I posted this on another forum I go to, figured I'd cut and paste it to here too if anyone is intersted...
I'm sure that in the recent Glock threads I've gone on record as being a Glock fanboy, and I am, but there are a few things that I've never been satisfied with on my out of the box Glocks. 1) The trigger pull is rough and heavy and the worst part is the long overtravel after the sear drops. It adds a "twitch" to the front sight as the round is fired. 2) The slide release is a joke. Who did they design this for and what is the shape of their thumb that they can apply downward pressure on it without turning the gun sideways. I have medium sized hands and in order to release the slide with the gun pointed down range I have to pretty much move my hand 90 degrees around the grip to give my thumb any purchase on the slide release. 3) You can't shoot straight lead bullets out of the factory barrel due to the polyagonal rifling they have. This is something that some debate about, but for me and my hands, I'm not risking having one ruin my digits when I can get a barrel that is safe to fire lead thru for about $100.
Anyways, last week I did a little bit of research and ordered some parts to take care of the triggers and slide releases on 2 of my glocks as sort of an experiment to see what I liked and what didn't. The two guns I am testing these out on are my G17 and my G21. For the G17 I ordered all aftermarket parts from Ghost Inc, for the G21 I picked up stock glock parts from the local gun shop. I've found that youtube, of all places, to be a great resource for reviews and how too's when it comes to working on my guns and usually find something interesting and relevant when I do a search there. One gem that I came across and had forgotten about is the "25 cent trigger job", I had that on the back burner for so long I'd forgotten about it. I wasn't really convinced that it would help as much as claimed, but it is basically free to do and only takes about 15-30 minutes to do so it was worth trying.
G21 parts and procedures:
- "25 cent trigger job"
- Glock factory extended slide release
- Glock factory 3.5# trigger connector
G17 parts and procedures:
- "25 cent trigger job"
- Ghost Inc "Rocket" trigger with spring and install kit (I got the "defensive carry" spring kit as I do plan to carry this gun in the winter time)
- Ghost Inc "Bullet" extended slide release.
In an effort to segregate what was working and what wasn't I did each peice of each gun seperately. I do not have a trigger pull scale so I started by dry firing each pistol several time and noting which had the lighter feel to it, the roughness of the pull and the amount of overtravel after the sear drops, relative to one another before starting and after each phase.
To start with I just replaced the easiest part, the slide releases. Looking at the replacement slide releases they both look like they would be equal, the glock part has a slightly more squared off look to it whereas the Ghost Inc part looks a little more rounded off. My initial thoughts were that the Glock part would allow easier slide release due to it's flatter top. But after installing the parts, while both are a great improvement over stock releases, I'll give the nod to the Ghost Inc part. While the Glock part looks to have a flatter top which would allow easier downward pressure on the release, when installed it actually sits with the top at about a 30 degree downward angle and maintains roughly the same stock location. The Ghost Inc release, when installed has a better feel to it and allows more purchase on the release. In addition it is actually extended back about 1/8th" more to allow better leverage on the release and makes releasing the slide much easier, it basically contacts my thumb in a better place and allows me not to think about having to release the slide.
After a few more "finger calibration tests" to the triggers, I decided that the trigger on my well worn G21 was slightly smoother and maybe a hair lighter so I decided to tackle the stock trigger on my G17 first to see if the "25 cent trigger job" would improve it's pull, it's basically a brand new gun and the parts have not had a chance to wear in yet. Basically what this trigger job involves is polishing all the mating surfaces of the moving parts involved when you squeeze the trigger. Parts that get polishe include trigger connector, sear, firing pin ramp, trigger bar and the firing pin safety (the plunger looking thing in the top of your slide. Some people use a Q-tip and Flitz metal polish, but most seem to use the Dremel tool and Flitz or some other metal polish, any way you do it should work but some ways are going to be faster than others. I didn't have any Flitz handy so I ended up using Brasso and a Dremel with a felt polishing wheel. In short, the Brasso sucked to start with and I ended up using some brown polishing compound to get it close to shiney and then switched to Brasso to finish polish the parts. After doing a thorough cleaning to remove all the polishing compound and reassembling the G17 I did another comparison of the trigger pull with the G21. After doing the 25c trigger job, there was a marked difference between the two triggers. Where there used to be uneveness in the take-up of the G17 trigger, that still existed in the G21 trigger, it was now one fluid motion back until you started putting pressure on the sear. Well worth the 30 minutes and a little elbow grease. Keeping in mind that both pistols still maintained their stock trigger parts in them at this point, including the 5.5# connectors, I would rank the 25c trigger job as improving the feel of the trigger by 75% over out of the box trigger feel. Next I did the same work on the G21 and the results were the same.
After the 25c trigger job I was down to evaluating the difference between the factory Glock 3.5# trigger connector and the Ghost Inc "Rocket" 3.5# trigger connector. With the G21 still in front of me I decided to start with the Glock connector. To start with, the Glock connector needed to be polished the same as the stock part was when I did the 25c trigger job. After that its a matter of about 2 minutes to strip the trigger and replace the part. In my side by side, calibrated finger test, the 3.5# Glock trigger felt slightly lighter, but more importantly imo took some of the "front sight twitch" out of the picture that is caused by the over travel that happens after the sear drops. Less trigger pull weight = less torque applied to the weapon when you hit the overtravel. I was fairly happy with the trigger at this point and would say that the 3.5# connector in conjunction with the 25c trigger job made for a 125% improvement in the feel of the trigger. But I'm not done yet.........
I'm sure that in the recent Glock threads I've gone on record as being a Glock fanboy, and I am, but there are a few things that I've never been satisfied with on my out of the box Glocks. 1) The trigger pull is rough and heavy and the worst part is the long overtravel after the sear drops. It adds a "twitch" to the front sight as the round is fired. 2) The slide release is a joke. Who did they design this for and what is the shape of their thumb that they can apply downward pressure on it without turning the gun sideways. I have medium sized hands and in order to release the slide with the gun pointed down range I have to pretty much move my hand 90 degrees around the grip to give my thumb any purchase on the slide release. 3) You can't shoot straight lead bullets out of the factory barrel due to the polyagonal rifling they have. This is something that some debate about, but for me and my hands, I'm not risking having one ruin my digits when I can get a barrel that is safe to fire lead thru for about $100.
Anyways, last week I did a little bit of research and ordered some parts to take care of the triggers and slide releases on 2 of my glocks as sort of an experiment to see what I liked and what didn't. The two guns I am testing these out on are my G17 and my G21. For the G17 I ordered all aftermarket parts from Ghost Inc, for the G21 I picked up stock glock parts from the local gun shop. I've found that youtube, of all places, to be a great resource for reviews and how too's when it comes to working on my guns and usually find something interesting and relevant when I do a search there. One gem that I came across and had forgotten about is the "25 cent trigger job", I had that on the back burner for so long I'd forgotten about it. I wasn't really convinced that it would help as much as claimed, but it is basically free to do and only takes about 15-30 minutes to do so it was worth trying.
G21 parts and procedures:
- "25 cent trigger job"
- Glock factory extended slide release
- Glock factory 3.5# trigger connector
G17 parts and procedures:
- "25 cent trigger job"
- Ghost Inc "Rocket" trigger with spring and install kit (I got the "defensive carry" spring kit as I do plan to carry this gun in the winter time)
- Ghost Inc "Bullet" extended slide release.
In an effort to segregate what was working and what wasn't I did each peice of each gun seperately. I do not have a trigger pull scale so I started by dry firing each pistol several time and noting which had the lighter feel to it, the roughness of the pull and the amount of overtravel after the sear drops, relative to one another before starting and after each phase.
To start with I just replaced the easiest part, the slide releases. Looking at the replacement slide releases they both look like they would be equal, the glock part has a slightly more squared off look to it whereas the Ghost Inc part looks a little more rounded off. My initial thoughts were that the Glock part would allow easier slide release due to it's flatter top. But after installing the parts, while both are a great improvement over stock releases, I'll give the nod to the Ghost Inc part. While the Glock part looks to have a flatter top which would allow easier downward pressure on the release, when installed it actually sits with the top at about a 30 degree downward angle and maintains roughly the same stock location. The Ghost Inc release, when installed has a better feel to it and allows more purchase on the release. In addition it is actually extended back about 1/8th" more to allow better leverage on the release and makes releasing the slide much easier, it basically contacts my thumb in a better place and allows me not to think about having to release the slide.
After a few more "finger calibration tests" to the triggers, I decided that the trigger on my well worn G21 was slightly smoother and maybe a hair lighter so I decided to tackle the stock trigger on my G17 first to see if the "25 cent trigger job" would improve it's pull, it's basically a brand new gun and the parts have not had a chance to wear in yet. Basically what this trigger job involves is polishing all the mating surfaces of the moving parts involved when you squeeze the trigger. Parts that get polishe include trigger connector, sear, firing pin ramp, trigger bar and the firing pin safety (the plunger looking thing in the top of your slide. Some people use a Q-tip and Flitz metal polish, but most seem to use the Dremel tool and Flitz or some other metal polish, any way you do it should work but some ways are going to be faster than others. I didn't have any Flitz handy so I ended up using Brasso and a Dremel with a felt polishing wheel. In short, the Brasso sucked to start with and I ended up using some brown polishing compound to get it close to shiney and then switched to Brasso to finish polish the parts. After doing a thorough cleaning to remove all the polishing compound and reassembling the G17 I did another comparison of the trigger pull with the G21. After doing the 25c trigger job, there was a marked difference between the two triggers. Where there used to be uneveness in the take-up of the G17 trigger, that still existed in the G21 trigger, it was now one fluid motion back until you started putting pressure on the sear. Well worth the 30 minutes and a little elbow grease. Keeping in mind that both pistols still maintained their stock trigger parts in them at this point, including the 5.5# connectors, I would rank the 25c trigger job as improving the feel of the trigger by 75% over out of the box trigger feel. Next I did the same work on the G21 and the results were the same.
After the 25c trigger job I was down to evaluating the difference between the factory Glock 3.5# trigger connector and the Ghost Inc "Rocket" 3.5# trigger connector. With the G21 still in front of me I decided to start with the Glock connector. To start with, the Glock connector needed to be polished the same as the stock part was when I did the 25c trigger job. After that its a matter of about 2 minutes to strip the trigger and replace the part. In my side by side, calibrated finger test, the 3.5# Glock trigger felt slightly lighter, but more importantly imo took some of the "front sight twitch" out of the picture that is caused by the over travel that happens after the sear drops. Less trigger pull weight = less torque applied to the weapon when you hit the overtravel. I was fairly happy with the trigger at this point and would say that the 3.5# connector in conjunction with the 25c trigger job made for a 125% improvement in the feel of the trigger. But I'm not done yet.........
