Why the Ruger "Poor Boy's Trigger Job" is a stupid idea...

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FrankenMauser

New member
I am constantly seeing people bragging about the "trigger job" they just did on their Ruger single action revolvers, only to find out it is the stupid method made popular by Jeff Quinn's Gun Blast article.

I have always tried to tell people that this is not an appropriate method to lighten the trigger pull on these revolvers, but didn't have any hard evidence. Today, that changed.

After some much needed periodic maintenance, and a trigger job on my Super Blackhawk; I decided to give the "Poor Boy" a try for reliability. (This is the only revolver I own, that was 100% stock before today's trigger job. -It still has the factory springs.)

I was extremely surprised. It didn't do a damn thing for the trigger pull. And.... it took less than 3 pulls of the hammer, for a result. The hammer was stuck partially cocked. I absolutely could not cock the revolver, or let the hammer down.

In the first photo, you can see the unhooked trigger spring leg resting on the main spring. That, in itself, is something I don't like.
But... things were made much worse by the fact that the spring was being deflected, and contacting the grip panel. The main spring can shift on the hammer strut in Ruger revolvers. When that happens, it is capable of putting pressure on the trigger spring. ...just as it did here.
With the trigger spring wedged between the main spring and the grip panel, the hammer strut and main spring could not move. So, the hammer could not move.

Feel free to try the Poor Boy's trigger job. ;) If you are lucky, everything will be fine. If you are not... you'll suffer an irritating, and potentially dangerous stoppage. (Grip panel must be removed, at a minimum. But the loading gate can't be opened without the hammer down. So, the revolver can't be rendered safe, in the mean time...)
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(Red lines added to distinguish the two surfaces of the grip frame.)
 

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my 41 mag blackhawk has been working just fine for the last 25 or so years with this trigger job. it made a difference
 
I'll repeat this -- I have never done a Ruger SA trigger job that needed different or modified springs !!! :eek: The customers are always very happy ! :p What they need is a skilled gunsmith to smooth things and make a few other changes.:)
 
I have to agree with the OP. When I first heard of the poor boy job years ago I couldn't believe that anyone would do this to their gun. Calling this a trigger job is an insult to all gunsmiths. Installing lighter springs in a SA revolver will actually make it harder to hit with because you are making a gun with an extremely slow lock time even slower. I replace the stock springs with heavier ones after doing a trigger job to speed up the lock time. The hammer and sear have to be addressed to get any improvement in the trigger feel. Every Ruger SA I have ever worked on had a great deal of creep and lightening the springs just allows you to experience a godawful trigger pull for an even longer time. Save your pennies and get a real quality trigger job done. It won't be cheap but it will be worth it.
 
It's getting harder and harder to find a local gunsmith that you can trust to do work like this. They exist, but they're getting harder to find. My personal gunsmith retired last year, and while I trusted him with detailed work, his replacement hasn't yet earned my trust.

I guess we could buy Kuhnhausen's book and learn the proper way to do a trigger job. I've done other mechanical work in the past and I'm not afraid of being ignorant of a certain task. It's easy to get educated and there is lots of satisfaction in doing it yourself.
 
Yep. I agree, 100%.

You can't fix a crappy trigger with lighter springs. That just gives you a lighter pull with your crappy trigger (and slower lock time, as drail pointed out).

It is much more worthwhile to stone and polish the existing parts (even if you don't change the engagement), than it is to change, cut, file, bend, heat, or otherwise mess with the springs.


If you REALLY want to just change the spring, you can get a Wolff trigger spring for under $10.
 
Certainly anyone who does this does it on their own authority, and at their own risk.

However, my experience has been much differnt from yours. I have dropped the leg of the spring on my Blackhawks for 30 years (never heard of that article), and it has always resulted in a better trigger pull (at least to my feel), and in tens of thousands of rounds I have had a grand total of zero (none, not one) problem with it. Maybe the fact that my guns wear pachmayr grips might have something to do with it, I don't know. But it works for me, and works well.

You, and everyone else, should do as they see fit, and understand (as I do) that there is a potential for problems if they do it.
 
It worked for me.

I think it was meant that the lock time would increase if you put one of those reduced power hammer springs in it. I think that's commonly done to make the gun faster for Cowboy Action Shooting games and such. I wouldn't do that myself. However, the, "Poor-boy trigger job", has worked well for my Vaquero for perhaps a decade now and thousands of rounds rounds fired with never, ever a problem. If it works for you it's worth more than you'll pay for it.
 
DO NOT BLAME QUINN WHEN YOU DID IT WRONG !!!
You were not paying attention to the vagaries of each individual pistol evidently.
 
DO NOT BLAME QUINN WHEN YOU DID IT WRONG !!!
You were not paying attention to the vagaries of each individual pistol evidently.
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I wasn't placing blame. I was simply pointing out that the Gun Blast article has been cited in the majority of "Poor Boy's" trigger job posts, in the last 5 years, than anything else.

And... if you look closely, you'll see that Mr. Quinn's photos show the spring leg resting on the main spring, as well. Perhaps the "vagaries" of the revolvers are not as pronounced as you thought.

Perhaps you should read the posts, rather than assuming you know what they say. :rolleyes:
 
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I too have used the cripling method of unhooking one leg and have had no problem with several Ruger SA's over 30 years.
 
However, my experience has been much differnt from yours. I have dropped the leg of the spring on my Blackhawks for 30 years (never heard of that article), and it has always resulted in a better trigger pull (at least to my feel), and in tens of thousands of rounds I have had a grand total of zero (none, not one) problem with it. .... I don't know. But it works for me, and works well.
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Same here. With standard wood grips.... ~30 years and several Ruger SAs... Has worked great. But that is just my experience. YMMV.
 
I don't have the knowledge or experience to judge the OP's statement or that of anyone else regarding the effectiveness or reliability of this "trigger job".

What I will say is that I work in Information Technology (IT). When someone at work comes to my desk and says their computer was screwed up by the most recent "patch" we pushed out to it I always ask if they have installed or uninstalled any software, or if they have otherwise made changes to the computer recently. I find that about 95% of the time if they have made recent and significant changes, including "cleaning up old files" (doing maintenance), then their problems are because of what they did, not because of the patch we pushed to their computer.

So when I hear this:

"After some much needed periodic maintenance, and a trigger job on my Super Blackhawk;"

...followed by a complaint about some other change not working right, I have a bit of skepticism as to the real source of the problem, or at least as to why something that works for many others didn't work for this person.

I am not saying the OP is wrong about the possible issues with this trigger job. It seems likely to me this kind of "hack" could cause problems for some people and not others.

What I am saying is that he has two marks against him right from the start... He doesn't maintain his firearm as regularly as he should, and he just made significant changes to the firearm. The fact that these changes were a trigger job, which means this spring could have been reinstalled or otherwise moved slightly off from factory spec (it wouldn't take being off by much to get the spring to do what he shows in the picture), just increases the marks against.

Will I do this to my Ruger SBH? Sure, why not. It is easy to do, can't do any harm that can't be fixed just as easily, and might make my happier with the gun. Knowing me I will maybe shoot it at the range one time like that, and then put it back because I don't trust this kind of "hack" for the long term, but I don't see any harm in messing around with it for a bit.
 
What I am saying is that he has two marks against him right from the start... He doesn't maintain his firearm as regularly as he should, and he just made significant changes to the firearm. The fact that these changes were a trigger job, which means this spring could have been reinstalled or otherwise moved slightly off from factory spec (it wouldn't take being off by much to get the spring to do what he shows in the picture), just increases the marks against.
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Don't maintain my firearm as regularly as I should?
You don't even know what kind of periodic maintenance I was undertaking. In this case, it was a full tear-down of the revolver. The only parts that weren't removed from the revolver were the barrel, and the rear sight base. In my experience, that is immeasurably further than 99.99% of SBH owners will EVER go with their revolvers. When was the last time YOU tore your revolvers down to a bare frame or barreled action? ;)

Do you understand what a "trigger job" generally refers to?
To the uneducated, it's a magical process that involves massive changes to, or replacement of, various internal parts. To people familiar with the process, it usually isn't anything more than a little polishing (stoning) of the factory parts. If I polished the internal parts to the point that it caused an alignment issue with the hammer strut... I would have had to have removed a substantial amount of metal from the hammer. ...and that part of the hammer is NOT touched during a trigger job.

And... the trigger spring on this grip frame is absolutely incapable of being 'misaligned'. The only way you can screw it up, is if you install it upside down.

Don't lay blame, unless you can prove you know what you're talking about.
 
FrankenMauser said:
Don't lay blame, unless you can prove you know what you're talking about.
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Let me see if I have this straight several members here (myself included) and a well respected gun writer have been able to use the "po-boy" trigger job and have it work. Your only proof that the procedure is stupid iis that you tried it one time and can't get it to work. There's certainly some fallacy to your logic ;).
 
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Add me to the list....I've been doing this with my Blackhawks and Super Blackhawks for 20+ years. It improves the trigger and I've never had a problem.
 
Me too. I've done this with 3 Vaqueros, as has just about everyone else I know who shoots CAS with Rugers, and I've never had or heard of any problems.
 
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