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Dfariswheel · February 5, 2013, 07:50 PM

It's common for owners to either cut or replace the mainspring to get a lighter trigger pull.

Cutting the spring is not a good idea, especially now that you can easily find lighter springs everywhere.
In fact, lightening the mainspring doesn't have that much effect on trigger pull weight, you get more by bending the flat sear spring.
However, this also increases the problem with the hammer following the slide down.

If you read much on the gun forums you'll find a LOT of posts about "My hammer is following the slide, what's wrong"? In most all cases someone has attempted to get a lighter trigger pull or it's a factory gun that came with a lighter pull and they got it wrong.

Unless you're a qualified gunsmith who knows and understands the 1911 trigger assembly and how it functions, you're better off to just install a factory spec set of springs.
Your Colt was designed to operate correctly with the original type of springs and most 1911 problems are caused by people trying to "improve" the gun by switching springs to lighter or heavier springs.

In your case, the only spring that's different from the full size Government Model is the recoil spring which is shorter in the Commander models.
The factory weight Commander recoil spring is a 20 pound spring.
If you're shooting loads over the standard 860 fps, you can go up to a 22 pound spring.

February 5, 2013, 07:50 PM	#2
Dfariswheel Senior Member Join Date: May 4, 2001 Posts: 7,478	It's common for owners to either cut or replace the mainspring to get a lighter trigger pull. Cutting the spring is not a good idea, especially now that you can easily find lighter springs everywhere. In fact, lightening the mainspring doesn't have that much effect on trigger pull weight, you get more by bending the flat sear spring. However, this also increases the problem with the hammer following the slide down. If you read much on the gun forums you'll find a LOT of posts about "My hammer is following the slide, what's wrong"? In most all cases someone has attempted to get a lighter trigger pull or it's a factory gun that came with a lighter pull and they got it wrong. Unless you're a qualified gunsmith who knows and understands the 1911 trigger assembly and how it functions, you're better off to just install a factory spec set of springs. Your Colt was designed to operate correctly with the original type of springs and most 1911 problems are caused by people trying to "improve" the gun by switching springs to lighter or heavier springs. In your case, the only spring that's different from the full size Government Model is the recoil spring which is shorter in the Commander models. The factory weight Commander recoil spring is a 20 pound spring. If you're shooting loads over the standard 860 fps, you can go up to a 22 pound spring. Last edited by Dfariswheel; February 5, 2013 at 07:56 PM.