Trigger job on Ruger 1911

[H Richard]

A buddy brought his almost new Ruger 1911 over this morning. He's like a kid in a candy store with his new toy. He shot it immediately, but wasn't real happy with the trigger pull. I measured it at 7 1/2 lbs and a few gritty spots. Yes, he talked me into doing a trigger job on it. In general I'm fairly well impressed with the fit of the Ruger 1911, but the sear and hammer hooks were sprayed with this flat black protective coating. Sort of like a fine parkerized finish. The main spring was at least 25+ lbs and the sear in addition to having that coating on it wasn't real square. The hammer hooks weren't too bad, about .027" which I brought down to .020 and did a lot of polishing wherever that flat black finish was. Only had to tear down and reassemble twice and came out with a nice clean 4 1/2 lbs. Told him to put 500 rounds through it to finish breaking it in. One other thing, there were several locations where the slide rails were very sharp, with a rough edge, almost like galling. These got slightly stoned and cleaned up.

The last Taurus 1911 I did also had this flat black finish on the trigger and sear. Does anyone know the purpose of it other than protective? It certainly doesn't do anything for the trigger pulls.

 

[mmande]

WOW, how timely is this post! I just finished doing a trigger job on a Ruger 1911 also and sat down to my computer to see if anything was going on on the forum. I don't know about the black coating but it does come off easily where you have to polish surfaces.
This one started with 4 3/4# plus a little wiggle (my NRA weights only go up to 4 3/4#). I also took the hammer hooks down to .020 and polished them. Put the proper angles on the sear with my sear jig and polished. Bent the sear and trigger spring back a little, reassembled and came up with 3 3/4# trigger pull. Disassembled, tweaked the springs a little more and ended up with 3 1/2# exactly (that's what my customer wanted). I was impressed by the quality of the parts. I felt they were equal to Kimber and Colt. Taurus parts are junk and Springfield are not much better than Taurus.
I'm sure the quality inspection will vary gun to gun, but on this one example I would recommend Ruger 1911s to anyone.
Mike

 

[ikor]

While not looking for one, I recently ended up with one on a trade I did with a nephew who was about to get soaked by a LGS that had a hobby level AR15 he desperately wanted. Instead I traded him a nicer AR worth probably twice what the Ruger was, even-up for the pistol, which had maybe 100rd through it at the time. I am impressed as heck with this gun at the price point. Sadly the thumb safety failed when tested. Rather than mess with the MIM parts or send back to Ruger for more of the same, I will replace them with high grade machined steel and have the front strap checkered.

Gun is plenty accurate for a lower-mid level 1911 and I much prefer the original design over a Series 80 type or the Swartz safety, not to mention a standard internal extractor. I am favorably impressed and would buy another at a decent 'street price' which seems to be around $600-650 or so.

 

[H Richard]

mmande, I personally think 3 1/2 lb trigger on a 1911 is fine for a bullseye gun, but a little light if going to be used for any IPSA, IDPA, or self defense. I prefer a minimum of a 4 to 4 1/2 lb as long as it is smooth. Unless the user is a very experienced competitor. But most very experienced competitors also want a 4 lb trigger.

 

[max]

I just got a Ruger last week. When I first fired it, I did not have enough lube on it. I really lubed it up, shot factory ball and it worked fine. I am going to load some more ball and continue the break-in process. It sure is tight, I wll say that.