Does polishing reduce crispness of trigger break?

[spydercomonkey]

So I recently acquired a G43, and I'm quite fond of it. The size is perfect (it's about the size of my Walther PP when stacked on top of one another) and I actually like the way the trigger breaks. If a good SA trigger is like a "glass rod breaking" I would describe this trigger as "like a #2 pencil snapping" - ie some flex and a good bit of force, and then a real snappy, crisp break.

However the pull is a bit too high, as out of 6 shots, I'm consistently putting 4 shots touching at 7 yards, and then dropping 2 about 1.5" low due to a bit of trigger jerk. This occurs both with the factory sights and the CT Green Laser Guard (which I highly recommend and plan to do a review on later.)

Anyway I was contemplating doing the $0.25 trigger job, however I am concerned that it might remove the sharp break the trigger has now, and make it more of a indeterminate, surprise break. My friend's G35 with a Ghost connector has this type of break and I find it maddening.

So my question is, will the $0.25 jeapordize my heavy-but-crisp break?

[PrimaryBruce]

If polishing removes the crisp break, you've rounded off a corner/edge somewhere along the way. Good, sharp edges is where your nice break comes from. A good polish job shouldn't affect that.

[9x45]

That's not the trigger or the sights, that is the shooter. You had 4 touching, then 2 low? Keep doing what you did with the first 4 rounds.

Edited May 30, 2016 by 9x45

[JWard79]

Polishing will remove the grittiness from the stock trigger pull, but will not significantly reduce the weight or break. There are a couple different brands of aftermarket "competition" spring packs that can be used to tune your gun to your liking, and the same can be said for connectors. The low cost approach to tuning is a Wolff competition spring set & lone wolf connector in combination with the 25 cent trigger job. I only mention these products because I have personally used them and found them to fit the bill. If your budget allows there are a number of trigger kits with varying components and associated cost. The reason the kits cost more is someone has already put in the testing to produce the trigger feel.

[TacticalReload]

Glock triggers work by pushing back on the trigger bar while a small upward-pointing part that's in contact with the striker pushes back on the striker. A portion of the trigger bar that contacts the connector has a rounded section that cams the whole rear of the bar downward. When this happens, it slips off the striker, which releases it to fly forward under spring pressure. The geometry of both the bar and connector contact point and the bar and striker contact point is what controls the "crispness" of the break (or lack thereof). Polishing while not rounding off corners really won't do much to the break. With Glocks, even rounding off the parts slightly doesn't really do much with it either.

What happens a lot of times when someone does a trigger job or replaces springs is that they perceive more creep in the break. The reason is because, since the pull is lighter, they can control the amount of slipping that the bar and striker do over each other before finally parting ways. Basically the coefficient of static friction is greater than the coefficient of kinetic friction... so it takes more force to get them slipping than it does to keep them slipping. So when the static friction is very great (ie, the trigger pull is heavy), you apply a sizable amount of force to get them to start to move and it's enough to get the parts to just slip all the way off each other. When the static friction is much lower (ie, the trigger pull is light), you apply a minimal amount of force to get the parts to start to slide... but it's small enough that the movement is slow enough for you can actually feel the parts sliding until they break. This makes the trigger "creep" and feel less crisp even though you didn't really do anything to reduce the amount of distance they two parts have to slide before separating.

Note that this is different than doing a trigger job on a gun with a more traditional sear with a really precise sharp corner that rides in a notch in a hammer (or even a tab on a striker). In those cases, the idea would be to get the sharpest most true corner as possible on the mating surface with a minimal amount of overlap... kind of like standing with your heel on the very edge of a step of a ladder... the littlest force and down you go. Polishing a Glock's trigger parts is more like greasing the step and the bottom of your shoe while still making decent contact with the step.

[dskinsler83]

polish the inside of the trigger bar and the connector where the parts meet. polish inside the ledge of the connector where the trigger bar rides down and also the rounded nose of the rear of the trigger bar. try to keep the edges sharp and do not round them over. stay away from the "sear" area of the cruciform and polish the birds head on the area that rides up against the striker block/plunger safety. also polish the little dimple off the birds head as well. you will smooth up the break but leave the snap as you call it if you do not touch the striker lug and sear area. there are ways to smooth those out and keep a hard snap as well but it takes more work and different things to look at.