1911 Triggers

One of the things I think I've learned in these forums is that a gun's accuracy won't be any better than what the barrel is capable of, nor will the shooting be better than anything the shooter is capable of.  Maybe that's why I read so many good things about Kart barrels.

While there are SO many things that are considered essential in the fundamentals, it seems to me that Trigger Control (or lack of) is at the very top of the list.  So my question is which trigger or triggers are likely to allow a person to shoot at the best of their potential.  I'm only asking regarding Bullseye, and specifically 1911.  I'm not asking for "the very best" trigger, but rather which trigger or triggers is reasonably affordable, and will give the shooter the best "feel" for what is happening with their gun as they're shooting.

I'm not asking "roll trigger" vs. "crisp trigger", as from what I've read, that comes down to personal preference.  


As a second part of this question, once someone selects a trigger, does that trigger get modified to work best with the gun, or does the gun get modified to work best with that trigger, or a little of both?

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I also realize now how many different style triggers are available, long, medium, short, curved, flat, hinged....    I'm guessing these are ways to personalize a trigger so it best fits the shooter's hand....

Unfitted, they are mostly equal

Curious, other than making the trigger interface with the grip safety, what other "fitting" is there?  

There are lots of other choices to consider, having the front surface flat or curved, how wide the trigger should be, having serrations on the front surface or not.
My gut feeling is that a curved trigger front makes it easier to repeat your trigger position, and a wider trigger is most likely more comfortable.  I looked around on the net, and found this (http://www.reloaderaddict.com/best-1911-trigger-review/ ) which some ideas for people to consider, lighter weight, adjustability, and so on.

Fitting a trigger includes filing the top & bottom of the trigger so it slides freely. without too much play, polishing the bow and, perhaps, stoning the tracks in the frame and making sure the bow doesn't rub on an inserted magazine. Many triggers have over-travel screws and pre-travel tabs on the bow. The over-travel screw is a little tricky. Too much or too little can create problems.

mspingeld wrote:........The over-travel screw is a little tricky. Too much or too little can create problems.

I understand that if you have too little over-travel, the gun might not fire.  
What problems might too much over-travel cause other than being very "sloppy"?

Too much overtravel is rarely a problem, it just feels sloppy and many shooters want to minimize it.

Too little overtravel is a bigger deal, the gun won't reset and therefore your next shot won't fire. Or, various other bad things. You need a little bit of "room" for the reset to occur. A perfectly fitted and tuned gun can minimize this, of course.

Thanks for so much useful information.  I took this advice and adjusted the overtravel on my Caspian.  Yeah, before it felt sloppy, and once the excess play was removed, it felt more like my other guns.

Dave Salyer told me to hold the trigger back, and let it move very slowly, checking if it "rubs" on the sear.  I've never yet even seen a sear, but I did notice that the trigger was rubbing against something.  I turned the screw out until that rubbing feeling was gone, and then a little more.  Now it feels great.

The screw turns so easily - do people put something on these screws so they are more likely to stay put?


(Having read all the above, if I ever feel capable of it, I'd like to put a different trigger in this gun - the trigger is very short, and my other 1911's have a longer trigger that fits my hand better.  My hand fits the guns with long triggers better.)

mikemyers wrote:I took this advice and adjusted the overtravel on my Caspian.  Yeah, before it felt sloppy, and once the excess play was removed, it felt more like my other guns.

Don't just do what others say Mike.  I see this in so many of your posts.  Others (that you just haven't encountered yet) want quite a bit of overtravel because FOR THEM, it helps instill good follow through.  You have to figure out most of what will ultimately become YOUR process, yourself.

mikemyers wrote:
The screw turns so easily - do people put something on these screws so they are more likely to stay put?


(Having read all the above, if I ever feel capable of it, I'd like to put a different trigger in this gun - the trigger is very short, and my other 1911's have a longer trigger that fits my hand better.  My hand fits the guns with long triggers better.)

Don't know about others, but, I'd think a very small dab of blue threadlock would work.

Don't know about others, but, I'd think a very small dab of blue threadlock would work.

Use purple Loctite for this purpose, not blue:
Loctite 222

inthebeech wrote:Don't just do what others say Mike.  I see this in so many of your posts.  Others (that you just haven't encountered yet) want quite a bit of overtravel because FOR THEM, it helps instill good follow through.  You have to figure out most of what will ultimately become YOUR process, yourself.

I know what you mean, and I agree, but there are so many things I know nothing about (yet).  Until I watched that video, I knew nothing about adjusting a trigger.  I knew what I didn't like on my Caspian, but had no idea how to correct it, and apparently what I was thinking of doing would have been the wrong thing.  Once I started playing with the overtravel adjustment, I was able to get things the way I prefer.

I probably sound like that a lot, as you noted.  Some advice doesn't make sense to me, and other advice seems obvious (but only after reading about it).  Then there's advice from Brian Zins, which I blindly follow.  There are others here who I also follow, even if at the time I don't understand fully what they meant.  I can always go back (and have) when the advice didn't work for me.


Back to this discussion, for me, the excessive over-travel I had just made the gun feel sloppy.  It didn't feel "precise" as my Baer and Springfield do.  I was trying to figure out why (without much success).  

Some things I figure out for myself.  Eventually.  
Some things people tell me make sense, and sometimes they don't.  
Most of the time, once I understand what's going on, what people have said does make sense - I just didn't know enough to understand what they meant.


Anyway, thanks.  You're right, but part of how I see life is "why re-invent the wheel?"

Like with 'mustachio' and his advice on my Taurus PT9.  I doubt I ever would have thought of the ideas he suggested, but they worked out beautifully.  I bought the same parts he installed, and ordered the same ammo, and it is becoming a whole new gun.  Trigger pull is nicer, the ammo is easier to shoot, and so on.  Before he suggested those things, I was getting ready to sell the gun.



Purple Loctite 222.   Will try to get some at Ace Hardware.  Thanks!!!

I noticed a lot of low left shots that really weren’t on call. Not to the degree that they were anyways. I wasn’t jerking the trigger as much, dry fire always looked perfect. But my trigger squeeze is probably slightly faster than it should be (came from combat shooting). So I added 1 turn of overtravel to see if it would help and instantly my low left shots were gone. Maybe that helps confuse you even more lol. We each have a different feel and style. Play with it and figure out what works best for you

I think what Mike does is great; questions to those who have been doing this for decades are good - it's why I'm here, too.  Some things come naturally, but most things don't, so they may take years and thousands of rounds to figure out the hard way or a few minutes of quality time with a mentor.

I have a national champion who does my 1911 work who I go to for the questions one can't reasonably be expected to figure out on their own.  If it wasn't for him my grip would still be screwed up (more than it is), I'd never have entertained certain dot sizes, and I'd be eating the wrong food during days of firing.  And I only ask him a fraction of the questions I have.

The best thing that he taught me though?  The most important space on the range is the 6 inches between my ears.  The wind picks up, my target faces slowly, the guy next to me ejects brass on top of my head, I left my sight black at home, I forgot to wear my belt that day, I only brought exactly 30 rounds so I have none for alibis, my palms are unusually sweaty, somebody is behind me taking pictures, my phone is vibrating because somebody doesn't realize that me shooting a match means I am busy, I'm going back to Rapid Fire shooting the best I've ever shot, somehow the same few top-tier folks have those things going on and more and still pick up the same 3 pounds of metal that we all have and points it at the same X-ring we all aim at and hits it more times than we do.  At some point it's not equipment any more, it's grey matter.

+1  +1  +1

Epistemology.

adminbot1911 wrote:...........Some things come naturally, but most things don't, so they may take years and thousands of rounds to figure out the hard way ..........

Speaking of triggers, I've been noticing that despite having the sights lined up perfectly, and pulling/pressing/whatever the trigger as smoothly as possible, my shots with the 45 at 25 yards end up only 8-ring or better at worst, 9-ring or better at best.  I used to have the same problems with my Model 41, but after learning I could dry fire it, I have dry-fired more rounds in an organized training session.  I was amazed to find that eventually, what I thought was a hair-trigger still had movement, and *IF* somehow I could control the gun during that movement, the hits would be much closer than otherwise.  I don't know how to describe it, other than that time seems to expand, and I FEEL the trigger moving on its way to fire the gun.  That one thing, combined with area aiming, greatly improved my targets.

I never could do that with 45.  Sights were aligned, everything was all set, I tried to be careful and smoothly fire the gun, and after the explosion, my hits were like the 22 used to be, mostly 8-ring or better, with occasional holes inches away.  Maybe it's partly because of this discussion, but I decided to try what I had been doing with the 22, and apply it to 45.  I put my wad guns away, and used my Les Baer Premiere II with steel sights.  I rarely aimed "at" anything other than a blank wall, and my only concern was that the front sight remain perfectly centered in the rear sight, without moving up or down.   It started off terribly, and all I was doing was taking carefully aimed shots, but now I could see the sight move one way or another most times I fired.  I doubled my practice session time from 25 minutes to 50 minutes, still with 40-seconds dry-fire, followed by 60 seconds of rest.

After a day or so, I figured the only way I'm going to correct that problem was shooting more slowly, so I started deliberately trying to work the trigger as slowly as I was capable of doing.  It took a while, but miraculously, time seemed to stretch out, and I could work the trigger as if it was a roll trigger, which allowed me to control the trigger during that entire time.  So, I've been doing that 50-minute practice session several times a day - I use an app on my iPhone to control what I do, and when.  Instead of 100% bad releases, not I'm down to maybe 20%, and the other shots have the gun going --CLICK-- with the sights remaining unchanged.   

(Admission -  I turn on the TV to a movie I have already seen, and do the 50-minutes of practice while watching the movie.  I may even change to a 2-hour practice session.  I don't get bored, I don't mind doing the practice for all that time, and I get to do much more practice than I used to.  The key is to watch a movie I've already seen, so I am concentrating on the practice, NOT the movie.)  

I have yet to test this at the range.  I don't expect all the holes to be inside the 10-ring....    I will first be happy to get them all "in the black" at 25 yards.  My goal is 9-ring or better, eventually.



Why the Baer?  It's difficult to put it into words, but I can relate better to what the steel sights are showing me.  To me, the red dot is for aiming, but the steel sights give me a better understanding of what the gun itself is doing.  I understand that controlling the dot is the same as controlling the gun, or should be, but to me it's not the same.  I'm learning to keep the gun right where it needs to be, not a seemingly detached red dot.  When time seems to expand, and I can follow the steel sights right through the firing process, it means more to me than an electronic indicator showing the same thing.  Maybe this sounds silly, and maybe it's from my photography experience, where looking through an electronic viewfinder is similar, but not the same, as looking through an optical viewfinder. To me, a red dot lined up with the bullseye is like the front/rear steel sights on a revolver lined up with a bullseye.  But the way we're supposed to use steel sights is only to keep the front sight perfectly aligned properly with the rear sight.  It's like a "magnifier" showing exactly what the gun is doing.  With a 2 MOA dot, maybe the dot sights will be just as sensitive, once the dot remains still and stops looking like a blur.   For now, all of this is just learning time for me.  If I can learn to keep the steel sights aligned for shot after shot, I will have learned how to operate the trigger better, and I'm hoping that once I accomplish that, I'll do better regardless of what kind of sights I'm using.   ....I hope this makes sense.   Those of you who are already "good" have learned it long ago, and it is as natural for you as loading the gun.  For others, such as myself, I think I still need to learn this if I want to continue to improve.