OK, let's clear one thing from the begining:
Letting the slide run forward at full speed, with no magazine in the pistol, is harmful for your beloved 1911.
Do not do it.
The above action can destroy a perfectly good trigger job.
Another question we often receive is this:
"When I let the slide run forward without a magazine in the pistol, the hammer follows to half-cock. Is this normal?"
The answer is of course NO. The hammer should not follow to half-cock when you release the slide (even though you should not release the slide without a magazine in place).
What happens here is that the slide rushing forward jerks the whole gun forward. Your pistol's trigger, obeying Newton's laws prefers to stay put, so it nudges the disconnector hard enough to disengage the sear from the hammer hooks.
Do the following test:
Lock your slide open and while holding the trigger back, release the slide. If the hammer does not follow the slide in this test, then you can correct the problem by applying some more pressure on the disconnector, by bending the central sear spring prong inwards, towards the front of the pistol. If the hammer follows with the trigger pulled back, then your problem is more involved, and has to do with the sear/hammer engagement.
If your pistol passed the above test with the trigger pulled back, then proceed to check it doing a normal reload with a couple of rounds in a magazine. In other words, insert a magazine with 2-3 rounds in the pistol, lock the slide back and let it ram forward at full speed (DO NOT HOLD THE TRIGGER BACK NOW). If the hammer does not follow, you are probably OK. If it does, then you'd better have that pistol serviced as soon as possible.
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