Hey Bob,
Thanks. It is not a steel trigger. It is the unimpressive Colt black plastic.
I figure this is all very well known by you and only bring it into the thread as general information. Your pistolsmithing skills are legendary to say the least!
I don't generally lighten the triggers and have some other little tricks that I do. I will PM you and share some information. I am positive that you may already know what they are, but I can certainly let you know what I do.
We are going to replace that with another type of trigger but, to your question.
I have been able to get really decent pulls using both the very light triggers such as the Dlask and STI and with full metal triggers. There are some tricks that I won't publish (of course
) but generally speaking as long as you get the hammer hooks square, cut no lower than 22 thou max, and get the primary angle at 90 degrees to the hooks, and make the secondary cut no more than 1/3 of the total sear face, you should be able to regulate the pull down to about 3.5 lbs and lower safely with no perceptibal bounce. You will certainly feel the "mass" of full metal triggers and hammers, like on the GI spec pieces, but no trigger/sear/hammer bounce per se. The lighter the triggger and hammer, the more "feel" I experience for the sear break. The heavier the hammer and sear, the more it masks the feel of the sear break. You are absolutely correct that the lighter the hammer and trigger, the more feel for break and crispness there is. I also use the STI titanium hammer strut on all of my builds to get the mass of the ignition parts as low as possible. Most of my builds are for carry and range use but have done many with lighter pulls. I won't do any range guns and ESPECIALLY any carry guns for less than 4 lbs and only then if I know the person that I am building the gun for generally speaking. I have been shooting the 1911 for about 20-30 years and have never been able to improve my groups by going with a super light trigger. But that is just my experience. I don't build race guns as a general rule and almost all of the pistols that I do are for general range use and more specifically for carry, so the 4 lb triggers work out perfect. This particular gun will go out with a 3.5 lb trigger that is very crisp. Even with the crappy plastic trigger. My experience with the Dlask trigger has not be wonderful. I have had very positive luck and feedback using the STI glass filled nylon triggers. They are very light and very durable. That is probably what we will go with on this build, or perhaps the old standby Grieder.
Jess