1911 Glass Break Trigger

[RR]

cntryboy1289 wrote "partswapper."

I wasn't aware that you forge your own hammers and sears. I don't have a forge. I quess I will just have to continue to buy them and then fit them to the gun using files, jigs, and stones.

Please tell me, how can I be like you and forge my own hammer and sears?

........need more popcorn........

[Wildalaska]

I came up with the following process that has served me very well over the years."

Served him very well. Him. Maybe guys like Harry bonar or some other master pistolsmith. Someone that has worked more 45s than you or I have seen. Not tyros.

WildofftosellmoregunsAlaska

[RR]

Wildalaska, Jack wrote the article for Brownells to share his experience, and he also teaches the very same smithing techniques at his local college. He wants his students to smith 2 1/2 lb 1911 triggers for competition guns. Otherwise, his article would have been entitled "Light Triggers Are Dangerous." Don't ya think

Now Jack wouldn't have hijacked this thread-Jack would have attempted to answer the question and give suggestions. Jack shares.

You all ought to share too. That's what we are here for. If you don't know, or don't have any suggestions that doesn't make you a bad person, or if you prefer to not share, that's Ok too.

I am not a "gunsmith" and I don't play one on TV (but I did stay at the Holiday Inn last night

.......coffees ready.......

[brickeyee]

Buy some spare parts and practice.
A set of pins to hold the hammer and sear on the side of the frame are pretty useful for reducing pull. You are using the frame itself (and most of its errors) in setting the hammer and sear engagement.
A neutral engagement and polished surfaces goes a long way to getting a good trigger feel.
The sear is only about 0.030 wide, and the hooks should be pretty close to the same dimension.
Even milling the hooks still leaves some slop unless you use a set of gauge pins and a jig to mount and hold the hammer.
With practice the same thing is easily and quickly done with hand tools.
I used to buy surplus mil parts to use for practice. Who cares about messing up a $2 hammer or sear.
Regretfully those parts are pretty much gone.
You are going to mess up a few learning how to do the job correctly. Chalk the cost up to experience.
I still use arkansas, hard arkansas, and hard black arkansas files, and guard them very carefully. I do not even allow anyone to handle them. The novaculite veins are getting run out and te stones I have probably cannot be replaced.

[HSMITH]

I would bet solid money that the average trigger pull at a USPSA/IPSC match is less than 3 pounds and that Limited and Open guns are averaging 2 pounds. Some are as light as 20 ounces, and hold up for 50K plus rounds if done right in the first place. Most never fail at all, but with that round count and a big match coming they get 'freshened up' with all sorts of new parts.

I have never seen a negligent discharge at a match, or out of the area of a target. I have seen a couple go full auto, a couple were home smithed and one was mine. MY Para with a 4# trigger went full auto, went from 4 pounds to full auto on the next shot. My trigger was done by a friend of Wildalaska, and a VERY well respected smith. There is NO way anyone can say 4 pounds or more is safe with a straight face and any knowledge. Guns are mechanical tools and mechanical things FAIL. 4 pound triggers fail just as often as 2 pound triggers provided both are prepared in the same way.

Lets get off the path of hammer follow and unsafe (unsafe at least as far as competition guns go) OK? Screw up the trigger job or have Murphy come to visit and those things will happen, do it right and keep Murphy away and it won't happen. Fair enough?

USPSA/IPSC shooting, with the scary triggers and all, is several times safer to participate in than playing golf. I don't remember the article, but a google search should turn it up.

Back to the original post......


RR, the EGW 'hard sear' is probably the best sear on the market. When interviewing the top smiths to build my Limited gun I don't remember even one that didn't want to use it as the number one choice. A couple also recommended to use the Extreme Engineering kit, which they make and C&S brand names to sell as their own BTW, if you wanted to use that kit. A few would use the STI S-7 sear if you wanted to cut costs a little and still have a good product. From there it goes downhill pretty quick, they stake their name and livelihood on making guns that RUN and won't use substandard parts. EVERY single one of them was willing to use the Koenig hammer, without reservation. That alone tells me it is a good part.

Keep chugging, you will get it. If you don't get it this time order another one and have at it. You don't get anywhere without starting somewhere, something a lot of people in this thread have forgotten or just don't get.

[Wildalaska]

Keep chugging, you will get it. If you don't get it this time order another one and have at it. You don't get anywhere without starting somewhere, something a lot of people in this thread have forgotten or just don't get.

No we get it, just dont like to see 2 pounders as beginner projects..

WildstreetgunAlaska

[RR]

HSMITH, thanks for your post. I heard the same things about the Koenig and EGW, so that why I thought I would try it. I have done quite a few triggers over the years, with mostly very good results if I use high end parts. This is by no means a beginner project, just a puzzling one. Thanks for your help.

brickeyee, I have the pins you refer to as well as a 20x scope and a Yapiva jig (which has a 20x scope). I find that I am better off using the pin set to check engagement as well as in the gun using Dykem and Prussian Blue.

I joined this forum in 1999. I don't remember the gunsmithing forum being this comical. But times change.

Thanks again guys.

[Hunter Customs]

Well I was going to stay out of this and just stand back and shake my head. However my name has been brought into this conversation so I'll say what I believe about trigger pulls.

First with all do respect to Mr Bonar I do not feel that light trigger pulls done the correct way are unsafe. Sometimes maybe unskilled shooters trying to use light triggers are unsafe, but I'll be willing to bet that a good light trigger will not go off until someone puts their finger on it and squeezes.

In 1969 I to was taught the ins and outs of the 1911 pistol by one who shot in the Bullseye game. One of the things he taught me was to never cut the hammer hooks below .020 and that triggers could safely be set as light as 1 pound with .020 hooks.
Now as for the statement made by another poster that was taught by a bullseye shooter and his mentor not setting trigger pulls any lighter than 4 pounds, there's a very good reason for this. Back in the day a lot of bullseye shooters did not have two guns to shoot the match with so most would use their hardball gun for both events. For a hardball gun to be legal it can not have a trigger pull any lighter than 4 pounds. The wadcutter gun can not be any lighter than 3.5 pounds; most shooters shooting a wadcutter gun would set them at the 3.5 pound pull.
Anyone remember the 1911 pistols with the adjustable trigger pull weight and how it was done?

As for trigger jobs on defense guns I prefer a 3.5 to 4 pound pull, some will like them a little heavier.
There's two things that I see will happen in a shooting that's justified, one you may have to go to criminal court( depends on the prosecutor) two you will most likely end up in a civil court.
I do not feel the outcome of either will hinge on the trigger pull weight of the gun I used. The only time I can see the trigger pull being a factor is if someone says they did not intend to shoot. If that's the case they should not have placed their finger on the trigger.

I'm not going to go in to detail on doing trigger jobs but I will touch on a few things. It takes me five hours to do a trigger job, I take no short cuts and still do them the same way my mentor taught me in 1969.
When I do a trigger job I prep the trigger, prep the disconnector, do both angles on the sear, square and true the hammer hooks (without a jig or my mill), cut the hammer hooks to .020, prep and tune the sear spring, measure the sear and hammer pin diameters and their respective holes in the frame. It's also a good ideal to check and see if the sear and hammer pin holes are bored true. After all this is done the sear and hammer must be mated to the gun they are going in.
Now before someone questions truing the hammer hooks with out a jig, here's the tools I use, hammer hook file with two safe sides, tool makers vise, machinist square, three grades of stones and a magnifier.

In ending I will say I've owned and shot some competition guns with 1.5 pound trigger pulls, these guns had very high round counts and no touch up work of any kind on the original trigger job.

Regards
Bob Hunter
www.huntercustoms.com

[steve1589]

He asked a simple question and what he got was a bunch of BS. The man is spending his hard earned money for the tools and parts to do a trigger job. Not everyone can stone the primary and secondary engagement surfaces of a sear freehand. Why the hell would you use a milling machine to square up the hammer for. If it is that bad out of spec throw it away. Buy a premium hammer and sear. Put dyem on the sear enagement surface and put them in the frame along with the rest of the parts. No slide. Pull the trigger but don't let the hammer hit the frame. Do this several times. Remove parts and inspect the sear engagement. This will tell you whether or not the hammer and sear are square in the gun. If you square the hammer hooks in a milling machine the only thing that does is make the hammer square to the milling machine not the gun. If you have a good frame and good parts, stoning is the only thing that is needed to square the parts to the gun. If you use the file then you have to clean up the tracks left by it. Then that side will be to short and you will have work on the other side and around and around you go. I bought some of those AGI videos. I watched the one on metal finishing thought I might learn something new from a Pro. He polished a 1911 slide on a sheet of glass and some wet or dry sandpaper. Only took him about 3 or 4 passes on each side to achieve polishing perfection. What a load of crap! Total waste of money. Just looking at the total number of posts of the guys that are giving you a hard time, I would say they are not gunsmithing. Why don't you guys just get each others phone numbers and brag and piss and moan to each other on the phone. They will not not be happy untill they are the only ones on this forum.

[Fen45]

Quote by Hunter Custom: "Anyone remember the 1911 pistols with the adjustable trigger pull weight and how it was done?"

I do and they thought they were sneeky about it. Many times I had to deny a guy from shooting because of this.

My two cents on this tread
If a guy has taken the time to research spend the money on the tool to do this to his own pistol then who are we to start a debate about if I its right or wrong. Give the guy the advise he asked for not a bashing.

As a bullseye pistol smith for many years I played around trying to find that perfect sub 2lbs trigger you can't learn unless you try.

To the poster: Continue with what YOU want to do, you may spend quite a bit of cash trying but what the hell its just money. Please let me know how it go's.

[Wildalaska]

If a guy has taken the time to research spend the money on the tool to do this to his own pistol then who are we to start a debate about if I its right or wrong

Except I might be the guy next to him at the range when his early attempts
fail....

In 1969 I to was taught the ins and outs of the 1911 pistol by one who shot in the Bullseye game. One of the things he taught me was to never cut the hammer hooks below .020 and that triggers could safely be set as light as 1 pound with .020 hooks.

How many did you do before you felt confident that they would not fail

WildofftoworkAlaska

[RR]

Wildalaska and your ilk:

It is not at ALL difficult to get a safe 2lb trigger with the proper equipment and quality parts. The sear engagment is either sufficient and neutral or it is not. If not, it is unsafe at any pull weight.

If you and your buddies cannot accept this-tough.

Last night I spoke with a gunsmith who is familar with the Powers jig and the parts I am using, and questioned as to whether I have the engagement perfectly neutral. He mentioned that sometime you gotta go a click up or down depending on the parts when stoning the primary angle on the sear. Kinda-there's a neutral engagement and a perfectly neutral engagment. Suggested that I move it a click, redo the primary angle, and check the engagment with dykem. Bingo.

Client Eastwood has a line in one of his movies "A man's gotta know his limitations." Well pal, we know yours.

Gotto go and "put my eye out" with my gun. Come on down to the USPSA Nationals in Barry on April 29th and watch Or you could just stay on the forum and engage in more mutual ego stroking and keep the world safe from the big bad light triggers. Chow.

[Wildalaska]

Chow.

Its Ciao

Well pal, we know yours.

Yeah my limit is safety...and if I ever need less than a 4lb trigger Ill have a Guild Pistolsmith do it.

WildseenenoughhomegunsmithingtolastalifetimeAlaska

[Hunter Customs]

Wildalaska
You ask how confident I was, I was very confident in my work. If I was not confident in my work this would be the wrong business to be in.
You made a statement about being beside RR at the range when his trigger job fails. I don't really see any merit in that statement as RR would have to violate several safety rules before the gun could do you any harm. I'll also be willing to bet that as a USPSA shooter going to the nationals that RR is very well versed in the safety rules.

RR
I did not feel that I could be of any help to you with the jigs you are using as I have no experience with them.
Here's a little tip I'll pass on to you. When I test my triggers for creep I use my thumb pushing straight back on the trigger, this works much better for me than my trigger finger.
Now as for light trigger pulls you and I both know that in the world of speed shooters (USPSA/IPSC, Speed Steel, and Pin Shooters) triggers pulls set at 1.5 to 2.5 are the norm. We also know that people are running and gunning with these light triggers all day long and they certainly are not killing each other. So as far as I'm concerned the debate about the light triggers being dangerous has no merit.
By the way good luck at the nationals.
Regards
Bob Hunter
www.huntercustoms.com

[Unclenick]

Well, never let it be said there are no contentious posts on this forum. These days I keep everything at 4.5 lbs because after years of service rifle matches and trips to Gunsite, I just don’t want to re-educate my trigger finger and acquire new “muscle memory”.

That said, I did start out as a Bullseye shooter and did play around with light triggers for quite awhile. Like most of the other guys here, I chewed up a number of parts getting there, but did finally learn how to get a consistently crisp trigger. I will mention the 3.5 lb. bull’s eye limit was pretty near the safe limit in my old Series ‘70 Goldcup. Its big heavy steel trigger stirrup had a lot of inertia, and without Colt’s little spring-loaded sear depressor to absorb shock, the closing slide would drop its hammer, even at that weight.

The bull’s eye shooters at the time all cultivated the habit of depressing the trigger while releasing the slide stop. This keeps the disconnector from coupling the trigger and sear. I never liked relying on that maneuver, though it works. Instead, I devised the following test:

Put a heavy rubber band around the grip safety to depress it. With the slide back and no magazine adding weight, hold the gun between the thumb and index finger; thumb pad over the lower grip panel screw on one side, index finger pad over the opposite screw, and no other part of the hand touching. Point the muzzle up to add the trigger’s weight to what bears back against the leaf spring. With the other hand touching the gun as minimally as possible, depress the slide stop. If several repetitions of letting the slide slam into battery this way causes no hammer following, then that just isn’t an issue in this gun. It doesn’t matter what the trigger pull is, because no matter how loosely held or at what angle or with how little ammunition weight, it won’t cause the hammer to follow the slide. If your gun can’t pass this test, it is marginalized at that extreme and you might be vulnerable to a civil suit should it discharge on closing. To take Jeff Cooper only slightly out of context, at that point it wouldn’t be an accidental discharge, but rather a negligent one.

If you find you must increase the trigger weight for safety, don’t despair. This two-stage trigger allows the stages to be controlled independently. You will find most any trigger whose first stage is roughly 2/3 to 3/4 of the total trigger weight will feel reasonably light, regardless of whether it is two pounds or five. To tolerate a wide range of different pressures without pain, fingertip nerves, like those in your ears, have logarithmic sensitivity, and aren’t very sensitive to small pressure changes. About 10% is the limit of detection under most conditions. Press down on a kitchen scale with your finger until it reads 10 ounces, then vary it up and down an ounce. Your finger can barely detect the pressure difference. If you make the first stage of a trigger 90% of its total pull weight, you will keep setting it off accidentally because the difference between take up and let off would be too small to discern reliably. Aim for 2/3 of the trigger weight in the first stage and I think you’ll like the feel, whatever weight you settle on.

As to the trigger pull itself, I also own the Power Custom jig and like it. However, the one I use for the 1911 is my own design, made before the Power Custom was available. Something Mr. Hunter mentioned is the reason I made it originally. You do see frames with hammer and sear pin holes slightly out of parallel. This means an ideally dimensioned hammer will NOT mate evenly with an ideally dimensioned sear in that frame. The sear will pick up more weight on one hammer hook than the other. I designed my jig with a series of interchangeable, reversible rollers that range from cylindrical through several thousandths of taper in half thousandth increments. Were I to do it over today, I would make a spring-loaded tilting adjustment. Still, the tapers allow me to obtain even engagement in a frame with poor pin hole parallelism (my old Goldcup being one of them). The conventional approach to fixing this is to lean on your stone more to one side of the sear than the other until high spot blue or smoke shows your engagement marking evenly. A jig can actually prevent this from working, which is why so many good triggers come from craftsmen who have learned the feel of the stones. You could make tapered rollers to replace the hardened dowel pin in the Power Custom fixture, but loosening the vertical slide and shimming its channel at the top or bottom to tilt left or right makes more sense to try first.

Now to the crisp trigger. I may contradict some other thinking here, but let me argue for the principle I have used successfully for 20-odd years. As an engineer I see the engagement working at two different extremes, with creepy behavior in between: At the soft extreme, the sear nose and hammer hooks are radiused to match. The radius is centered on the sear pin axis and matches the arc it describes. This sounds difficult to achieve, but is actually simple to get by lapping. The result is an engagement in which so much area is in contact that minimal microscopic deformation of the contours occurs under mainspring pressure, so the static and kinetic coefficients of friction are nearly the same. The result is what is called a roll-over trigger. You feel the engagement slip, but it doesn’t hesitate, so you get no creep. You simply feel it slide forward until it lets go. I’ve met shooters who prefer this to a crisp trigger. One commented that as long as he felt the sear sliding, he knew he wasn’t jerking the trigger.

The hard extreme is a trigger in which the static coefficient of friction is significantly greater than the kinetic one. In this arrangement the pressure needed to break the static starting position and start the engagement sliding is greater than that needed to keep it sliding. To the extent the trigger finger is tensioned like a compressed spring, once it overcomes static friction, it springs through the rest of the engagement against the lower kinetic friction. This is called an avalanche mechanism. The perception is that you pressed back to a point, then the trigger suddenly popped rearward to the over-travel limit. This is the breaking glass rod. To get the static friction greater than the kinetic friction, you want a thinner line of contact in the engagement so it deforms microscopically and the compressed metal parts are made more intimate. In school, my physics professor offered the theory that in static conditions microscopic pressure welds formed that had to be broken to initiate sliding. This would seem to argue for a razor edge sear nose, but doesn’t, because you don’t want there to be any tendency to scrape or roughen the metal. It must be blunt. So you want the sear nose very slightly rounded and the hammer hooks polished flat. The radius on the sear nose causes the static contact line to be small. As the sear moves it is constantly presenting new surface to the hammer hook flats, which prevents new static bonding, and presents an ever-so-slightly diminishing radius, decreasing contact angle as it slides. So, even if static friction were to re-establish itself, it would be at a lower resistance. All this contributes to the avalanche being unstoppable once it starts, and this gives you “crisp”. You don’t want a high pressure lubricant in this situation as it may reduce the static bonding. Light gun oil only.

This may sound like heresy to the polished flat advocate, but it works. I got the idea from Russ Carniak. Back when the Ohio Gun Collectors Association still held its meetings and gun shows in Columbus (before the idiot City Council banned ersatz assault weapons and the Association withdrew), he had a booth at all the shows. He was very generous with his knowledge of 1911’s and walked me through my first one, checking my progress at every show and offering feedback and corrections. Philosophically he said there was no point in being secretive. Too few people would invest enough effort developing the skills to create real competition. It was better to spread the interest.

Anyway, it was on one of these check-my-work visits that I showed up with a perfectly flat and mirror-polished engagement that had a little irregular creep I couldn’t get rid of. Russ pulled the gun apart and took a medium India stone, and made about three light rounding passes over the sear nose and reassembled it. No creep. The pull weight might have inched up because of the rougher surface, but “boosting” the hammer took care of that. He said the medium stone was better than a fine stone because almost no engagement is dead perfect, and the slight surface texture allowed the sear nose to burnish itself to its own best fit.

So, the last item is a test to find out whether your trigger is really crisp, or just kinda-sorta? With the gun on empty, cock the hammer. Put your trigger finger in the guard and take up the first stage slack. Stick your free hand’s thumb inside the trigger guard and press the pad against the inside front of the guard, bending the thumb until the knuckle presses back against your trigger finger. Relax the trigger finger and let the thumb take over. This gives you good control, because the thumb is anchored to the trigger guard and won’t spring through the release. Slowly bend the thumb knuckle until the hammer drops. If you really have a crispy critter, the compressed pad of your trigger finger will be enough spring to follow the trigger and you will feel no creep. If the trigger isn’t quite there, you were probably going to get intermittent creep down the road anyway. A little more rounding should clear it, but don’t overdo it if the job is to have longevity.

Have fun, and good luck!

Nick

[Wildalaska]

You ask how confident I was, I was very confident in my work. If I was not confident in my work this would be the wrong business to be in.

So you are saying that the first trigger job you did at 2 pounds or less you were ready to turn them loose on the public?

I don't really see any merit in that statement as RR would have to violate several safety rules before the gun could do you any harm.

You mean you have never seen a 1911 go full auto? You dont see how someone could get hurt with that?


WildresipsaloquitorAlaska

[Hunter Customs]

Yes I was very confident in my first 2 pound trigger pull. I had every reason to be, I was taught by one of the best. Yes I was ready to turn those trigger jobs loose on the competition shooting public and I did so.

Yes I've seen and shot 1911 guns in full auto mode and the only way someone was going to get hurt was if they were down range. Don't ever think that 1911 guns with heavy pull weights can't go full auto. Shear the hammer hooks on a MIM hammer and believe me the fun will begin. If one can't control a full auto 1911 or know how to stop it maybe it's best they stick with a revolver.

I also witnessed a guy using a 1911 with a trigger pull weight over 6 pounds trying to shoot the gun very fast, he was pulling so hard on the trigger and trying to compensate for the recoil that the last shot was very close to his feet. Do not take that out of context as I'm not saying that heavy triggers are dangerous.

If you don't understand or like light triggers or know how to do them then by all means suit yourself and stay away from them. We all must know our own skill level and what works best for us.
Regards
Bob Hunter
www.huntercustoms.com

[Wildalaska]

If you don't understand or like light triggers or know how to do them then by all means suit yourself and stay away from them. We all must know our own skill level and what works best for us.

Yes I've seen and shot 1911 guns in full auto mode and the only way someone was going to get hurt was if they were down range.

If one can't control a full auto 1911 or know how to stop it maybe it's best they stick with a revolver.

Yes I was very confident in my first 2 pound trigger pull. I had every reason to be, I was taught by one of the best. Yes I was ready to turn those trigger jobs loose on the competition shooting public and I did so.

Allrighty, I think Im just gonna leave this one now in light of the old think ten times, post once...nothing further need be said....good luck to you in your future endeavors

WildicanonlyimagineAlaska

[cntryboy1289]

To RR: When you ask a question and get a response, you can ignore what was given to you without coming back with a wise crack. The comeback remarks you made is why I said what I said to you. I am glad someone came back and gave you some of the answers you were looking for. In the future, if you get an answer you don't appreciate or like, just keep in mind the guy may have misunderstood what you were asking or may have just not have been thinking clearly when he answered you, or the guy may just be trying to help make sure you don't hurt yourself or anyone else around you.

My feelings weren't hurt by any means, but you never know when you may run a guy off from a sight just because you blast him about his answers to you. You can listen to me or not, that is always your choice. The repsonses you got in the beginning was ones of warning more than anything else simply because no one knew what your ability is. Please don't feel like you were slighted, simply because no one knows anything about you.

Mr. Hunter, I will gladly admit you are a much better man than I am. I did close to 10 trigger jobs before I got my legs under me enough to have full confidence in my work. I was constantly double and triple checking my work to the make sure I had it right and I know it took me 5-6 times longer than it does now.

[Hunter Customs]

cntryboy1289

Did you not have confidence in the air force guy that taught you trigger jobs?

If you did have confidence in your mentor and what he taught you what did you do different while doing trigger jobs that made you lack confidence in your work?

As I said in my earlier post I was fortunate to have a very good mentor and I still do my trigger jobs the way he taught me.
Regards
Bob Hunter
www.huntercustoms.com

[cntryboy1289]

I had the utmost confidence in my mentor, I had seen and heard of him for years when I asked him to show me how to do it. My only trepidation was did I pay close enough attention to him. The first two I did with him watching and the rest I did on my own. I guess it was just in my nature to think about everything that goes with that trigger job and that's what kept me nervous about doing them. To me, being a litle nervous is a good thing, it helps me make sure I am doing it right. I still to this day take my time and double and triple check, it's just that I have found my way and have sped up throughout the years.

[Hunter Customs]

I wanted to come back to this thread to explain why I had confidence in my first light trigger job.
First I want to say that I've never thought of the 1911 trigger group parts as being that perplexed. Its very evident that a couple of gentleman here do as they wonder about my confidence in my work. One even said he did 10 trigger jobs before he had confidence in his work.
I made the statement in an earlier post on this thread that I was taught by a gentleman that I think of as being one of the best and I still do.
What he taught me was the mechanics of the 1911 trigger system and what safe limits these can be adjusted to.
When dealing with the mechanics of the 1911 trigger system as with the other mechanics of the 1911 everything of importance can be measured.
I know that as long as I stay with the measurements I was taught the trigger will be safe whether it's a 2lb pull or 4lb pull, as the mechanical engagement of the sear and hammer for both are the same.
Regards
Bob Hunter
www.huntercustoms.com

[Wildalaska]

I still to this day take my time and double and triple check, it's just that I have found my way and have sped up throughout the years.

Sort of like firing 10 magazines with two rounds to check for doubling, rather than just running out and blasting away with a 1.5lb trigger...after all its ONLY measurements

WildandwiththatimgoneAlaska

[Hunter Customs]

Where did I say not to test fire the gun?
Yes it is ONLY measurements and one either understands them or they don't.
Regards
Bob Hunter
www.huntercustoms.com