1911 hammer spring replacement.

What is the benefit of such a replacement? Is the spring being referred to, also called the main spring? What is the default weight in a 1911 gvt? Cmd? And officer is 23 lb default? What is the desired weight? A stronger spring is better? Due to heavy primer strikes? Or is a lighter spring preferred?
Thanks

If there was a flow chart for your first question it would read something like this;
Does the gun function as was intended by the manufacturer?....yes or no.
If yes, then leave it alone.
If no....is the malfunction due to a faulty hammer spring?
If yes, then replace the spring.
If no, then then leave the hammer spring alone.

Your other questions may have a factual answer....or not....mostly though, they may depend on details that you didn't present, and/or on whether or not you plan to do SOMETHING to counter-act the other problems that may crop-up at some point due to unbalancing what was once a balanced set of springs.
Just a for-instance;
Once upon a time, I got a real good deal on a Springfield Armory GI-Model 1911A1 clone. Reason for the good deal was that the gun was known to misfire on a regular basis...meaning that about every 2nd or 3rd shot would go "click" instead of "bang". As it turned out, the reason for the misfires was that someone had installed a lighter hammer spring (to lighten the trigger pull) AND one of those Wolff "Xtra power" firing pin springs (to make the gun safer if dropped).
Not saying that you would do such a thing, or that merely substituting a weaker spring would cause the same condition....but still....there might be a lesson there, eh?......
Just sayin' that I'm perty-dern sure that most manufacturers know more about how to design a proper set of springs for their gun than you or I do.

DGW

I forgot to add....

No disrespect intended.

DGW

Replacing the mainspring is pretty straightforward, but the benefits are questionable. The stock rating is 23 pounds. Dropping to 20 pounds won't have much of a practical effect on trigger pull, and it doesn't provide the slide delay that the stock spring does. Best rule of thumb is to leave it alone unless somebody has obviously gone the lightened spring route...and replace it with a 23-pound Wolff spring.

The first law of engineering states that there's no such thing as one little change. When a change is made to an existing, proven design, you usually have to change three other things to compensate for the "improvement."

Over a hundred years ago, a notable firearms design genius and a team of Colt's top engineers burned a lot of midnight oil in determining the spring rates for the 1911 pistol. I have it on good authority that those guys were pretty sharp. Why so many people these days keep tryin' to outsmart'em is a mystery.

I think more 1911's have been made unreliable by catalog-reading kitchen-table-gunsmiths trying to make them 'better' .... than have been left in their perfectly functional stock form.

REV

I think more 1911's have been made unreliable by catalog-reading kitchen-table-gunsmiths trying to make them 'better' .... than have been left in their perfectly functional stock form.

Click to expand...

Yeah. Seems like everybody who's learned field-strip one and owns a Dremel fancies himself a gunsmith.

Best thing to do is take that Dremel out in the driveway and hit it with a big hammer five or six times, and then come back to your gun.

Had a guy call me once, with a feed problem with an older Colt Government Model..a pre-Series 70.

"I done me a bygod killer ramp'n'throat job on it, and it won't feed good."

"Why'd you do the work? Was it not feeding okay?"

"Oh, yeah! If fed fine! I just wanted to make it feed better!"

*sigh*

Without even going that complicated, isn't the saying
"If it ain't broke, don't fix it"?

But then again we see, almost daily, "What's the best" this,
or "What's the ultimate" that, when there is NO best this or
ultimate that. There IS a good or even excellent part for YOUR
application, but that part may not be worth "stuff" for my application.

So if anyone asks me what the best, ultimate, or how do I improve
this other thing (unless it IS broken), that person may not get what
they were looking for.

Lol. Great responses.

A buddy of mine recently got a kimber 1911 with a seriously light hammer spring. I just had to ask. It feels almost half the weight. It hasnt misfired yet, to my knowledge. But it had me curious so i had to ask. Lol

It's the modern approach to everything, Gadgets trump Training and Practice.
How many times I've seen money spent on "improvements" that would have been much better spent on tuition at a good shooting school or 1000 rounds of practice ammo.

Pete

Well him and I are both avid shooters, he has completed a... "Front sight" acedemy or something. I work part time at a gun store/pistol range, and shoot alot, to alude to the possibilty of inexperience without knowing him or I, would seem almost comical to those here who know me. Thanks though ;-)

revhigh said:

I think more 1911's have been made unreliable by catalog-reading kitchen-table-gunsmiths trying to make them 'better' .... than have been left in their perfectly functional stock form.

REV

Click to expand...

I agree. Im trying to return the gun to its stock form. It seems everyone here was assuming i was trying to mess with it.

An old gunsmith told me years ago that pistols, not just 1911s are sort of a "dance of the springs" when you shoot them. I usually use what the manufacturer puts in there when I replace them.

You mean to say if the gun cycles every time and goes bang every time I can't make it better? :mrgreen: :wink:

Precision32 said:

You mean to say if the gun cycles every time and goes bang every time I can't make it better? :mrgreen: :wink:

Click to expand...

What could be better than working perfectly,?

REV

Precision32 said:

You mean to say if the gun cycles every time and goes bang every time I can't make it better? :mrgreen: :wink:

Click to expand...

What could be better than working perfectly,?

REV

Precision32 said:

You mean to say if the gun cycles every time and goes bang every time I can't make it better? :mrgreen: :wink:

Click to expand...

I think tinkering without a specific goal a waste. I can see getting a trigger lighter while still remaining safe to be an asset to a comp or range shooter. The same "upgrade" might just be a negative for use as a carry or duty pistol when used by a certain type of person.

Changes to meet a logical objective, IMO, do have a place in my hobby. The point is that these same issues would cause others concern. Oh, this is my hobby and I'm still learning while maintaining that what I do is for my pleasure and the safety of others, at least till I get a HUGE sponsorship ( which will never happen ).

If you want a lighter pull, look at the pieces in the kits that give you a specific weigh pull. Also trigger weight and quality go hand in hand. A good resource for great drop ins is cylinder and slide. There kits are complete and require little fitting.

I understand you want to return it to stock form and just offering a good option. Buying a used gun with a huge after market following always makes you wonder.

I don't know any were close to the amount of knowledge needed to mix and match springs if changing from stock, other than recoil springs.

I took my 1911's sear from a negative engagement (as Browning designed it) to positive. I did this because I could feel the creep of the negative sear. Going positive with the sear raised the trigger pull weight. To compensate the sear/disconnect spring was adjusted to give the desired 3# final weight.

It's not that you don't adjust springs, it's that you know which springs to change and how to change them. Many people will cut coils off the springs to reduce the springs weight. IMHO this is not the way to go. You place the spring over an under sized mandrel and allow it to spin against a belt sander to reduce the diameter of the individual coils. You then polish the spring to remove any stress risers that this may have created.