Light strikes after EGW hammer/sear

[DarthMuffin]

I put an EGW hammer and sear in my Limited and got to give it a try today. I was getting occasional light strikes and primers wouldn't ignite.

The gun has the same Henning XL firing pin and 13-lb hammer spring it's had in it for a year with no problems. Firing pin channel is clean.

It seems like the hammer is dragging on something, there's some resistance in the last 3/16" of travel before it hits the pin. I took the gun apart several times looking to find the problem, and I can't find it. When disassembling the gun I can remove the sear cage and the "drag" goes away and the hammer moves freely, so it's not the hammer itself binding.

Anyone got any ideas? Thanks in advance.

[sinnsyk]

Not sure. IF the hammer pin is too tight it can slow the hammer. Probably not the case for you, but with my new hammer pins it may be necessary to do work on pin/hammer fit. Also look for drag marks on sides of hammer and take a look at the hammer strut / hammer spring. Make sure the hammer strut is installed correctly.

[DarthMuffin]

I'm thinking it's not the hammer to frame, hammer pin, or hammer strut to blame because when I remove the sear cage the hammer swings freely. The drag is gone.

It doesn't seem to be dragging on the side of the sear cage either, but maybe I missed something...

If I can't figure this out I may just go up to a 15-lb spring for a while and see if the problem doesn't work itself out.

Edited December 7, 2009 by DarthMuffin

[BritinUSA]

Did you try removing the hammer and see if the hammer slots into the rear of the slide correctly, it could be binding on the slide somewhere?

[Jeff686]

Maybe this is too obvious, but I made this mistake before... If the overtravel is too agressive, the sear can drag on the hammer. While debugging, I'd screw that puppy out to provide lots of overtravel. If you hold the trigger back and move the hammer, you can often feel the interference.

[DarthMuffin]

I thought of the overtravel issue (it was pretty agressive) and already dialed that back, but unfortunately I didn't think of it until after I got back from the range.

My highly scientific method of measuring firing pin force (putting a pencil in the barrel, eraser end down, and see how high it goes when firing) says the adjustment didn't make a noticeable difference.

Yes, I removed the hammer and made sure it slides freely. I installed it temporarily without the spring so I could really get a good feel for it.

Hmm, maybe I can load up some "blanks", just case and primer, no bullets, to test this at home. It's 11 degrees outside and dark by the time I get off work

[CHA-LEE]

Sounds like the sear is catching on the half cock as the hammer falls and the hammer is slowing down enough to cause light strikes. Have you tried lowering the half cock ledge to give the sear some more clearance? This is fairly easy to test out to see if its catching. Take a sharpie marker and black out the half cock ledge when the hammer is cocked back. Then fire about 20 rounds and look at the half cock ledge to see if any of the marker has been rubbed off. If ANY of the marker is rubbed off then the sear is catching on the half cock and its slowing down the hammer as it falls and causing light strikes.

A temporary fix to this is to increase the over travel of the trigger, but this is just a band aid. The real solution is to lower the half cock ledge until it does not catch any more in a normal firing condition.

[DarthMuffin]

Cha-lee wins the Internet for tonight! That was exactly it. The sharpie idea was brilliant. Thank you very very much!

A little thread-drift here, but where do you guys adjust your trigger travel screws to? I generally sneak them down until it just barely doesn't fire or reset, then back off a half turn.

Edited December 8, 2009 by DarthMuffin

[CHA-LEE]

DarthMuffin> Setting the pretravel the way you described is probably best. I tend to not look at it in 1/4 or 1/2 turns but instead look at the trigger travel past hammer fall and trigger reset. You want a comfortable margin of over/pre travel past the trip points. You can set them up right where they trip the hammer or rests and it feels really good on the bench or in dry fire but you may get inconsistent functionality when you actually shoot it. The sear cage squirms/flops around when you shoot and it can cause some strange issues if you have the over/pre travel screws too close to the edge of working.

[sinnsyk]

Your question on light strikes reminds me that I do need to write a Tech article about this with all the possible scenarios. I don't always think of all the reasons every time and I think between everyone here on the forum that we've been able to find the reason behind almost all problems. Searching through previous posts can be tedious so adding light strike issues to the Tech section will be on my list.

I've also gotten requests for making a video on how to do a trigger job so I will do this soon. I also hope to have some sear jigs available soon. My schedule is clearing up a little now after a busy travel schedule since the summer. I'll be home in Colorado tonite and just bitch at me if I forget or start slackin' on this.

For the next month I will focus on getting several parts made. Then it's Shot Show next and hopefully start getting some skiing in this winter ;-)