A Little Off Code, Computers, Photography and Guns

New Trigger for my 1911

A couple of days ago after detail-stripping my 1911^[1] I finally discovered what was causing the binding issues I was having. I knew already that being left handed was part of the problem but I also found out that the particular trigger fitted to my gun was especially slack compared to my brother's^[2].

I found out that when pulling the trigger at a specific angle^[3] the trigger pushes down against the frame and binds against it which fails release the sear and fire.

A few days ago I decided to go ahead and just order a new trigger to solve this problem. I found a Wilson Combat trigger^[4] on Brownells.com for $16.99^[5] which I thought was a pretty good deal. It was a single-stack, long pad^[6] trigger which should be compatible with my 1911.

The trigger arrived today so I detail-stripped my gun again to install the trigger. I figured I would need to do a little bit of fitting myself since my 1911 isn't perfectly standard in all respects. I was lucky to discover that the new trigger had a larger pad^[7] than the pad of the stock trigger which was good because you can always remove material, but you can't put it back. I hoped this would fix my slack and binding issues once and for all.

A quick trip to Ace hardware, $6.49 and an assorted pack of wet/dry sandpaper later I was back at home getting ready to fit the trigger to the frame. I started with 220 grit and did long strokes on both sides of the trigger alternating to keep an even amount of material removal. After about 80-100 strokes the trigger was exactly thick enough to fit properly in the frame. Next up was shaving off a little on both the top and bottom to finish the fit. 60-80 strokes later the trigger fit perfectly inside the frame there was hardly any slack like the stock trigger at all. I did 10-15 strokes on 400 grit and then 600 grit to smooth out the finish again.

After all this I reassembled the gun and installed the screw to prevent overtravel. Dry fired a few times and all seems to be perfect. This was an incredible improvement to my gun. Although the bow is a little longer than the one the gun came with and because of this the pad extends further into the trigger loop than I'd like. It also reveals the rivets used to secure the pad to the bow which is ugly but hey, it works.

Eventually I'll just upgrade and buy myself a decent handgun to begin with and hopefully will only need to replace one or two parts.

1. Charles Daly 1911 [↩]
2. Kimber Desert Warrior [↩]
3. The angle I'm most acustomed to pulling at on a handgun [↩]
4. Wilson Combat Trigger: http://shopwilsoncombat.com/Trigger-Competition-Match-Long-Pad/productinfo/1/ [↩]
5. http://www.brownells.com/.aspx/sid=36780/sku/Wilson__45_Trigger [↩]
6. I opted for the long pad since I have long fingers. [↩]
7. Taller and wider. [↩]