Springs/Triggers/Sights for 34 Gen 5

[bunlord]

Just picked up a Glock 34 Gen 5 for USPSA Production, and I'm looking to tune it up a bit.

 

Currently, my only handgun is a 19 Gen 4. I've got a ghost connector with the over-travel stop tab, ghost trigger spring and firing pin safety spring. I've polished up the face of the striker and the end of the trigger bar, and I'm pretty happy with how it feels, especially for a carry gun. I currently have Sevigny Performance sights, fiber front and plain rear.

 

I was planning on doing the same work to the trigger on the 34, but I'm open to hear what everybody else has done and the results. 

 

On sights, does anybody run sights that hang over the MOS cover plate? I likely won't ever run an optic on this gun, and I just want to know if there are any downsides (besides looks) to overlapping the plate. 

 

Also, how are the factory 10rd mags limited? I got 3 of those and 3 of the 17rd with it, so I was wondering if I could turn them into 17rd since I live in a free state.

[highhope]

I am interested in the Gen5 Glock trigger job too....long time no shoot Glock... LOL

[cjmill87]

The 10 rounders have a liner of sorts inside the magazine body which restricts how many rounds can fit.  Better off to sell them and just buy new standard magazines.

[JBP55]

Google Johnny Glocks Triggers.

 

[tdp88]

I'd just get a Taran trigger kit and Dawson Gen 5 MOS sights and call it a day. 

[earlan357]

I also just picked up a Gen5 34 for CO and personal experimenting.  I set mine up like I did my Gen3.  First thing I did was replace the factory striker channel liner with one from Lone Wolf.  The inside of the oem liner is rough.  It looks like a chalkboard and is the primary cause of the drag you feel when pulling the trigger.  It will smooth out in time but it'll take tens of thousands of rounds.  Some people will polish the inside of the liner with a Flitz soaked bore mop chucked in a drill,  but I don't like that method since there's no way to get a uniform surface.  The white plastic one from LoneWolf is glass smooth on the inside.  However, the plastic is a little softer than oem and the QC isn't perfect.  I usually order 4-5 at a time because 1 or 2 are so tight that they get mangled during install.  I made an aluminum install tool to support the liner during install.  A 7/16" lag screw can be used to extract the old liner.

 

The striker gets wet sanded up to 5000 grit before polish, along with a 4# Wolff striker spring.  I also lightly wet sand the inside and outside of the striker spring with 5000 grit sandpaper.  The safety plunger also gets a wet sand/polish and I swap in a reduced power plunger spring from Wolff.

One thing I don't like about the gen5 is how the trigger bar rubs against the right side slide stop lever.  Instead of polishing the contact points, I just replaced the entire trigger group with a Gen4 including the single-side slide stop lever.  I had an Agency trigger with a Gen3 trigger bar on hand so that's what's in there now.  I did swap over the gen5 ejector though.  The now gen4 trigger return spring was replaced with a 6# competition spring.  Connector and trigger bar get stoned, wet sanded, and polished.  I also lightly wet sand the center of the trigger pivot pin with 5000 grit before hand polish.  I don't polish the outsides of the trigger pin since I want friction to prevent the pin from rotating in the frame.  I want the pin to remain stationary as the trigger rotates around it for consistency.  

I wet-sand on a $3 marble tile sample from the hardware store, but a mirror or piece of glass will also keep the sandpaper nice and flat.  The reason I wet sand instead of just use a Dremel felt wheel and Flitz, is because flatness is just as important as smoothness.  Imagine a rough ice skating rink.  Sure it's slippery, but trying to skate on rough ice sucks.  By wet sanding with fine sandpaper first, it keeps the surfaces level and minimizes metal removal.  Ideally, I'm just slicking up the existing nickel plating, but some areas like the cruiciform and trigger bar safety tab or "bird's head" are left rough from the stamping process.  Those edges get stoned flat before sanding and polishing.

The last "trigger" mod is to wet sand the trigger guard.  My finger sits low in the trigger guard and often drags a bit, so I slick up that area with 600, 1200, 2000, then 3000 grit sandpaper that's been oiled down with Slip2k.  My finger drags less on the smooth plastic, and doesn't get pinched when the skin rolls up under the tip of the trigger on reset.

My connector of choice is the Ghost Evo 3.5.  Some people like the Glock's "wall", but I prefer the smooth DA-like feel of the trigger.  I can feel the trigger bar bump up against the safety plunger and consider that the "wall" when prepping the trigger.  Break and reset are a hair longer than a "-" or 4.5 connector, but I don't notice except during slow-fire.  Break is right under 3#.  Since the channel liner, striker, and spring are slicked up, I get reliable ignition from the 4# striker spring.


 

[tha1000]

My gen 5 34 has the nicest glock trigger I have ever felt with solely a 4.5 pound striker spring...

[Honeybooboo]

16 hours ago, tha1000 said:

My gen 5 34 has the nicest glock trigger I have ever felt with solely a 4.5 pound striker spring...

came to post exactly this. All the gen 5 needs is a reduced striker string to match a reduced recoil spring and you are good. 
 

if you wanted to be really anal (hehe), you could get the Guardian trigger because it’s all factory parts that have a mirror polish on them and it’d make things even smoother along with the reduced striker spring but eh, that’s just if you have money to burn. 

[earlan357]

I built a trigger mapping rig a while back and tested some triggers and components.  The links below skip my rambling and go straight to the results.

 

 

 

 

 

[Paul49]

Thanks for doing all that work to quantify differences between triggers.

 

You mentioned that your rig might be pulling on the trigger a little higher than your actual finger does. Certainly that would shorten the lever arm and require a little more force. I presume that means if these combinations were measured using a pull or pressure point further down the trigger, the forces might be lower. Any idea how much lower?

 

You also mentioned that pulling higher might exaggerate the differences between various trigger and spring combinations.

 

Would it be possible to redo some of this work on the parts you already have, but with the pull point lower on the triggers? Would that be more “real world”?

[Yondering]

On 12/3/2019 at 2:19 PM, earlan357 said:

 Instead of polishing the contact points, I just replaced the entire trigger group with a Gen4 including the single-side slide stop lever. 

...

My connector of choice is the Ghost Evo 3.5.  Some people like the Glock's "wall", but I prefer the smooth DA-like feel of the trigger. 

 

That's good to know about replacing the trigger group with a gen 4, I didn't know that was possible but don't own a gen 5 yet except the 43. 

 

If you like a DA trigger feel - try the new Ghost "Angel" connector, that's exactly what it's designed to do. I bought one out of curiosity; I don't like a DA trigger in my Glocks but can see that if someone did, the Angel connector does a good job of it. 

[earlan357]

20 hours ago, Yondering said:

 

That's good to know about replacing the trigger group with a gen 4, I didn't know that was possible but don't own a gen 5 yet except the 43. 

 

If you like a DA trigger feel - try the new Ghost "Angel" connector, that's exactly what it's designed to do. I bought one out of curiosity; I don't like a DA trigger in my Glocks but can see that if someone did, the Angel connector does a good job of it. 

I tried the Angel, but it just felt too long to me.  To clarify, I prefer a trigger with a wall I can find at speed, but just a little smooth movement between the wall and break.  My CZ P-10F is like this, with 1# of take-up to the wall and a 2#12oz break.  But Glock triggers are harder to tune.  If I could get a 4.5 connector down to 3# I'd be in heaven.  As an off-season experiment, I just milled a spare striker leg back by 9 degrees.  It reduced the break by a full pound after stoning and polish, but obviously it won't wear as well since the factory finish is gone, and I have no idea how long it will last/stay reliable.  This is where the heavier 6# trigger return springs come in handy.  The extra force also pulls the trigger bar up harder and should prevent the striker from skipping over the trigger bar as the tip of the leg wears.

 

Here's my P-10F trigger compared to when it was stock as tested on my trigger dyno.
 

Edited December 6, 2019 by earlan357

[earlan357]

22 hours ago, Paul49 said:

Thanks for doing all that work to quantify differences between triggers.

 

You mentioned that your rig might be pulling on the trigger a little higher than your actual finger does. Certainly that would shorten the lever arm and require a little more force. I presume that means if these combinations were measured using a pull or pressure point further down the trigger, the forces might be lower. Any idea how much lower?

 

You also mentioned that pulling higher might exaggerate the differences between various trigger and spring combinations.

 

Would it be possible to redo some of this work on the parts you already have, but with the pull point lower on the triggers? Would that be more “real world”?

The problem is two-fold.  The Glock dustcover isn't very stiff, and since it's plastic, the rail isn't as repeatable to fixture as metal.  Also, the "finger" moves in a straight line, so as the trigger rotates past 90 degrees, the finger essentially moves down the face.  If it starts lower, the "finger" will roll off the tip.  Since the trigger rolls down the face, the leverage increases.  You can see it in the graph where the lines flatten out before the break.  Calculating the effect is difficult since it's hard to get accurate measurements of the pivot points, worse with curved triggers.  I thought about using a servo to pull the trigger with an arm that matches the rotation, but nothing small enough makes enough torque.  I gave up on trying to get "real-world" numbers since everyone pulls the trigger differently and there's already so much variance between individual Glock parts/frames.  The point of the video was so someone could get an idea of how an aftermarket part might change compared to what the already have, but not necessarily predict the final result.  In the future, I want to test some claims made by internet "glocksmiths".  Some of their ideas make sense at first, but when you start digging into material science and tolerance stacking, some of their claims don't seem to be backed up with actual metrics.  For instance, anyone who claims their Glock trigger is "like a 1911" without hard data other than a few readings from a trigger pull scale.

[Paul49]

14 hours ago, earlan357 said:

The problem is two-fold.  The Glock dustcover isn't very stiff, and since it's plastic, the rail isn't as repeatable to fixture as metal.  Also, the "finger" moves in a straight line, so as the trigger rotates past 90 degrees, the finger essentially moves down the face.  If it starts lower, the "finger" will roll off the tip.  Since the trigger rolls down the face, the leverage increases.  You can see it in the graph where the lines flatten out before the break.  Calculating the effect is difficult since it's hard to get accurate measurements of the pivot points, worse with curved triggers.  I thought about using a servo to pull the trigger with an arm that matches the rotation, but nothing small enough makes enough torque.  I gave up on trying to get "real-world" numbers since everyone pulls the trigger differently and there's already so much variance between individual Glock parts/frames.  The point of the video was so someone could get an idea of how an aftermarket part might change compared to what the already have, but not necessarily predict the final result.  In the future, I want to test some claims made by internet "glocksmiths".  Some of their ideas make sense at first, but when you start digging into material science and tolerance stacking, some of their claims don't seem to be backed up with actual metrics.  For instance, anyone who claims their Glock trigger is "like a 1911" without hard data other than a few readings from a trigger pull scale.

 

Thanks for the detailed and thoughtful response.

 

It appeared from your examples that the work to move the trigger bar, depress the firing pin safety was pretty similar between the triggers, so that anything that reduced pull in your examples simply decreased the slope of the wall, making it less wall-like, and therefore, perhaps more mushy, the more the total pull was reduced.

 

Have you looked at the impact of changing the firing pin plunger spring weight? Those springs are pretty inexpensive....

[earlan357]

9 hours ago, Paul49 said:

 

Thanks for the detailed and thoughtful response.

 

It appeared from your examples that the work to move the trigger bar, depress the firing pin safety was pretty similar between the triggers, so that anything that reduced pull in your examples simply decreased the slope of the wall, making it less wall-like, and therefore, perhaps more mushy, the more the total pull was reduced.

 

Have you looked at the impact of changing the firing pin plunger spring weight? Those springs are pretty inexpensive....

There's a slight reduction in the first "bump" before the wall, but since the trigger bar is sliding against the flat part of the plunger, the spring's effect on friction there is negligible if polished smooth.  I haven't tested it on a Gen5 though.  Since the plunger is shaped like a trapezoid, it has a larger ramping surface.  My hunch is that it spreads out the "bump", but the peak force it creates is probably the same.