Lightening trigger pull

C

CB3

New member
I bought my 21-year old daughter a S&W 432-PD for Christmas. This is a lightweight, hammerless, .32 H&R Magnum snubbie. Ultimately, this will be for personal defense if she likes it.

As with my wife's S&W 640-1 snubbie we bought eight years ago, the trigger pull is incredibly heavy. Although this is a DAO, a trigger pull that is far in excess of my 12-pound Lyman scale (I estimate 14-15 lbs.) is just too hard for most women to shoot, especially accurately, from what I have experienced. Long, heavy trigger pulls in lightweight guns with short barrels usually produce shots all over the target. I do not want her to have bad experiences with this gun initially. We are in the lightweight revolver category because of a lack of strength to work the slides on semi-autos--and objections to heavy and long DAO semi-auto trigger pulls.

A good gunsmith re-worked the 640 to about an 8 lb. trigger pull, with the length of pull about the same as originally. This seems more than adequate for safety and it is light enough for my wife to use. The addition of a Crimson Trace lasergrip two years ago did wonders for her accuracy. We have had no issues with light strikes. The gun is 100% reliable.

My daughter has shot the 640 and doesn't like the "jump" when shooting .38 spl. She has not been shooting long and may graduate to bigger bores, but she is not ready yet. Thus the .32.

I have read in previous posts cautions about changing springs and lightening triggers. I intend to take the new gun to the same 'smith, who I assume puts in a lighter weight aftermarket spring set in addition to stoning the parts and smoothing the action. I believe this is a requiremernt for this gun, for this person.

Any comments?
 
Agreed

I have done the same on my own J frame .38's. I get a spring kit from Brownells and make sure anything that looks rough gets polished. That is with all steel guns. But then I always fire for reliability, and I never ever mess with reshaping the sears or the hammer notches. That takes the finesse of a trained gunsmith and could be expensive if you mess up. Safety issue! A good cleaning inside and application of good lubricants also helps smoothness. Avoid the temptation to go too light on trigger return springs. If your gunsmith can give you a good reliable trigger job to make the gun more shootable, go for it. But it must bust a cap 100% of the time, meaning a combat/defense trigger will not be as light as a target type. But, I guess, in the old days when the factory had more hand labor, they could get better trigger pulls that were reliable. Now they depend on CNC machines to insure exact tolerances and hope that allows for reasonable, if heavy, trigger pulls in all the identical guns. Examine the ammo you fire after the trigger job and make sure that there are solid deep indents in the primers, not just in SA slow fire, but some rapid DA firing also. And test the ammo you will carry. Oh, yea, your gun is DA only! Sorry. Still, firing rapidly can challenge the mechanism/timing and is required on a defense gun.
 
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I have had terrible luck with J-frames and spring kits, light strikes have been quite common. Just a good polish job gets them down to 10-11 pounds in my experience and keeps them reliable. I feel this is light enough for anyone that practices a little once in while.
 
Spring kits

I use the Wolff springs in most cases. Have not had troubles with the reduced power hammer springs, but the lightest trigger return springs often don't function too well for me. Not much luck with the ribbed leaf springs in bigger guns. I found picking thru a selection of factory leaf springs can help get to a lower trigger pull.
 
I accelerate the wear on the contact surfaces of a S&W action but leave the springs stock for SD pieces(where the rebound slide and the hammer rub on the frame mostly) . I noticed that, at least on my samples, vintage S&W wheelguns that were bought to be admired have trigger pulls that are just as heavy and rough as most new ones. Well used guns, OTOH, have a smoothness only heavy use in DA mode can bring.
 
Dry firing to lighten pull

I have a Makarov I dry fired over a thousand times to try to lighten the trigger pull. It got a little smoother but no lighter, although others claimed this was all you needed to do. The Mak firing system is of course different than a J-frame (no rebound slide).

So, I have not been a fan of a lot of dry firing effort to try to improve trigger pull. My local gunsmith said he would prefer I put a few hundred rounds through this new J-432PD before I brought it to him so he could see a little wear in it--the better for stoning and to know which reduced springs to put in it.

I ordered in some snap caps and have now dry fired it about 700 times. The trigger is very much improved. It is till over 12 lbs according to my scale, but it definitely feels lighter than before. I could live with just a slight additional improvement if the gun was for me. I let my daughter dry fire it last night and she did fairly well with it.

Knowing how well my wife's gun is set up, I will go ahead with the lighter spring set next week after a firing session this weekend, but I just wanted to agree that a number of hammer drops can definitely improve a new trigger in this design.

CB3
 
Smoother

I can see where it would get smoother with wear, but if it gets appreciably lighter, that might mean the springs are getting weak! That speaks to the quality of the factory springs, I guess. I guess to get lighter you still may need a gunsmith to carefully select springs with lower power. But always it must bust a cap under extreme conditions of rapid fire, a little more problematic than thumb cocked, slow, range firing.
 
Lighter

J-frame trigger pull weight is a combination of spring pressure and friction of moving parts. Without reducing spring pressure, a trigger pull can lighten as friction is reduced through wearing or smoothing of surfaces of parts in a new gun. Certain good lubricants can further reduce friction. The trigger pull will also become smoother, which gives the false impression of being lighter.

In the case of this revolver, the trigger is definitely lighter and definitely smoother, but since it started out close to (estimated) 15 pounds and is still well over 12 pounds, I would guess it might be about 2 pounds lighter. That is not an appreciable amount, but noticeable and appreciated.

CB3
 
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