Step 5: Polishing Remaining Stock Parts Realistically I polished everything else at this point, just to be economical in my process. You?ll see that in the pictures of the parts, so just realize that I can not install both hammers at the same time, and only the stock parts went into the pistol. The installed polished parts are as follows: sear, sear cage, sear cage pin, FPB lifter arm, stock hammer, hammer strut, hammer retaining pin, and disconnector.
The major part that I have in my other two pistols that I did not order for this series of upgrades was a disconnector. I was beginning to suspect that the lack of this part played a major role in not achieving the Double Action results I was hoping for.
Furthermore, my single action trigger break was sort of like dragging a metal rake across gravel. This was not what I had experienced with my other pistols when they were stock. When I got to the the sear I ran my thumbnail across the face that contacts the hammer hooks to see if there were machining marks or something unusual. On the bottom edge of that contact face my thumbnail caught and stuck in place. There was a pronounced burr, like a rolled knife blade edge. I checked the hammer hooks and they definitely rough with machine marks, only making that burr seem worse.
Now let me make a preface. Removing material can remove the hardened surface of the part. I did work the sear on my stones to ever so carefully remove the burr but not take material from any other part of that contact face or change the angle of that contact face. All the same, I know that this could cause my part to wear faster and I will have to check it and make sure it is not of the verge of failure as the pistol is used. Now I hear this still takes thousands and thousands of rounds, but I wanted to make sure I addressed that I am aware of this implication while alerting readers who may not know. I also used 1500 grit sandpaper to try and smooth the hammer hook faces. I was going to replace the stock hammer, so I figured I would try to ever so gently do some smoothing and polishing, but I didn?t get carried away to perfection.
Here are pictures of the tools I used and all the parts after polishing. Like the trigger bar, I am cautious to remove material so the black coating remains in spots. Any contact points were polished, even if the coating is still showing.
When it comes to the Dremel I find that making passes with my felt wheel on the 2 or 3 power settings allows the Fritz to stay in place and work well. It gets the initial polish underway, and I can use a little more pressure to get things happening and then back the pressure off. Then once I am satisfied I crank the Dremel up to the max power setting. I put my hand around the felt wheel (not touching it) for a few seconds, so Fritz doesn?t get all of the room. I ever so gently pass over the spots I want to mirror polish. Usually these spots have some Fritz on them, which is good because the dremel wheel flings a lot its Fritz off. This is my process after testing speeds and combinations of speeds for polishing. If you take this approach just be super soft and gentle on that high speed, you don?t want to remove material with aggressive pressure. Realize that the extreme rpm?s do the polishing at this point, not requiring brute force.
For getting small flat spots I have found that I like to remove most (close to all) of the cotton from a Q-tip, snap it in half, and put it into my dremel. Put some Flitz on the Q-tip and the part to polish (just a little, it doesn?t take tons). Then use the flat end to polish the spot. It also works for getting into small holes and areas that my felt wheel doesn?t get into very well or at all. You can see a used one in the pictures that I used in some holes and it actually wore down the flat end to more of a point (allowing me to get into smaller hoes). If you do this be careful, if you make it have too long of a shaft it may snap and go flying? into your eye! I only have about an inch sticking out of the Dremmel. Also, you can use it on its side, but anything but slight pressure can cause it to snap. Just wear safety glasses! This Q-tip trick pays off, especially on the small flat faces on the back of the trigger bar. These are my processes that I haven?t seen in tutorials, or that I wanted to clarify for the sake of the project. Let's move on to the pictures and results.
** Polished Parts Pictures coming soon
Step 5 Results:Double Action: 7 lbs 13 ounces
Single Action: 4 lbs 0.5 ounces
I was confused and a little angry at these results. Why would this pull weight basically be the same as the previous step? Higher for the single action! It didn?t even feel like the same pistol at this point, these had made such a marked difference! The Double Action pull was so much smoother and the Single Action break was much better. Albeit, still rough because there was only so much I could do to the hammer hooks of the stock hammer. Still, I was sure getting rid of the burr on the sear would at least reduce the pull weight a little. As my list of remaining parts was slowly dwindling I immediately took everything apart to put in the Competition Hammer. I needed to see if it would be the game changer.
