The Firing Line Forums

Go Back   The Firing Line Forums > Hogan's Alley > Handguns: The Semi-automatic Forum

Reply
 
Thread Tools Search this Thread
Old February 24, 2013, 08:00 PM   #1
Uncle Malice
Senior Member
 
Join Date: May 11, 2009
Location: Phoenix
Posts: 4,580
Easy M&P Trigger Job

Some of you know my love for the M&P. I think it has just about the best ergos of any pistol on the market except for maybe the HK P30. In my experience, the reliability has been superb. My one and only complaint with the M&Ps has always been the factory trigger. To me, it's terrible. Very gritty take up is the worst part. Lack of defined reset has been a second large complaint, but I hear Smith & Wesson is rectifying that issue and my new M&P Pro 9 seems to confirm that theory. It doesn't have as positive of a reset as the Glock, but it's definitely there now. You can tell when it resets - similar in feel to the reset on the XD models. The Pro series has the trigger that breaks to the rear, similar to the Apex Tactical triggers - maybe they use the Apex sear for the Pro models?

The trigger on the pro is(was) pretty good. I like the break point, and the reset is well defined. Problem is, it still had that terrible gritty take up. I've spent the past 3 days dry firing the crap out of the trigger to try and smooth it out, and while it did smooth out a bit, you could still feel quite a lot of vibration during take up. This is after several thousand dry fires.

For those that don't know, this gritty vibration is caused by the trigger bar depressing the striker safety plunger. I've seen some accounts that say this is the rear of the trigger bar sliding under the sear cam. This is not correct. You can prove that by removing the slide and pulling the trigger, which is buttery smooth as the sear cams back. Apex Tactical gets rid of this gritty take up by providing a perfectly radiused and well polished replacement plunger. I was looking at my new M&P Pro and I could tell that there was some lateral machining marks on the nub that depresses the plunger. I thought to myself, "Well.. I bet if I polished that area, it would remove a lot of that gritty take up."

Turns out, I was right. I grabbed my small "fine" grit mini sharpening stone, put a little oil on it, and started lightly polishing that surface in a linear fashion, from front to back, in line with the frame of the gun. I didn't even have to remove the trigger bar from the gun.... pulling the slide off gave me all the access I needed.

I took some pics to try and give a representation of what I did. This is the nub on the trigger bar that moves rearward as you depress the trigger. There is a flat angle on it, about 45 degrees or so. This is the ramp that slides against the striker safety plunger and depresses it when you pull the trigger. This is where the gritty take up comes from.








DO NOT use a Dremel on this. It's a soft metal and polishes out very quickly with a fine stone. You don't really need to be super anal about maintaining the exact angle, just try to keep it as close as possible. I slightly radiused the top corner of the angle as well just to smooth it out as much as possible. After I could no longer feel the machining marks by scratching at it with my fingernail, I put the slide back on the gun. What do you know? The gritty take up is gone!

The entire process took me about 5 minutes or so.. definitely less than 10 minutes. No extra parts needed. I actually don't think I'm going to bother with the Apex kit in this gun now. It's simply not needed. It has a smooth take up, crisp break, and defined reset... what more do I need?

If you have an M&P with that gritty take up, check out that area on your trigger bar and polish it out if you can. It will definitely improve the feel of the trigger pull.

Looking forward to hearing how others make out with this simple mod!
__________________
Handguns: 2x Glock 19.4 | Glock 26.4 | HK USP 9 | HK P2000 | HK VP9 SK | HK P30 | CZ Shadow 2 | CZ P-10 C | CZ P-07 | CZP-01 | S&W 360PD
Rifles: DDM4 | SGL 21 | SAM7K | Draco | PSA PDW SBR | ASA Side-Charger SBR | CZ Scorpion K SBR | Aero M4E1 9" 300blk SBR | Angstadt Jack9 SBR | Savage Mark II FV-SR
Shotguns: Mossberg 590A1 20" SP | Mossberg Shockwave

Last edited by Uncle Malice; February 24, 2013 at 08:09 PM.
Uncle Malice is offline  
Old February 24, 2013, 08:30 PM   #2
Mrgunsngear
Senior Member
 
Join Date: May 13, 2011
Location: Carolina
Posts: 3,415
I've done that on all my M&Ps---works just as you described.
__________________
Mrgunsngear Youtube Channel
Mrgunsngear is offline  
Old February 24, 2013, 10:57 PM   #3
6.8
Junior member
 
Join Date: February 21, 2013
Posts: 316
Thanks for posting this idea, especially with the pics. I've got a few M&Ps in the Stable. Looks effective and easy.
6.8 is offline  
Reply

Thread Tools Search this Thread
Search this Thread:

Advanced Search

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off

Forum Jump


All times are GMT -5. The time now is 06:07 PM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.7
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions, Inc.
This site and contents, including all posts, Copyright © 1998-2021 S.W.A.T. Magazine
Copyright Complaints: Please direct DMCA Takedown Notices to the registered agent: thefiringline.com
Page generated in 0.05450 seconds with 10 queries