Trigger Job Almost Finished...

[cautery]

Originally, I was gonna have Charlie Vanek do my trigger, but he is/was ill. Hope you are feeling better Charlie!

So, then I ordered a Sotelo kit from triggerkit.com. Apparently, trigger bars are at a premium right now, and RS took a while getting my kit to me. Not his fault... He had to hunt up enough trigger bars to fill all his orders. Anyway I got impatient, so I took out my tools, stones, polishing compound, etc. and set to work... Stoned everything flat and polished it super smooth... This helped things a lot, but there's a limit to what you can do without more drastic measures...

Finally, the RS kit arrived... Nice kit. I installed all of the kit parts and measured the trigger pull (see my article on my wesite for how I do it). The RS kit came in right at 2lbs 8 ozs... Not bad for $50.00 and drop in installation. The trigger safety needed to be trimmed back just a hair more, but that was a non-issue, especially knowing that I wasn't finished anyway...

Looking at the parts in the kit, I decided to try the 3.5lb connector I had worked on instead of the Sotelo part... The Sotelo part was polished properly and in all the right places, but I had stoned mine to true it up in several critical areas... I also stoned the edge on the Sotelo trigger bar that rides under the connector lip as it had some minor machine marks visible that could not have been removed by polishing alone. I could have just swapped the trigger bars out, but I hadn't drilled mine yet.... And, I have to say that Sotelo did a better job than I did machining the trigger bar angle where it catches the striker... Learned something there... Made a jig that will cut that angle in a trigger bar now.

Sotelo's firing pin plunger is a work of art. I haven't touched that at all.

Anyway, I measured again today, and I had it down to 2lb-4oz... Very smooth.... But I still wasn't completely happy with it as a whole...

I had ordered the parts/tools needed to install set screws to adjust pre-travel and over-travel... I didn't have time to work on both of them, so I did the pre-travel. It's not nearly as difficult as one might think... though I wouldn't recommend it to ANYONE... You do it, it's on you!

Anyway, I got it done, and progressive applied the setscrew until the pistol first failed to reset. Then, I backed off a certain amount to make sure I'd get 100% reliable reset. Then, I checked to make sure that the drop safety was still functional... it was.

Finally, I cut the trigger safety down until it was short enough to function properly with the reduced pre-travel.

So, thusfar, I have a 2lb-4oz trigger, with drastically reduced pre-travel, very smooth, and a better break... and of course all safeties functional.

I still have a few things left to do... I have to finish the over-travel set screw. I also plan to mill the center section of the connector down some. I've been putting it off, but I also need to tighten the slide... Even with the reduced power striker spring, pulling the trigger still sucks the slide down...

The trigger bar is still rubbing a tad on the right side of the mags, so I need to mill the mag catch a bit more to lower the mags in the well, and/or mill some of the polymer off the right side of all my mags until they no longer touch. That has to be adding some drag to the trigger...

Finally, and the part I am kinda psyched about... I should be getting the parts/tools soon to eliminate the lateral play in the trigger... This should really clean up the trigger feel... This particular mod really wouldn't be noticeable until you fixed all the other stuff first...

Oh... BTW... I took the pistol out to verify that there would be no "light primer strikes" usig WSP primers... I'm about to order 25K, and didn't want this to be an issue... It wasn't of course. I put 400 rounds of my stuff and 50 rounds of CCI Blazer through it, and every round went bang. If it'll light CCI primers, and not one light strike in 450 rounds, I'd consider that reliable.

Later...

[Joe D]

I have gotten Glock triggers as low as 16 oz. I like them better at 1 1/2 lbs.

[atmar]

guys,

do you think a 1lb. trigger is possible with a stock 5.5lb. striker spring??? the purpose/objective is to have a carry/reliable glock w/ a match trigger......of course it should be carried with the chamber empty.....just an idea

[cautery]

Joe D - Not sure if I want to go much lower than 2-1/4lbs... It's nice and reliable here, and plenty light. Just want to smooth things out a bit more.

atmar - You MIGHT be able to get 1lb IF you could find the right trigger spring... You might have to go up on the recoil spring... Personally... I wouldn't do so on a carry pistol...

[Joe D]

I don't see how one could get a 1 lb. trigger with the stock striker spring. Maybe with a heavy enough trigger spring. I think getting a reliable reset would be tough.

My carry gun is a G23 with just a 3.5 connector added. I did alter the trigger bar slightly to get a smooth linear pull a bit less than 4 lbs.

[AustinMike]

The trigger safety needed to be trimmed back just a hair more, but that was a non-issue, especially knowing that I wasn't finished anyway...

I'm curious about where you are trimming. I got one of Ralph's kits a few weeks back and it feels great, but on rare occassion I've had the trigger safety lever kick out so far as to jam against the frame behind the trigger when I go to pull it, right below the slot where it's supposed to tuck into the frame. When this happens, it takes either a forceful trigger pull or flick against the trigger to knock it loose. This has happened a few times on the first shot from draw and never during a course of fire. It's rather hard to reproduce, but Ralph said he'd be happy to take a look. I was planning to shoot it a bit more first and see it will just break in on its own. I'm wondering if I just need to trim a little off the back of the trigger safety lever?

[cautery]

Joe D - Hence why I said "MIGHT"...

AustinMike - OK.. without pictures it's hard to describe, but... You have the narrow portion of the trigger safety that starts at the bottom, goes past the pin pvot, and terminates in a wider "pad" at the top...

On a stock trigger, this is a thick pad... On the Sotelo trigger bar, I think you will notice that he has already trimmed the "pad" back a bit... The pad is what needs to be trimmed back... I use a single edge razor...

On mine, I really didn't have to shorten it much... What I needed to do mostly was take the sharp edge off the outboard edge of the pad... In other words, I radiused the edge so it wouldn't catch the pocket in the frame...

Do it a VERY little at a time... You want to keep as much material as you can. But you also want to have it short enough that putting your finger on the trigger will recess it enough to alloe the trigger to begin pre-travel...

On mine, once I eliminated the vast majority of the pre-travel, I had to cut back past the pad into the shaft quite a ways...

<disclaimer mode on> BTW, I'm not advocating that you mod anything... just telling you what I did. Modifying stuff is a good way to mess things up... at the least requiring replacement parts. Doing stuff you don't have the skils/experience for can result in unsafe functioning of the weapon... <disclaimer mode off>

Edited October 23, 2005 by cautery

[AustinMike]

Thanks for the info, Cautery. I suspected mine may need a little more modification in the area you described. I'll take a closer look and I may end up just letting Ralph touch it up. I did get through a long match last time I used it without the trigger jam happening. It may have smoothed out on its own (I hope!)