By Roy Huntington

Bruce Cockerham and Bob Corkrean called me out of the blue and wanted to chat with me about their idea of a re-shaped 1911 hammer. Their idea, while simple, has been solidly designed, elegantly crafted and backed up with real-world thinking and support. In short, the “Cammer Hammer” is a patented 1911-style hammer with a reshaped “face” of the hammer body, just under the “nose” of the hammer. Check out the picture showing a “regular” hammer (right) and the Cammer Hammer and note where the red arrow is pointing. See the curve into the hammer body there? What’s going on there?

Archimedes said, “Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it, and I shall move the world.” The same principal applies here. As the slide is moved rearward on a 1911, the bottom of the firing pin retention stop (the plate holding the firing pin in place) rides against the face of the hammer, “camming” it back and cocking it as the slide moves. Normally, the bottom of this plate strikes the hammer body fairly low on the front of the face of the hammer, just above the pivot point. The Cammer Hammer’s cut-out forces the bottom of the plate to strike the face of the hammer just below the “nose” of the hammer, offering more of that magical leverage to push the hammer back, cocking it.

I blackened the face of a conventional hammer and after running the slide, you can clearly see the strike mark well down on the front of the body. Repeating the test with the Cammer Hammer showed the strike mark from the stop plate to be high, just below the nose of the hammer. This offers a longer “lever” to help the slide cock the hammer (the hammer body being the lever itself). The result is a slide “easier” to operate. While the change in effort is modest, I was easily able to feel when the Cammer Hammer was installed during slide manipulations in a blindfold test. In firing, I also felt there was a slightly “easier” recoil impulse, shooting two identical guns, one with the Cammer Hammer and one without. Testing by Bruce and Bob have shown a measurable reduction in felt recoil using the Cammer Hammer. I’m guessing the slide is doing less “work” cocking the hammer so there is less “felt” slam as it goes back.

These are ready to be fit — with your own properly stoned sear — and should become the darling of smart custom pistolsmiths everywhere. For more info: www.americanhandgunner.com/index, (541) 412-0968.

Read More Gunnysack Reviews

Download A PDF Of The American Handgunner March/April 2015 Issue Now!