BHP doubling. Just had an idea THIS MORNING!!!

L

Lavan

New member
30 years ago I had Bill Davis do a trigger job on my Browning Hi Power.
AMAZINGLY good!
He removed the mag "safety" :eek: as I told him to.
Loved that trigger!

But... in the RECENT past, I've had occasional doubling while shooting.
I had reinstalled the ..."safety"....:( for possible legal reasons.

Now just THIS MORNING... a thought struck me.

Could the mag safety cause doubling? Bill made the trigger pull light.
Could that lil plunger dragging on the mag be keeping the trigger from resetting?

It's hooked to so many links of stuff so it just might be.

Any experience with this issue?

:confused:
 
J

Jim Watson

New member
I haven't heard of it.
But I would take an empirical approach. Take the magazine disconnect back out and see if it doubles.

I would think that a light trigger pull, especially in a BHP with its 'round Robin Hood's barn trigger linkage, might wear to the point of poor sear engagement. You might have to have the hammer and/or sear recut or replaced.
 
T

TunnelRat

New member
I’ve only tinkered with the trigger group on a BHP when I fitted a safety, but to me it seems like it would be the hammer and sear contact surfaces that would be the problem. I’m having trouble visualizing how the magazine disconnect being installed would cause the hammer to follow the slide.


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L

Lavan

New member
I may have been unclear.
It's not a standard ...doubling.
It's like a followup trigger pull goes off before I'm ready.
Like a double PULL.

If that makes sense.
 
C

Centurion

New member
Just a couple questions...field strip the pistol and tell us:

The sear lever in the slide, is moving freely? It must have a loose movement.

The sear, moves and recovers normally? The sear flat spring is working as intended? If you push the hammer to the front, it disengages from the sear?

I'm not considering the firing pin spring because it would cause automatic shooting instead of just doubles.
 
C

Centurion

New member
If I should give you a quick answer I'll go for the sear lever working badly...or the sear not recovering as fast as necessary, because of a failure of its spring.
 
L

Lavan

New member
I have never given a thought to the sear rocke or the sear.
I mean other than checking sear engagement.

Sooo I gunscrubbered the things and gunk flowed out.

Good suggestion.

Although I took it out today and paid particular attention to HOW I was using the trigger. Could easily be that I have been RIDING it.

This is the pistol I used to SHOW OFF with. There was an indoor range with windows that people could watch shooters through.

I would hang TWO targets and then rapid fire between them thus displaying amazing prowess.
(and an ego trip ;))

Sooo... I have OFTEN staccato fired this pistol. Just because I can.

And...in so doing....quite likely not using good form.

:eek:

It did NOT bobble at all this AM at the range.

Still has the "mag safety :mad:) as I recalled that damn trigger pin and was not prepared to fight the damn thing for an hour or so. So I shot today WITH the gizmo in.

I am sure that cleaning out the sear lever was a good thing to do though.
:)
 
M

Mike Irwin

Staff
I sincerely doubt it.

My first avenue of thought for anyone having a doubling issue with a pistol is that they're actually lagging on the trigger return during recoil and inadvertently tripping the trigger for a second shot.

The fact that you had the trigger lightened makes me suspect that as the first possible cause even more.

Oddly enough, the first time I ever saw something like this was with an older friend who had developed arthritis in his hand and trigger finger, making his hand much stiffer and less flexible.

The solution came about when he changed his shooting style so that he kept the trigger pulled fully to the rear during recoil and only released it to reset it when he had the sights back on target.

Doubling solved.
 
L

Lavan

New member
^^^^^^^

Absolutely agree. In fact I mentioned in post #7

Although I took it out today and paid particular attention to HOW I was using the trigger. Could easily be that I have been RIDING it.
Click to expand...

I'm sure I was doing that.
 
C

Centurion

New member
To avoid this kind of issue, as well as to gain some trigger reset speed and force, I changed the trigger reset spring on my BHP once I removed the magazine safety mechanism.

I asked my local supplier to make me two of them. One 35% and the other 50% stronger, so I could check which trigger force I like the most. And I kept with the 50% one installed since 2001.
 

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R

rock185

New member
In addition to removing the magazine safety as requested, the gunsmith might have, and probably did, adjust/bend the trigger spring to apply less trigger return pressure. Within my humble experience, magazine safeties don't cause cause doubling from either a mechanical or user induced perspective. Quite the opposite. The magazine safety spring assists trigger reset, adding a few ounces to trigger pull weight. So for many years, the Hi Power cool kids have removed the mag safeties to reduce trigger pull weight. Perhaps oblivious to the fact that trigger reset then becomes even slower, soggier, than before?

I quit removing mag safeties years ago, but back in the day did sometimes remove mag safeties like the other cool kids. The slower trigger reset was made worse when FN went to the softer 3-coil trigger springs with the introduction of the FPS on their guns. After that happened, I did something like Centurion. I installed the earlier, heavier, 2-coil factory springs to get back some of the lost trigger reset speed. Cleaning gunk out of the lockwork is always a good thing too;)
 
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