There are many aspects to the shooting sports: self-defense, target shooting, hunting, competition, and hand loading ammunition. Gun owners often venture into modifications to their firearms. Similar to other hobbies, people often like to add their own custom touch. Some of these modifications may be purely cosmetic while other can affect the function of the gun.
My advice to you is “Be Careful”, a simple part change may have unintended consequences that can affect your guns reliability or durability. Firearm engineers design the gun to perform reliably under all conditions, changing one parameter without regard for the balance and function of the complete system may not achieve the results you desire.
There is no shortage of gadgets, devices, or replacement parts offering grandiose claims of greater accuracy, smoother operation, less recoil, better ergonomics or just plain look cool!
Many upgrades fall within the capabilities of a typical gun owner: Changing the floor-plate on the bottom of a magazine to add a finger extension to improve your grip seems easy enough, but you must make sure the spring and follower are still installed correctly or your gun may not feed correctly. And make sure the little pin that locks the floor-plate is correctly latched or you may drop all your rounds out of the magazine at a critical time.
People often change grips or add a rubber sleeve with finger grooves to improve the feel or reduce felt recoil. Always check the function of the gun after these types of modifications. I once had a student that was having malfunctions with his magazine. Checking his gun, he had added a grip sleeve over the polymer grip of his handgun and had not installed it correctly. The magazine was prevented from fully seating and rounds would not feed reliably. If this had been a self-defense situation he may have found himself with a gun that wouldn’t fire.
Changing sights is a common upgrade and within the skill levels of many people, however the correct tools such as a sight press may be necessary to prevent damage to your gun. You will not be happy with your new Hi-Viz or Night Sights if you now have big scratches on your barrel or slide from using the wrong tool.
One area I frown upon for all but the most experienced people is changing springs in a handgun to purposely affect the function. I don’t mean routinely replacing a recoil or magazine spring with an exact replacement as preventative maintenance. I am referring to people that are seeking to reduce trigger pull, or slide efforts.
The function of a handgun is a balance of forces. When a trigger is pulled the hammer or striker must fall with sufficient force for the primer to ignite the propellant in the cartridge. Installing a lower tension spring or cutting coils off a hammer spring can reduce energy to a level that fails to reliably fire the gun. The last thing you want to hear when you are relying on your self-defense gun to save your life is “Click”.
Installing a lighter recoil spring to make it easier to operate the slide on a semi-auto pistol may prevent the slide from having sufficient energy to strip a fresh round from the magazine and full seat the round in the chamber. Again the result could be a malfunction when you can least afford it.
An additional concern with modifying your firearms for a lighter trigger pull is the increased chance of an accidental discharge. In the event you are involved in a defensive shoot you may find yourself explaining your need for a “Hair Trigger” to an overzealous Prosecuting Attorney.
Next month: Gun Free Zones
Until then …….Safe Shooting!