Brookelynngreen

How would one accomplish this? Not quite a hair trigger but at leasat cut HALF the pull. Just out of curiousity

Colt Seavers

Buy buying weaker replacement springs.

Also, by accounts read from others, 8lbs. seems to be the lightest people can go before getting light primer strikes (failure to fires).

I have never changed my springs out, so take that for what you want.

Sal1950

Sounds like you have zero experience in gunsmith so the best advise would be to take it to a good gunsmith and have a action job done on it.
If I'm missing the fact that your a machinist or something similar by trade and have top notch mechanical skills read this.
GP100 spring replacement questions.
Sal

Rover

As Sal1950 mentions a full blown action job. I would guess most stock and unused GP's have a double action of around 11-12 lbs. My GP with action job currently is about 7.4 lbs DA. This is a with a Wolff 9lb mainspring and 8lb trigger return. One of these days will add shims to it. One could reduce spring weight some by (a) reducing hammer weight considerably (b) maximizing firing pin protrusion (c) minimizing the headspace to achieve maximum primer indentation for use with lighter springs (d) use a minimum weight firing pin spring that does the job. Another possibility would be to fashion a hammer dog with a roller bearing for contact with the top of the hammer shelf to reduce friction. There are none of which I am aware but in times past a gunsmith in Florida did fashion them for Colt Pythons and Smith K, L, and N frames (Walt Sherman). There may have been others. Part of the action job is to hone various contact surfaces which reduces the requirement for spring tension a small amount. A top line action job also blueprints the action to minimize spring tension requirements. One benefit of the Ruger is that the hammer arc is larger than a S&W which reduces the spring requirements somewhat much like with a Python.

The springs (trigger return spring primarily is this case) will reduce single action pull. The quality can be improved by eliminating creep (honing and reducing the notch to minimal amount needed). Pull can reduced further by changing sear angles. The latter two aspects are best done by someone knowledgeable in the area. The gun should be checked for pushoff to insure the hammer stays cocked until the trigger is pulled. My GP currently is at 2.5 lbs SA which meets my needs quite adequately.

thndrchiken

I installed the spring kit from Wilson Combat, initially I put the 8# trigger return spring and the 10 # hammer spring, really cleaned up and lightened the pull weight to about 9 #'s, I did not have any problems with light primer strikes. I recently put the 8 # hammer spring in and it reduced the pull to 7.5#. Have not had the chance to shoot it yet though, as soon as I do I will update with the results.

ExArmy11b

A lighter trigger latch spring could cause "sluggish" trigger return, it depends on the gun. Some GP's leave the factory slicker than others.

I have a GP with light springs and it's very slick, fortunately the gun is WELL broken in and responded well to light springs.

Also, Federal primers are the easiest to pop so you might get away with a 9# hammer spring if you shoot Federal ammo. Also, again some guns respond well to the lighter hammer springs, some do not.

Unfortunately it is not easy to replace the firing pin in a Ruger revolver, like it is with a newer S&W. I have a S&W 10-14 with a DA pull like oiled glass and I could not have gone that light without adding an extended firing pin. With my Rugers I do not have this option, without having a GOOD gunsmith do it. Ruger polishes the firing pin retaining pin after it goes into the frame and it's next to impossible to get it back in right. It's basically a Ruger factory job to replace it.

Sal1950

Rover,
What is the ignition reliability level with that 7.4# DA pull? Is that a Federal primed only setup, or are you saying it's across the board reliable with any ammo?
TIA
Sal

Rover

Sal1950 - so far the gun has worked with WW mag and std. primers, Corbon Ammo and Federal. Each gun because of tolerances is somewhat different. It was originally tuned by TJ Custom in Calif (not Teddy Jacobson) so don't know what all he did but there was a lot of polishing inside, probably more than necessary. After that I played with springs to get the trigger pull to roughly match weight wise a tuned 686 Mtn. Gun and both DA and SA are quite close. Probably, in the future I will put in the 10lb mainspring for a slight margin. As I note there is still room for improvement (I think a Bowen RH firing pin will fit for example) along with shims. Someone on one of the Ruger Forums had a GP tuned by Randy Lee who is noted for his ultra light double actions on S&W. I think the individual with the GP claimed DA around 7.5. Randy Lee (Apex Tactical) turned out a K frame 66 used for carry with a 6 lb DA. He opined with a lot of work (such as lightened hammer) he could get down in that area with reliability on a GP. His game guns run around 4 lbs DA on the N frames.

One other thing that MAY smooth up the action of revolver I found in a cutaway of a Korth revolver on the Korth website:

http://www.korthusa.com/images/cutaway3a.jpg

The mainspring is housed in a tube, I assume, to avoid a lot of kinking. Too bad someone does not make custom parts for Rugers such as custom hammers, spring strut assemblies (at one time someone offered an adjustable strut for mainspring tension for the Six Series) and other items. I have often mentioned with the hammers one could cast on bosses that could be filed to fit the specific gun avoiding the shim problem.

Sal1950

That is a VERY impressive number, don't know what the original tuner did to the gun but 7.4 is darn near unheard of in a GP carry gun. Most of today's top tuners like Grant Cunningham will deliver a carry GP in the 8.5 range as their top of the line defensive tune job. Can't compare the GP to a 686, they are apples and oranges.
I've got my range GP100 100% reliable at 8 lbs with custom made Federal primed reloads only. Don't really know what it would do with other ammo, never tried as it's really irrelevant to me.
The newest GPs/SPs with the easily (easier) replaceable firing pin does open the door to further work in that area. Too bad I'm retired now and no longer have access to my machine shop.
Anyway, hold on to that gun like it's a piece of gold, sounds to me like it just about is.
Sal

TMan51

That's real good advice.

There's a couple idiot proof changes you can easily make. Swapping out the trigger return spring is very simple and easy. That alone makes quite a difference. My SP101 had some roughness in the trigger spring channel that I carefully removed with 1600 grit Emory wrapped around a 1/4" dowel. Then I buffed the cap that the spring is seated in to remove roughness. I also slicked up the contact surfaces on the strut so the spring rode more easily. None of these changes actually remove a measurable amount of metal, they just reduce surface roughness/resistance.

The trigger and hammer surfaces are a different game. The surface hardening process doesn't go very deep, so removing metal/altering the surface dimensions is not a great idea. Polishing is fine, using a very fine hone, if you are able to maintain the contact angles. That also helps a lot, but it's not something to attempt without some idea of what you are doing.

Rover

"That is a VERY impressive number, don't know what the original tuner did to the gun but 7.4 is darn near unheard of in a GP carry gun. Most of today's top tuners like Grant Cunningham will deliver a carry GP in the 8.5 range as their top of the line defensive tune job. Can't compare the GP to a 686, they are apples and oranges.
I've got my range GP100 100% reliable at 8 lbs with custom made Federal primed reloads only. Don't really know what it would do with other ammo, never tried as it's really irrelevant to me."

Sal - guns do vary. Using the 686 as an example a friend has one tuned by another gunsmith and the minimum DA he can get with reliability is 8.0 lbs vs my 7.25 lbs. Depends upon what all is done in the "tuning". In my case had the barrel changed so set headspace and endshake to the minimum. As an aside put in an extended firing pin for the MIM guns and with that could get the action down to about 6.75 lbs. Over at Brian Enos revolver forum there is a lot of discussion on tuning. While these are apples to the Ruger oranges the Ruger has one advantage in that it has a lot larger hammer arc like the old Colt designs which theoretically would allow a lighter mainspring all other things equal. Without lightening the hammer the old Colt Python masters could get a carry gun action down in the 6's so the Ruger should be doable also. Just so far I don't think anyone has gone that far. Only problem I can think of is that if headspace and endshake are reduced to minimum may need to set back the barrel which most gunsmiths have a hard time doing (Bowen and Clements seem to be about the only people doing this). With the redesign of the firing pin setup allowing easier access, as you note, makes it easier to work with. Aside from reducing spring weight of the firing pin one could lighten it by making it out of titanium as is done for a number of autoloaders.

All that being said prefer a double action around 8 lbs or so as could never get used to a real light pull. Also, as Iowegan has noted the lock time increases as spring tension is reduced so about only way after polishing to reduce pull without an effect on locktime is to work on lightening the hammer. This is what Randy Lee does in his radical tunes as he makes replacement S&W hammers that are ultralight.

ExArmy11b

Every gun is an individual and like was said, all of the guys who use super light springs in their S&W's and Rugers that they use as "game guns" all use Federal primers. I pretty much guarantee most of those guns would have some FTF's with CCI primers.

I myself prefer my guns to work with any given ammo, so I don't have to restrict myself to Federal ammo.

Lighter springs are mainly for DA shooting, Wolff also makes an "extra power" mainspring that would improve lock time in SA.

I also don't like a super light DA pull, I would rather have a heavy, smooth DA pull and a firm but positive SA break. I actually smoothed out a GP100 by adding a HEAVIER trigger latch spring, a trimmed S&W rebound spring did the trick. Heavy stock springs actually can help keep the DA pull even and mask "rough" spots in the pull. I have a few Rugers that shoot better with stock springs than lighter ones, because the lighter springs actually have a lot more "staginess" to them.

Light, spongy DA pulls are what I call "cap gun triggers", like when you add light springs to a Taurus revolver.

It's debatable whether a lighter hammer with more speed increases primer popping power, there are two schools of thought on this.

I have a Speed Six with a spurless hammer and light Bullseye springs and it sets everything off 100%, even CCI primers.

Sal1950

Rover,
I admit to a bit of doubt at first but once you starting talking more I realized you were a dedicated sport gun builder-shooter and not just some bar stool "my 1911 breaks at 3/4 of a pound and shoots 1/4 groups at 100 yards" guy, we got a lot of them around here ya know. LOL
Yea your right, guns do vary, but not usually by much. Impressive results are most often the end result of a lot smart thinking by a team of dedicated people and the money needed to support their project. John Force hasn't won 11 Funnny Car Chappionships, Jimmy Johnson 5 Nascar Championships, or Jerry Miculek about a million competitions and world records without this kind of approach.
Bottom line, nice work, and impressive results.
Sal

ExArmy11b
That's just the wrong approach. You lighten the pull as much as possible to reveal the roughness, hitches, or any other issues in the pull. Then you work to correct them. Once you've made the gun as good as it can be, then you can go back and add spring pressure if needed to raise the reliability to the level needed.
Using this approach in a defensive carry gun will eventually yield you a truly outstanding weapon.
Cheers,
Sal

"It's debatable whether a lighter hammer with more speed increases primer popping power, there are two schools of thought on this."
PS, Remember there is no two schools of thought on physics. Mass x Speed = Energy Developed

fmartin9

If you want to reduce the trigger pull, order a spring kit from Wilson Combat.
Use the number 8 return spring and the number 12 hammer spring. I stone all the internal parts in my gun, but if you do not know how to do this or what not to stone, best leave it alone. Than you dry fire it a few hundred times to help finish smoothing it out.

ExArmy11b

I just tested out my 6" GP100 that I installed the 8# trigger latch spring and the 9# mainspring. It works with Federal and Super Vel .38's, I haven't tried CCI through it yet.

I use this primarily as a range shooter with .38's, so if it doesn't pop CCI primers I will still leave the springs in. The primer strikes were nice and deep on the Federal primers, and I don't use this gun for any kind of defense......and I am NOT giving up the slick as glass DA pull these springs give me! This is the first GP I have put new springs in that actually works well with the 9 # mainspring and 8# trigger latch spring without light strikes or a "sticky" trigger return.

The pull is light but not "spongy" or "cap gun trigger", which is what you get with super light springs in other revolvers brands. This gun is well broken in enough to pull off the light springs, though. A NIB GP probably wouldn't respond as well.