Ned Christiansen said:
I think it is sort of a sign of novice status, and to do it to someone else's 1911 is bad manners. Around here we call it a "bubba drop". It's like getting out of your pal's car and winding up and slamming the door as hard as you possibly can. Probably didn't hurt anything but your pal doesn't appreciate it and if you did it 1000 times something might shake loose.
But does it really, truly, hurt anything? I did it to a 1911 2500 times as an experiment. This is a rather plain-Jane gun that I use specifically for testing this kind of thing and I will make an article of it sometime (thank you, Mr. T.L.!!). Initially I rigged up a rear right with a ball bearing and made a big cam, set it up in the mill so I could get a large Bubba-drop count with minimal trouble. Slam-slam-slams-slam-slam at a rate of 1000 RPM, cool! Totally did not work when I realized it did not really duplicate doing it by hand. My helper and I took turns doing it by hand, 100 at a time until we got to 2500, no hammer drop and no change in trigger pull. But--- I feel certain we took some life out of the barrel foot and maybe the slide stop.
Don't drop the slide on an empty chamber on any gun but your own and preferably with no one else present. For me this applies to everything- every pistol, every rifle, every auto shotgun. Will it destroy the gun, nope, but I dunno, I was just brought up being gentle on machinery when you can.
All the biz about "it'll destroy your trigger job" comes from the Colt Gold Cup and Bullseye shooting. Until recently GC's had heavy steel triggers. Oh, they had a big lightening slot in them but because of their width, they are heavy. Here's a weight comparo:
Baseline: standard Colt short trigger, all steel, two-piece silver brazed together.... the commercial standard going way back: 166 grains
WWI-spec long trigger, all one piece: 200
A-1 wartime production, short, one piece: 129 grains. This surprised me by being lighter than the Colt commercial short.
Carbon fiber with Titanium bow-- 44 grains. Wow! Why--? So you can maybe get the trigger pull down to 2 pounds and reduce your chances of hammer follow.
And now, announcing the heavy weight king of the 1911 world, the Gold Cup trigger.... steel construction, wide, long, big ol' steel screw, 3-piece: 249 grains!
The fat trigger. I never was a great big Bullseye shooter I’ll admit, but I could never really feel any kind of advantage in it. The disadvantages are several. Holstering a GC in a holster made for a standard narrow trigger…. not good. The biggest issue is the trigger's weight (mass). Colt has gone to aluminum recently, big improvement in safety. The older heavy GC trigger is a big deal in a pistol that over the years has had a lot of people do trigger jobs—being a target pistol, people want light pull weights, right? The mass of the GC trigger in a pistol that has been worked on for a light pull is a big safety issue, as it leads to to hammer follow caused by the trigger’s inertia. When the slide slams home chambering a round, the frame jumps forward and the trigger stays where it was, dropping the hammer and sometimes firing the gun. With an empty chamber, the hammer might drop to half-cock and that's where the damage to the trigger job may occur.
I hesitate to even mention the techniques some target shooters used for years to counter this. How about this for a loading procedure: with slide locked back, insert magazine, pull trigger, drop slide. This breaks the connection between the trigger and the sear by moving the disconnector out of the way. Or how about this: Slide locked back, insert magazine, put a thumb on the hammer to keep it from dropping, drop slide. Both are terrible practices and dangerous habits….. and I have seen ND’s resulting from technique #1.
When I'm finalizing work on a 1911, I hate dropping the slide to test for hammer follow, but I do it-- 5X, no more. But I work my way up to it using my SWS.... my Slide Whack Simulator :-) . This is a tool I made a long time ago where I can slide it onto the frame; it has a big brass weight powered by two 1911 recoils springs...... you pull it back and let it go. It impacts the tool body, made from Delrin, which then impacts the back of the frame simulating a slide drop. You can pull it back to level 1, 2, or 3-- every gun has to pass 3. Then it gets the five Bubba drops while fully assembled as the final test.
All such tests are done with the pistol pointing up, so not just the mass of the trigger is working against me, but also its weight. And in all cases, the hand holding the gun is, well, I look left and look right to make sure there are no witnesses, then go into a very limp-wrist mode. This allows the frame to get the max jump or movement when the slide or SWS impacts the frame. Think for a sec about the opposite of the limp hold-- cast the frame into concrete and re-do the test. The frame now cannot move so there's no chance of inertia causing a hammer drop. I feel this testing it a high threshold and maximizes safety. I stack things in my favor a little by A) if you want a 2.75-pound trigger, take it to someone else after you get it from me. I will not go below 4 pounds and 4.5 is my standard. B) Whatever the trigger is, I lighten it further-- a series of 3/32 holes in the bow, and whatever metal can be taken out of the shoe. I don't want this happening to any of my customers: 18 year-old Ned as yet knows pretty much nothing about 1911's. Ned's pal hands his Gold Cup to Ned and says "Try the trigger on this baby!". Ned inserts magazine, drops the slide, and puts one in the ground three feet in front of him. I might just be better off today for having had that experience!
Member
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote
Bookmarks