Glock trigger polishing

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I’m wondering everyones opinion on potentially polishing my glock trigger group/doing the 25 cent trigger job. I have a G40 gen 4 I dont get to shoot as much as I would like to for many reasons (otherwise i would just try and put 1,000 rounds through it and call it a day). I maybe have 200 rounds through it rite now, the guns very fun to shoot but i still dislike the trigger for it’s spongeyness (just my opinion) the same way I did day one. It’s not make or brake for me I love to shoot the gun all the same but I have just read one or two things about it not being good for the gun, and allot about replacing or altering factory glock parts being a bad idea that made me hesitant. Thanks for your input guys any honest input and experience is appreciated. If a detailed thread for this exist already I clearly couldn’t find it so please just point me in the rite direction.
 
I've done the polishing to several Glocks. I have also played with factory '-' connector, aftermarket parts, springs ect. IMHO a good polishing is more beneficial than anything else. I would say the same even if you payed someone hourly gunsmith rate to do a polish job.

Those against polishing claim "Glock perfection blah blah" or they say just shoot the gun more and it will polish itself. That part may be true, but I see no harm in speeding up the process.

Trigger bar, connector, striker, safety plunger. Only polish the parts, do not remove any materiel or change any angles.
 
I found it definitely worth the while. I use Flitz to polish. Most of the poor feel comes from the roughness of the firing pin block plunger.
 
Not at all trying to be condescending, but do you have a strong grasp of how the Glock trigger system works? I would strongly recommend taking a bit of time to school up on exactly what all the components, surfaces, etc. do and their functions and how modifications can impact the safety tolerances of the system.

You mention sponginess, and there are two primary stages to a Glock trigger. The first is what I'd call almost a take-up, where the trigger bar's components are actually (further) compressing the striker spring, lifting the striker safety plunger out of the way, and clearing the drop safety shelf in the rear trigger module. Once the rounded, bladed part of the trigger bar contacts the connector, you are into what I'd consider the second stage, where you are further compressing the striker spring, but also driving the trigger bar down due to the angled surface of the connector. Here you are pushing against the connector as well as sliding the searing surface down the striker lug, both of which have friction.

Anyhow, having some idea of what you're trying to solve (and how it can go wrong) will give you some insight. Nothing you can safely do to a Glock will eliminate the need to compress the striker spring, lift the striker plunger out of the way, or scrape the trigger bar along the connector tab and trigger bar searing surface along the striker lug, that's the design. From a black box perspective, you are feeling all that stuff happening as varying resistance as the trigger travels.

The big thing you want to avoid is compromising any of the safety systems, which you can do if you "polish" away any of the material that sets the geometry. Things like "reduced pretravel" Glock triggers can feel way better, but in the extreme case, they can disable two of the safety systems: the striker plunger and drop safety shelf. Furthermore, aggressive "polishing" with a Dremel or file or whatever can alter the geometry in other ways.

Not trying to dissuade you, I feel that it's safe to do a polish job, but have some idea of what everything does so you don't bubba yourself into an unsafe situation.

Here's a quick video that goes over a cutaway model:
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pThsdG0FNdc
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There is no negative wear on the surfaces, they're self-machining, and the wear is what you are trying to accomplish.

Bear in mind though that springs are wear items, and your dry fire (if it cycles the slide) counts towards the round count. For people that shoot a case or two a month and dry fire regularly, this can mean a spring change monthly...
 
A couple of things to consider:
-It's a Glock, the trigger is never going to be magnificent. It's also a Gen 4 which also has arguably the "worst" stock trigger of all Gens.
-The trigger feel is one of the things people obsess about but is also fairly inconsequential if unless you are working on shaving 0.1's off of your splits. It's not a substitute for fundamentals and wont make you a better shooter. A trigger job wont prevent your gun from shooting low-left.

If you want to Improve a Gen 4 trigger:
1. Get a Glock stock minus connector
2. Shoot 200-400 rounds through the gun
3. Disassemble the gun and look for the wear surfaces: THESE ARE THE ONLY SURFACES THAT MATTER
4. Use a Q-tip and Flitz and hand polish contact surfaces on the trigger bar/cruciform, connector, striker safety plunger.
5. If you still dont like the feel of the trigger get a reliable/proven aftermarket duty trigger like an Apex or Overwatch Precision

You dont need a dremel/rotary tool to polish and that is a pretty good way of ruining parts in a hurry if you dont know what you are doing. Ignore that video posted above, that is some bubba-shit. Glock internals are all plated and that plating is thousanths thick. You can blast through it with a felt bob and polishing compound. The coating on the striker plunger will go away by itself in several 100 rounds.
 
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In my experience installing a "-" connector will lesson the trigger pull as measured on a gauge, but will make the trigger 'feel' worse.

Dry fire it 1,000 times while watching TV. It'll help you reacquire a good grip 1,000 times as well.
My following comment is not really relevant to this thread, but here it is anyway... I disagree. If you do that while watching TV, you are going to quickly get distracted. Your focus will be on the TV and not the gun. Without focus on the gun, your trigger press, your grip, everything will be poor. Repeating a poor trigger press over and over will develop a worse trigger press. The grip will become relaxed, holding the gun only hard enough to not drop it. I only recommend dry firing for short periods of time, only as long as you can maintain 100% concentration and focus, any less and your repetitions are detrimental to to goal.
 
Polishing will smooth takeup. Ivedone it on a few of my guns.
If you want a good Striker fired trigger buy a Canik TP9. It wont cost much more than an afternarket trigger job.
 
In my experience installing a "-" connector will lesson the trigger pull as measured on a gauge, but will make the trigger 'feel' worse.


My following comment is not really relevant to this thread, but here it is anyway... I disagree. If you do that while watching TV, you are going to quickly get distracted. Your focus will be on the TV and not the gun. Without focus on the gun, your trigger press, your grip, everything will be poor. Repeating a poor trigger press over and over will develop a worse trigger press. The grip will become relaxed, holding the gun only hard enough to not drop it. I only recommend dry firing for short periods of time, only as long as you can maintain 100% concentration and focus, any less and your repetitions are detrimental to to goal.

Holy lord! If you lose interest....Get a Holster and watch The Quick and The Dead. See if you can outdraw Sharon Stone on a dryfire contest.
 
Any negative wear with this?

And thanks for all the great advice guys!


Good question! YES!

There is considerable wear. On your hands at the seams. Dry firing a Glock for a few hundred times will clearly see where you truly need to polish. . . . the frame.

I've shaved a bit off of the trigger guard on the right side more often than not, as well as take away the mold line that runs under the trigger guard. And sometimes inside the trigger guard. Depends on the QC at Smyrna that day, I guess.

But a few hundred clicks will help you find out where your Glock needs to smooth out a bit on the outside. Plus it'll give you a few hundred attempts at not going low-weak on your trigger press. Frontsightfrontsightfrontsight.
 
Polishing makes a huge difference, and as long as you are just polishing, and not grinding, or changing the profile, it is worth it. People who say that doing this to a Glock will end you up in prison because you modified the trigger have no freaking idea what they are talking about.
 
"sponginess" is part of the glock action. once you like the sponginess, you've arrived.
if the pull is gritty, that can be improved with a shit-ton of dry fire or a 25c trigger job
a 3.5# connector will decrease the wall in exchange for even more sponginess, which I like
however the G40 may be one of those models that already has a lighter connector (like the G34 or 35)
 
It's a Glock, not an STI. If you can't shoot a factory Glock trigger, or any other striker fired trigger, reasonably well, you just can't shoot. Leave the trigger alone and go buy some ammo and some training. You're never gonna make it perfect or as good as a single action trigger. If you want to try anything, try a factory minus connector. Other than that, you are wasting your time and risking your safety., it's not gonna make you, or the pistol, shoot any better. Making trigger mods on a Glock is like making suspension mods on a Ferrari, or putting a wing on a Honda civic, it might make you feel better, but it ain't gonna make you faster.
 
Consider this:

If this is your only defensive pistol/firearm. Don't touch it until this shitshow blows over.
A broken down gun is no gun at all.
If you have other pistols/firearms that you can count your life on... have at it.
 
LOL, love all the funny reasons to defend the stock Glock trigger. They suck- plain and simple. A 25 cent trigger job and a factory minus connector will make them suck less, but they still suck. Don't get me wrong, I like Glocks for their intended purpose and have several- but IMO their triggers are their worst feature.

As above mentioned, don't change dimensions when polishing- just improve the surface. Blue Magic metal polish worked well for me.

And yeah- spongy feel to them. A polish job will take them from gritty / crunchy sponge to smooth sponge.

edit- After reading the post from @enbloc , note that I polish my range toy Glocks and leave the self defense ones stock.
 
LOL, love all the funny reasons to defend the stock Glock trigger. They suck- plain and simple. A 25 cent trigger job and a factory minus connector will make them suck less, but they still suck. Don't get me wrong, I like Glocks for their intended purpose and have several- but IMO their triggers are their worst feature.

As above mentioned, don't change dimensions when polishing- just improve the surface. Blue Magic metal polish worked well for me.

And yeah- spongy feel to them. A polish job will take them from gritty / crunchy sponge to smooth sponge.

edit- After reading the post from @enbloc , note that I polish my range toy Glocks and leave the self defense ones stock.

If I can hit the 300 lb Obama voter from 10 feet, it's good enough for me.
 
Do the polish job. It will make a difference. Watch and learn the procedure online. Watch it many times. Freeze each step. Don't force anything. Understand what is wrong. You will develop a feel for those friction points. I had a bad Teflon insert in my striker channel from the factory. No polish was going to fix that. Replaced it. Eventually I moved on to a spring kit. I think I changed all but the reset. I liked the firmer stock one. The gun comes apart so easy you can swap one part at a time to feel the actual change. I laugh when people bitch over how crappy striker fired triggers are because I know they have never tried mine...
 
Consider this:

If this is your only defensive pistol/firearm. Don't touch it until this shitshow blows over.
A broken down gun is no gun at all.
If you have other pistols/firearms that you can count your life on... have at it.

Two is one. One is none.


LOL, love all the funny reasons to defend the stock Glock trigger. They suck- plain and simple. A 25 cent trigger job and a factory minus connector will make them suck less, but they still suck. Don't get me wrong, I like Glocks for their intended purpose and have several- but IMO their triggers are their worst feature.

As above mentioned, don't change dimensions when polishing- just improve the surface. Blue Magic metal polish worked well for me.

And yeah- spongy feel to them. A polish job will take them from gritty / crunchy sponge to smooth sponge.

edit- After reading the post from @enbloc , note that I polish my range toy Glocks and leave the self defense ones stock.

The reality is that people can get comfortable and proficient at just about any trigger. A Glock was my first gun. I've shot more rounds down a Glock than anything else - maybe EVERYTHING else put together. I can tell a new one from a 500rd one. But a 500rd one? I feel VERY comfortable with that spongy, long trigger.

Funny aside - I've got a P320 and P365. Both have really nice triggers. Guess which gun I still hit better with. Yup. My stock Glock 19. d'OH! LOL
This works for single guys and gals, not so much for guys stuck home with wife and kids.

I have both at home. Of course, my TV is in the basement and no one else bothers to come down much.
 
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