells titanium struts.  You have two very knowledgable people posting above their real world experience with those exact items breaking.  Not sure what your background is, but if you have a major part failure at a big match, that kinda sucks.  And titanium firing pins, which apparently Nighthawk sells, are known to be problematic.  Also, I have no ideal why you'd want to use a lighter part in an application that relies on inertia impact to set off a primer. 

Edited May 21 by ltdmstr
typo

[DrewM]

57 minutes ago, ltdmstr said:

So, Brazos sells titanium struts.  You have two very knowledgable people posting above their real world experience with those exact items breaking.  Not sure what your background is, but if you have a major part failure at a big match, that kinda sucks.  And titanium firing pins, which apparently Nighthawk sells, are known to be problematic.  Also, I have no ideal why you'd want to use a lighter part in an application that relies on inertia impact to set off a primer. 

Brazos ignition kit includes a Ti strut, same components they put in their own guns.  Nighthawk made guns built on Ti frames with a few other Ti parts in the mix (there are a number of companies that do that)...we're not just talking about somebody re-selling a part.  

 

If you do it long enough you will eventually experience, see/hear (first hand), etc pretty much every 'small part' in a gun fail that is outside of 'abuse' and regardless of the material it is made of.  I'm just not sure what that means, I've seen the tip of strut broken (non MIM steel part - but I would bet it was out of spec length wise) and have seen one broken in half - there are tons of pictures of broken struts around, plenty of pictures of broken steel hammers, broken mainspring housings, etc.  I just rebuilt a 20'ish yr old GI Springer and it had a broken steel pin in the mainspring housing.  How many broken extractors have people experienced?  

And yes, Ti FP's are a problem, but I would guess that the majority of "factory made" 1911's have one in them.  It's an 'easy' way for a manufacture to pass a drop test to sell in whatever regions require drop safety.  We're talking millions of guns made with them, they don't all fail in short order, and they take a lot more abuse than a hammer strut.  

As for why, who cares...or the reality is that for a huge majority of the parts you can lego-ize your firearm with - because it's cool to say you have it (and I am just as guilty of that as anybody else).  If you want to really get into the weeds with it, as you said it effects the hammer hitting the pin to burn down a round - but the hammer/strut/cap/spring/etc will then also dictate how the slide comes back under recoil - now I can't think of anybody tuning at that level (we're talking about grams of weight difference...lol), so I'll just go back to it's something people do to say it's been done.  

[ALL_comped_EVERYTHING]

Anyone have experience with the Harrison Design true radius ignition kit. Waiting on a frame & slide but was thinking about trying something different with this kit. 

[zzt]

10 hours ago, ALL_comped_EVERYTHING said:

Anyone have experience with the Harrison Design true radius ignition kit. Waiting on a frame & slide but was thinking about trying something different with this kit. 

 

I use Harrisons True Radius jig on an EGW long nose sear.  I use all the rest of EGW parts.  I Have use Harrisons TR sear.  It works fine.

[DrewM]

I do the same, use a TR jig to cut EGW sears.  I like the feel of true radius cut sear.  

I have used their ignition kits before and they are quality kits, I'd put the quality up with the C&S, EGW, EE kits.  I like their hammers and use them often, nicely machined/dehorned plus you can get steel, stainless or DLC black and I also like the various styles they have in those hammers.  

[shred]

The only reason 1911 mfgs' put Ti firing pins in is to pass drop tests.  Were that not a thing, they'd all be steel.  It's cheaper and better for the job.

 

Ti, especially in the grades used for firearm parts, wears sooner than steel.  That's just basic material science.  Does that matter?  Up to you.