cocked, locked, and sears

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I'm with you Steve M. Not only am I afraid that I am going to wake in a stupor and pull that light trigger too fast, but in condition two I fear that I would not be able to get to the hammer to cock it. I also fear a little slip someday called an ND. The 1911, IMHO, is a professional piece of equipment, and I have too many neighbors through thin walls that could be hit.

My solution? around the house I tote my HK USP .45, with the 1911-style thumb safety on, and the hammer down for a DA first shot. At least then it takes a little more exertion to fire the first round, but it is not really slower. I get the same overall manual of arms of the 1911 so I am not confused, but it is a little safer.

JMHO
 
Steve and Thaddeus: If night time Cocked 'n' Locked is not your choice, perhaps condition 3 would be better. No fine movements to get the 1911 ready to fire, no worry about hitting the thumb safety when not really awake, just gross movements of racking the slide and chambering a round. I keep my 1911 in condition 1 most of the time, no kids around the house, it is on my body or in a shoulder holster on the bed post an night. At night is is loaded with 9 rounds of the old Thunderzap ammo. That stuff will not exit my house but will stop whatever I need to shoot with it. What works for me may not work for you.

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Ne Conjuge Nobiscum
 
The M1911/A1 manual (thumb) safety does keep the hammer from falling if the sear fails with the safety engaged. It is easy enough to prove this simply by disassembling the mechanism and replacing the hammer and thumb safety without the sear. With the safety on, the hammer can't fall. The Ballester Molina safety is different. It does not lock the sear, but not only blocks the hammer but cams it back off the sear. Parts breakage in a good M1911/A1 is extremely rare. I do not place a lot of faith in clones; if it doesn't say M1911A1 United States Property with a big inspector's mark, I prefer not to mess with it. As to letting the slide drop on an empty chamber, there could eventually be some battering of the barrel, but the sear? Whatinheck do you think happens when the gun is fired? The action is not at all gentle. On rare occasions, those guns have fired when dropped muzzle down due to firing pin inertia. Colt solved the problem; clones have not. Quiz question. What causes the dents on the bottom of the firing pin tunnel on a M1911/A1?

PS for Mikey: You are filing the sear engagement surface? Hope you know what you are doing.

[This message has been edited by Jim Keenan (edited March 18, 1999).]
 
Jim Keenan wrote: . As to letting the slide drop on an empty chamber, there could eventually be some battering of the barrel, but the sear? Whatinheck do you think happens when the gun is fired? The action is not at all gentle.

Rosco replies:
When the pistol is fired, the trigger is pulled and the sear moves out of engagement with the hammer. It stays out of engagement all through the period in which the slide is reciprocating, only coming back into contact with the hammer when the shooter releases pressure on the trigger. Thus, the slamming about of the slide during firing has no effect on the sear/hammer interface. When one drops the slide manually, the slide slamming shut jars the the somewhat delicate sear and full-cock notch. If the slide is dropped on a loaded magazine, the action of stripping and chambering the top cartridge slows the slide down sufficiently to not cause problems (except with super-light trigger pulls in target-type trigger jobs). If the slide is dropped on an empty pistol, the slide slams home so hard that, frequently, the hammer will fall to half-cock. Doing so repeatedly will beat up the sear and hammer contact surfaces.

Some gunsmiths advise that, when dropping the slide on a loaded magazine, that the shooter hold the trigger rearward...to take the sear out of contact with the hammer. Personally, I think that anytime you touch the trigger, it should be to fire the pistol. Suggesting that one pull the trigger in order to facilitate chambering a round (no firing intended) is a recipe for an accident.

Rosco
 
Rosco,

I agree 100% with your statement concerning dropping the slide on an empty chamber (as I stated earlier). I have also been told about holding the trigger to the rear while charging a 1911. I tried it a few times and it does work but I find it unnerving. When I chamber a round I actually cock the hammer manually and hold the slide during the chambering motion, although the closing stroke is done briskly. I also chamber check before engaging the safety and calling ready.

Jim Keenan,

When fitting a thumb safety, you file the surface of the safety that engages the rear of the sear when the safety is in the safe position. They are slightly oversize in this area to allow this and they won't install unless they are properly fitted. I only file enough to allow installation/proper function and, yes, I know what I'm doing. I DO NOT touch the hammer/sear engagement surface at all. I buy premium grade, aftermarket, matched sears and hammers (like Wilson) and the hammer/sear engagement is a little more delicate than factory. Hence the need for kinder treatment.

Mikey
 
Rosco, I suggest you take another look at the M1911/A1 cycle. The hammer comes down on the sear as soon as the slide returning to battery allows it to do so. The sear is what holds the hammer back. The slide moves a lot faster both ways in firing than in manual operation. In return to battery, it is not just under spring pressure, it is also bouncing off the recoil spring guide. Believe me, the hammer drops hard on the sear.

Also, the sear is released for re-engagement not when the shooter releases trigger pressure, but when the slide passes over the disconnector and causes it to move downward, breaking the connection between the trigger bar and the sear. When the shooter releases the trigger, the disconnector spring (the middle one of the three spring prongs) moves the disconnector up to interpose itself between the trigger bar and the sear. The trigger bar does not press directly on the sear, but on the disconnector, which in turn presses the sear.

To see this in action (with an unloaded gun), remove the mainspring housing, safety, and grip safety. Then replace the mainspring housing. Work the gun and observe the operation of those parts.

[This message has been edited by Jim Keenan (edited March 19, 1999).]
 
Mikey,
My misunderstanding on the filing. I misread what you said and thought you were filing on the top of the sear where it engages the hammer. My apology.

BTW folks, what happens to cause the hammer to fall when the slide is dropped on a target gun is interesting and quite complex.

When the slide drops, it locks to the barrel and the combined unit is brought to a stop by the barrel slamming up against the slide stop pin. If the sear-hammer interface is wrong, the vibration can simply jar the sear out of engagement with the hammer.

But what usually happens is more interesting. When barrel-slide unit stops abruptly, the whole gun moves forward. But the trigger assembly, being Mr. Newton's "body at rest" simply sits in the frame and tries to stay where it is. This means it actually will move backward relative to the rest of the gun.

By this time, the disconnector is back in place between the trigger bar and the sear. If the trigger is heavy, if the trigger spring is weak, if the sear spring is weak, if the sear-hammer engagement is too small, the trigger in effect will pull itself.

Since this is a very short term impluse, the sear spring normally reasserts itself and presses the sear back against the hammer in time for it to drop into the half cock notch. If the sear spring is excessively weak and fails to do this, the gun fires. So that great trigger pull may well come with some safety risks.

There are solutions to the problem. The most obvious is to undo some of the "light trigger" changes. Barring that, holding back the hammer when dropping the slide works, as does holding back the trigger (thus keeping its weight out of the picture). A lighter (aluminum or plastic) trigger can also help. Or maybe get Congress to repeal the laws of physics. (Of course, Clinton and Gore have another way to fix gun problems.)
 
Jim, you are absolutely correct about sear/disconnector/hammer relationship during firing. I don't know what the heck I was think about. Thanks for the correction.

Rosco
 
I've got a sear failure story for you. My last summer at the Naval Academy, I did duty as a pistol instructor for the incoming plebes. The 1911a1s we were using were standard GI. They weren't tuned, just used a lot. I watched one go full auto when the student fired the first round of a 5 shot string. All of them went, brrrrp. She (about 5'11", basketball player) just looked at me with a deadpan expression and said, "Sir, I think it's broken."

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Dorsai
Personal weapons are what raised mankind out of the mud, and the rifle is the queen of personal
weapons. The possession of a good rifle, as well as the skill to use it well, truly makes a man the
monarch of all he surveys.
-- Jeff Cooper, The Art of the Rifle
 
Raymond and Dorsai,

It is nearly impossible for the disconnector to cause that sort of failure. Disconnector failure would cause the hammer to follow down with the slide, and this USUALLY is not enough to fire the gun. More likely either 1) a very weak sear spring or 2) a broken or badly worn sear or full cock notch combined with a broken out half cock notch. It sounds like that gun was not just worn out, but may have been abused, perhaps by being dropped on the hammer when at full cock. Even if the gun didn't fire or wasn't loaded, that could break out both notches perhaps leaving just enough full cock notch to hold the hammer when the slide was let down easy.

Of course such an incident would have been reported immediately and the gun promptly repaired. No middie would think of simply returning the gun to the arms room and keeping quiet. Of course not. Comments??
 
Jim,
I honestly don't know if this particular 1911 had ever been dropped. I know it didn't happen on my watch. We hauled them out of the armory every morning and set them up on the benches. Cleaned them and turned them in that night. We were never at the same position, nor did we get the same pistol every day so I didn't have any way of knowing if it had been abused the day before. You can bet we turned it in to the the Master Chief immediately after the adventure. It would have been hard to hide anyway. A full auto burst generated just a bit of interest. I was guessing the sear/hammer engagement let go, but this is just a guess. I didn't get to tear it down and fix it, we were just there to teach marksmanship.

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Dorsai
Personal weapons are what raised mankind out of the mud, and the rifle is the queen of personal
weapons. The possession of a good rifle, as well as the skill to use it well, truly makes a man the
monarch of all he surveys.
-- Jeff Cooper, The Art of the Rifle
 
Hi Dorsai,

I apologize for any offense I might have given to the Navy. I just was trying to figure out how that would happen. Too bad you weren't able to find out, would have been interesting.
 
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