Overtravel-stop experiment
Posted: April 11th, 2007, 11:30 am
I am not sure if this has been tried before. I would bet that it has been, but haven't run across it here, so I figured I'd share my "experiment".
After having replaced my "mainspring" with an 18# PPK spring from Wolfe, I was all smiles. I literally could not pull the trigger in DA with the stock spring. The 18 pounder took DA down to a heavy but manageable 12-13 pound let off. Single action is on the light side, but it was rather light even with the original spring (I never did measure SA with the original, so can't be sure exactly how light). Now with the Wolf 18# spring I get an average let off at about 3.5 - 4 pounds. Which I feel is not unsafe for an experience shooter. (Any lighter, I would not feel comfortable carrying).
I have put several hundred rounds of both Brown Bear JHP (94 gr.) and Federal FMJ (95gr.) through this pistol and now feel confident enough in it's reliability to carry. I have had zero failures of any kind at the range. This is a pistol that looked to be previously unused. I did a very thorough cleaning of the grease (cosmoline?) the gun was packed in before firing the first round.
After changing to the PPK spring, the one thing that I felt needed some improvement (that I could do something about) was the over-travel. So I used a bit of SuperGlue (Loc-tite) and glued about a half of a pencil eraser to the trigger guard right behind the trigger. I then trimmed it so that the trigger would break in SA with virtually no over-travel. This had the perceived effect of giving me a more crisp trigger feel (I say "perceived" because I believe the term is apropos).
This also had the effect of giving what (again is perceived as) a shorter re-set. Actually it is more than "perceived", but I use the term here because the trigger re-sets at the same place as before but has less distance to travel to get there (the length of the pencil eraser).
Problem was that with the over-travel stop, the gun would not fire in double action...I am sure I could have trimmed the eraser some more to get it to fire DA, but I figured for SA it was an "all or nothing" proposition.
BTW, I used a black marking pen to make the pink eraser black...it looked great....looked like it belonged!
But eventually I felt that in a high stress self defense situation (God forbid), I wanted one less thing to worry about, and cocking the hammer was the only thing I could eliminate. I could do this by removing the over-travel stop and giving me the ability to fire in double action.
I tried to pull off the eraser and it left a little pink circle of glue and rubber on the trigger guard. But having read far too many "how to" posts about gun related stuff (if there's such a thing as "too much"), I remembered that freezing super-glue was one of the tricks to removing it. So I took off the slide and removed the magazine and stuck the frame in the freezer for about 20 minutes and the glue and rubber rubbed right off.....back to the "like new" condition it was in before.
Anyway, for a P64 that can only be fired in single action, this seemed to be the ticket for a nicer feeling trigger. No over-travel, shorter reset, a whole different feel.
Peace,
D.
After having replaced my "mainspring" with an 18# PPK spring from Wolfe, I was all smiles. I literally could not pull the trigger in DA with the stock spring. The 18 pounder took DA down to a heavy but manageable 12-13 pound let off. Single action is on the light side, but it was rather light even with the original spring (I never did measure SA with the original, so can't be sure exactly how light). Now with the Wolf 18# spring I get an average let off at about 3.5 - 4 pounds. Which I feel is not unsafe for an experience shooter. (Any lighter, I would not feel comfortable carrying).
I have put several hundred rounds of both Brown Bear JHP (94 gr.) and Federal FMJ (95gr.) through this pistol and now feel confident enough in it's reliability to carry. I have had zero failures of any kind at the range. This is a pistol that looked to be previously unused. I did a very thorough cleaning of the grease (cosmoline?) the gun was packed in before firing the first round.
After changing to the PPK spring, the one thing that I felt needed some improvement (that I could do something about) was the over-travel. So I used a bit of SuperGlue (Loc-tite) and glued about a half of a pencil eraser to the trigger guard right behind the trigger. I then trimmed it so that the trigger would break in SA with virtually no over-travel. This had the perceived effect of giving me a more crisp trigger feel (I say "perceived" because I believe the term is apropos).
This also had the effect of giving what (again is perceived as) a shorter re-set. Actually it is more than "perceived", but I use the term here because the trigger re-sets at the same place as before but has less distance to travel to get there (the length of the pencil eraser).
Problem was that with the over-travel stop, the gun would not fire in double action...I am sure I could have trimmed the eraser some more to get it to fire DA, but I figured for SA it was an "all or nothing" proposition.
BTW, I used a black marking pen to make the pink eraser black...it looked great....looked like it belonged!
But eventually I felt that in a high stress self defense situation (God forbid), I wanted one less thing to worry about, and cocking the hammer was the only thing I could eliminate. I could do this by removing the over-travel stop and giving me the ability to fire in double action.
I tried to pull off the eraser and it left a little pink circle of glue and rubber on the trigger guard. But having read far too many "how to" posts about gun related stuff (if there's such a thing as "too much"), I remembered that freezing super-glue was one of the tricks to removing it. So I took off the slide and removed the magazine and stuck the frame in the freezer for about 20 minutes and the glue and rubber rubbed right off.....back to the "like new" condition it was in before.
Anyway, for a P64 that can only be fired in single action, this seemed to be the ticket for a nicer feeling trigger. No over-travel, shorter reset, a whole different feel.
Peace,
D.