Maarten

will lightening the hammer (by drilling a good sized hole in it) shorten lock time and improve accuracy?

Revoliver

Absolutely not.

Drilling a hole in the hammer will simply make the hammer look ugly.

Accuracy is affected by the barrel, threading, and the operator.

The pawl and other inner workings are what affect the cylinder locking and timing.

Diamond Jim

Decreasing lock time can increase accuracy (sort of). Basically what it does is reduce the amount of time between the sear release and firing the round. This means your hand won't be able move the gun as far off target in that time. (If you clamped the gun down in a Ransom rest or equivalent, removing any type of motion, lock time would make absolutely no difference in accuracy).

Having said that, while it is possible to do this you have to worry about 2 things: first, I know on the SP101's they are making the hammers out of MIM now, and I assume that would also be the case for the GP 161's. I'm no expert on this, but I would be very concerned that such a step would probably seriously reduce the structural integrity of the hammer because MIM parts tend to be much harder on the outside surface than on the inside. Second, removing too much material can cause light primer strikes (probably won't, unless you really get radical: Remember kinetic energy is 1/2*m*v^2 The increase in velocity should more than compensate for the loss of mass, since the velocity term is squared, but obviously if you remove enough it will start to go down).

Also, the hammer & sear are factory fitted parts, which are not available from the Ruger catalog--so if you screw up and need new ones, it will involve an expensive trip back to the manufacturer.

The other way to reduce lock time would be to install a heavier mainspring, but that brings with it other issues (heavy DA trigger pull) that will probably reduce your ability to shoot it accurately even more.

Maarten

Ok thanks guys

Rover

Maarten:

Here is a link to a picture posted by I believe Iowegan sometime back on the forum showing some possible places to reduce mass. There was also a discussion sometime back that should show up with a search of the forum.

Picture: http://rugerforum.net/attachments/gu...-hammermod.jpg

There is a well known gunsmith, Randy Lee, an engineer who is known for his ultralight S&W hammers and they work to radically reduce double action trigger pull. His website is:

Welcome to Apex Tactical Specialties, Inc.

Diamond Jim has covered the issues regarding MIM and all.

Benemorte

Lightening your trigger will definitely reduce lock time, and therefore increase the potential for accuracy. This is clearly evident by the amount of skeletonized hammers available for just the 1911 series alone.

As stated above, there are however issues with attempting such a modification on your own. I would recommend finding a gunsmith who is very familiar with the procedures for the work. Expect to pay a hefty price for such a modification correctly done.

Revoliver

Wouldn't a cheaper and safer all around alternative be to go to a sports store and buy one of those /\ shaped hand exercisers and using that to improve your hand strength?

I think that all the work or money you put into lightening the hammer or any other parts to gain fractional increases in speed would go unnoticed by non robots and non superhumans.

Benemorte

Lightening a hammer is about reducing lock time, not about how heavy a trigger is, or how fast you can pull one.
Lock time is the amount of time it takes for a hammer to hit the firing pin from the moment the sear lets it go. Like light bullets, lighter hammers can accelerate faster. The entire theory revolves around reducing the amount of user error that happens between the moment you drop the hammer and the time the bullet leaves the barrel. The faster the hammer can drop, the less likely you are to have moved off target.

Modifications to reduce lock time work, but only in very small amounts, and for a very hefty monetary price. Such modifications are typically only done when there is literally nothing else that can be done to increase the accuracy of the weapon.

Revoliver

I always thought lock time was the time it takes for the cylinder to rotate to the next position and lock into place there while the trigger was being pulled. The actual act of the hammer dropping was simply releasing.

I agree completely with doing as much as possible to eliminate user error or movement while firing which is why I also suggested a way to try and reduce it. By increasing your hand strength you can more easily pull the trigger thereby reducing the chance of movement from overexcertion you could even take my previous example a step further and put a 5lbs. wrist weight on your shooting wrist to get your arm used to holding even more weight than your gp161, which would then be easily fielded by comparison. That'd be a grand total of ten-ish dollars spent?

Glad to read I was correct in my thinking that the fractional speed gains will go pretty much unnoticed by non superhumans and non robots though.

Benemorte

HaHa! Indeed!

Maarten

can someone with a big scope on his GP161 dry fire and tell me what he sees cause that is the reaction of the gun to the hammer falling

Revoliver

Is the scope or mount moving seperately from your gun or is your entire gun moving when you fire it?

If it's just the scope, try to tighten it and it's mount.

If it's the entire gun, try to do some hand and arm strengthening to keep a more stable hold on it. A good exercise to use is to get a good sight picture and dry fire the gun until you can dry fire the gun without having to readjust the sight picture. Then you repeat this process with live fire at the range. This will take more than one exercise session to accomplish, especially if you have a large scope adding more weight. A scope exacerbates any user movement while firing your gun because of the magnification of your sight picture. You could try this exercise with iron sights first if you wish.

You could also try the super lowtech and cheap excersice examples in the above posts.

ozo

Also, drilling metal can affect the temper.
Even cause cracking.
It would also be expensive to have to ship
it to Ruger from Holland I would think.
Personally, I've not seen a need for major
action work on a GP, they have been decent
right out of the box.