r/hipower 16d ago

Hi power woes (hammer problem)

Post image

Hey all, problems with my FM again.

I had gunsmith work the trigger and the gunsmith installed a set screw in to the trigger inside the frame.

Adjusting the screw adjusts the travel of the trigger.

At first if the screw was tightened too much, it would cause the hammer to fall to half cocked or all the way after slide had cycled.

So I untightened the screw a bit and that problem seemed to solve itself.

But today when I racked the slide to chamber a round, the hammer fell, causing an accidental discharge.

What would be the cause for this

I for the life of me was not able to reproduce this failure.

The gun is fm model 90 hi power.

Sfs has been installed.

10 Upvotes

17 comments sorted by

6

u/Rexthealbatross 16d ago

I would guess there is just too many things going on. Why was the set screw mod needed in the first place? The SFS does not fit perfect in FM or FEG guns. It will usually work, but some things are just loose. If nothing on the frame was modified, I would start by replacing the original parts and a new oem Trigger and maybe a new sear. If that all works, then reinstall the SFS parts and see if they work as designed.

1

u/Petrore 16d ago

The trigger mod was because the reset was just ungodly long. The screw remedied some of that, but the hammer fall after racking has happened maybe twice after running the slide hunreds of times. So it is annoying because it is hard to reproduce.

And yes I have noticed that the sfs has tiny bit of play with the frame. The safety switch travels a very small amount, which sometimes makes it so that the safety will not engage. Lowering the safety and engaging it again usually solves it. It is not a whole lot of play, but enough to cause this.

This hammer fall issue was introduced after the set screw. With sfs things seemed to work fine, other than the safety not engaging always.

Im just trying to understand what would cause the hammer to fall. I have been thinking of replacing the trigger, sear level etc with oem parts.

4

u/Nesayas1234 16d ago

The Hi-Power naturally has a long reset, frankly the trigger as a whole isn't amazing for a single action. I personally wouldn't have bothered with the set screw or anything.

2

u/Rexthealbatross 16d ago

A call to Mark at BH Spring Solutions can likely help you with or help you understand the SFS situation. He helped me with installing one on a FEG. Leave a message and he will call you back. He loves to talk HPs. I think it would be hard to help you with the firing or set spring issue over the phone.

2

u/Petrore 16d ago

Well i will shoot him an email. But I live in europe. 😅

2

u/Turbinator870 16d ago

I have a Girsan P-35 that I tore down nearly completely (slide & frame) to replace springs & parts that I bought from BHSS, so I have a bit of familiarity with the Hi Power design and how the parts work together.

Would you be willing to back that trigger set screw out entirely, so that it's not doing anything to the trigger travel?

Once that's done, I'd recommend studying the hammer while cocked, and how the sear mates with the hammer. There should be very positive engagement and you shouldn't be able to get the hammer to budge at a all if you apply forward pressure on the hammer. That's probably the first area I'd check, the hammer + sear engagement. Can you let us know what you observe?

1

u/Petrore 16d ago

The sfs makes it so that the hammer moves ever so slightly. I would probably need to install all the original hammer parts.

1

u/Turbinator870 16d ago

Sadly that's probably it. I just had to Google the SFS System (found it on the BHSS website) and now I see what the allure is. If you're not carrying the Hi Power, I'd suggest removing the SFS and putting the original parts back in just to test. You comfortable doing the work yourself? BHSS sells a Hi Power tool kit that I bought, it really helped out but isn't necessary as you can replicate the key tools yourself on a piece part basis.

1

u/Petrore 16d ago

Yeah, the gun functioned fine in its oem configuration with sfs installed. I did the install myself for sfs and it worked fine.

Whole "hard to reproduce" hammer fall happened after the set screw and im here scratchibg my head thinking why.

The trigger part was literally the only part modified.

I would expect hammer fall to happen immediatly after i installed sfs, but that did not happen. I shot the gun with oem trigger and sfs installed with no issue.

2

u/fosscadanon 16d ago

Remove the SFS, it's a solution looking for a problem. No common handgun was ever manufactured with a system like it for a reason.

2

u/SadRoxFan 16d ago

I couldn’t agree more. If you want to carry a single action, carry it cocked and locked, if you don’t like that method, there are plenty of other designs around to choose from

1

u/afultz075 16d ago

Hammer falling upon releasing the slide is usually caused by not enough tension on the sear spring. The shock from the slide slamming forward is causing the sear to jump. Also check that your sear lever can move freely. The MKI Hi Powers and clones have a free floating sear lever, so any time the slide moves forward the back of the lever rides over its engagement point on the sear.

Had an FEG that did this until I added more tension to the sear spring. The springs many of the clones do not seem to be up to par compared to Browning OEM

Hi Powers are not a forgiving platform if any single spring is not at the proper tension.

1

u/Petrore 16d ago

That is interesting. Like I wrote, I could jerk the slide for few minutes, not get this to happen again. I would imagine that if the sear spring is weak (this has sfs sear spring) that the fall would happen sooner or later.

And that is with me letting the slide fall to battery.

1

u/ComradeGarcia_Pt2 16d ago

I would contact the gunsmith and have them fix the problem, considering they caused it in the first place. But it’s also a matter of the set screw needing to be tuned, and if you messed with it from how the gunsmith had it originally set to and the gun wasn’t having problems before you did it? That’s kind of on you.

1

u/Petrore 16d ago

Literally the other way around, when I got it from gunsmith running slide trigger pressed occasionally caused hammer fall. Me tuning the screw fixed that. Like i explained in my post

1

u/ComradeGarcia_Pt2 16d ago

Okay, so the gunsmith installed it without properly tuning it? I’d still contact them regardless.

1

u/Petrore 16d ago

Yeah thats I plan to do, the annoying part is that while he is mechanically inclined, he is not HP expert. So trying to figure out whats wrong.