Best Triggers for Air Pistol

[Olympic Dreamer]

I'm a competitive AP shooter and I'm very anal and sensitive about triggers. .....
1. Minimal or no movement when the trigger breaks. (As crisp as possible, the trigger mechanism should not jerk the gun when it breaks)
2. Over-travel as smooth as possible.
3. Ability to adjust over-travel distance
4. Ability to adjust 1st, 2nd stage trigger weight
5. Ability to adjust over travel weight
6. Trigger movement from stage 1 all the way till the end of over-travel as smooth as possible (0 grittiness).

Your level of experience tells me that you really don't know what you want.......insufficent experience.
All current modern air pistols have fully adjustable triggers for travel, overtravel, weight and sear engagement.
You can change the feel of these triggers by adjusting these settings as desired.
No pistol I know of has a weight adjustment for overtravel resistance. (this does vary by pistol design between models).
To buy a pistol, look for your local dealers for support.
Buy a pistol in current production for support and parts availibility.
Find a good Club and Coach and be guided by them.

Yep I know that all modern Olympic grade pistol have fully adjustable triggers. I'm just putting up there for the record.
What is sear engagement? What does it do when you adjust it?

[David M]

What is sear engagement? What does it do when you adjust it?

Sear engagement or trigger point is what will alter the trigger feel from
a break like glass to a long roll off feel.
It is the trigger release.

[Gwhite]

The sear is basically the 'catch' in a trigger mechanism that (when activated) releases the "hammer," or in the case of most air pistols, a spring loaded plunger that opens the firing valve.

Here's a picture I had handy that shows the inner workings of a Benelli Kite:



The sear bar is the funny arched bit. It has a hook (the actual "sear") on the right end that holds the release lever (the vertical piece) for the firing plunger. The sear bar rotates around the rounded silver pin in the middle. When the trigger is pulled, a screw on the back end of the trigger rotates upward, and presses up on the left end of the sear bar. The sear bar rotates clockwise, unhooking the release lever. The amount of overlap between the sear hook and the release lever sets the "sear engagement". The Kite is designed (like most air pistols) to have a "breaking" trigger, with (as you can see) a really small amount of overlap, so only a tiny movement fires the shot once the trigger makes contact with the sear bar. However, for safety, SOME overlap is required so the pistol won't fire when bumped, or even from the jar of closing the action.

The reason I have this picture is that over time, the sear surfaces wear, and this particular pistol would occasionally fire when the action was closed. A tiny adjustment on Screw G increased the sear engagement so that it was once again reliable & safe, but still had a crisp break to the trigger.

To get a rolling trigger release, you (in theory) can increase the sear engagement so there is a significant amount of overlap that has to be overcome before the pistol fires. To make this smooth, both the sear and the release lever surfaces must be carefully polished and lubricated so they slide without any perceptible hiccups or roughness. The mating angles also have to be just right. It's hard to get this to work well, because the difference between the static friction between the parts at rest, and the sliding friction once they start moving, has to be kept small. Otherwise as soon as the the sear starts moving, it is easy for it to slide abruptly all the way past the firing point. Another advantage of the rolling release trigger is that it is inherently much safer, due to the large sear overlap involved.

The sort of sear geometry required for a rolling trigger release is done all the time in many .22's, but I've never encountered an air pistol that is set up that way. It may be that the lower forces involved in an air pistol trigger make it especially tricky to get that to work just right. With an electronic trigger, in theory, you should be able to design it to operate with a rolling release more easily. I have a Morini 162EI, which is normally set up for a breaking trigger. I've seen posts that there are adjustments & possibly spring changes that can make it into a bit more of a rolling trigger, but my recollection is that the amount of "roll" you can get is somewhat limited.

[therider]

GWhite, thanks for your nice description. Why would one look for a rolling trigger? I sold my Steyr Lp 10 E because there was too much movement in the second stage, which inevitably makes the pistol move in the critical movement.

[Gwhite]

The theory is that a rolling trigger allows you to keep your trigger finger in motion until the pistol fires. This reduces the problems of "chicken finger", where your finger freezes up at the beginning of the 2nd stage with a breaking trigger. If your brain starts arguing about whether or not to apply that last little bit of pressure to fire the shot, the muscles in your hand can start working against each other, and the perceived trigger pull can go through the roof. It's not just that it feels heavier, that actual force required to pull the trigger goes up because other muscles are trying to prevent it.

If you are constantly moving the trigger to the rear, it's much harder for this sort of mental lock-up to occur. As I've gotten older & wobblier, my brain sometimes refuses to let the shot off because my sights are moving around much more than they did when I was younger. Part of my brain says "squeeze", but another part is going "wait a sec, it hasn't stopped wobbling yet." I've had times it's so bad I get a sore finger from the stress of the muscles & tendons working against each other. I was at a match last night and met a retired hand surgeon who gave me some exercises to do, but it's mostly mental, and I'm slowly dealing with that.

As far as i know, all US made pistols have breaking triggers. The rolling trigger idea is much more popular/common in Europe, at least for .22's. I had a Browning Medalist .22 in the 1970's that was set up that way. Modern European .22's have enough adjustability in the trigger that you can set them up either way. My wife & daughter both shoot .22's with rolling triggers, and that is the way the factory delivers Pardini .22's. I like the theory, but I've shot with a breaking trigger for 50 years, and I have never been able to get comfortable with a rolling trigger.

Possibly because of the problems of getting a low-force mechanical rolling trigger to operate smoothly, air pistols seem to be almost universally set up for a breaking trigger. As I mentioned, with an electronic trigger, it should be possible to completely divorce the force vs distance profile from when the pistol fires. I'm just not aware of any air pistols where they have added that degree of adjustability.

[therider]

GWhite, again a very interesting description.

So, what would be the second stage movement for a trigger to be defined 'rolling'? would the force linearly increase with the displacement in such a trigger.

I have finally managed to keep chicken finger under control by literarly 'controlling' the movement of the finger with the second stage exhalation. But it only works if i do watch my hand and ignore the sights. So I check before exhaling that I am aming at the right zone, i check that sights are aligned, then watch my hand only and i start exhaling. I then turn back to the front sight in the last 1-2 seconds when my air is nearly completely out, when my finger is smoothly moving and has got 'momentum' and I focus on the hexalation controlling the movement.
I found that this works for me.

[Gwhite]

GWhite, again a very interesting description.

So, what would be the second stage movement for a trigger to be defined 'rolling'? would the force linearly increase with the displacement in such a trigger.

Yes. At least in the typical trigger mechanism, as the trigger moves, it is compressing a spring somewhere. The force increases with the travel. How quickly it rises depends on the particular trigger geometry (leverage & such) & how stiff the spring is.

[Chia]

Just wanted to say fantastic description of the difference between the two. Thank you for taking the time to write that, Gwhite.

[Olympic Dreamer]

GWhite, again a very interesting description.

So, what would be the second stage movement for a trigger to be defined 'rolling'? would the force linearly increase with the displacement in such a trigger.

Yes. At least in the typical trigger mechanism, as the trigger moves, it is compressing a spring somewhere. The force increases with the travel. How quickly it rises depends on the particular trigger geometry (leverage & such) & how stiff the spring is.

Thank you so much for your fantastic description and pictures. Learnt alot. I'll try that on my LP10!

[hundert]

the information therider gave you is the best you'll find on the internet

LP10's 2nd stage is like pushing against an unmovable wall until it shoots
LP10E has a roll at the 2nd stage, Morini has a roll too. There's little difference in trigger between the 162 and the 10E, except Morini has a much more pleasant click (steyr too high pitched). You may not like the roll on the trigger... And even if you don't like it, you'd still shoot the same scores as with other guns, because all these triggers are superior to $100 bb guns. I can't shoot those cheap guns having shot match guns years now, I'm not sure how people do that.

SAM M10 has the best trigger ever, and everyone who shot it says the same, absolutely no trouble breaking the shot, the 500g feel much lighter than with all other guns. But don't buy SAM...

first stage on trigger doesn't really matter... If you like the LP10, get the LP10.

Unfortunately nobody has the K12 here, I'd love to try that.

[Gwhite]

Thank you so much for your fantastic description and pictures. Learnt alot. I'll try that on my LP10!

You are very welcome. Before you make adjustments on ANY trigger, it helps a lot to study the inner workings so you can 'see' how things interact. Fortunately, Steyr provides nice drawings that show what each screw does & how it relates to the geometry of the pieces, pivot points & springs.

The reason I decided to open up the Kite was that Benelli just provides a list of what screws adjust what ("to increase 1st stage weight, turn screw X clockwise"), but not HOW they function. They also apparently added the locking screw to the sear engagement screw after the manual was printed. Many vendors omit sear adjustments from the manual altogether because they don't want people messing with the sear, where too little engagement is a safety hazard.

If you look in the manual, Steyr tells you very clearly NOT to touch the sear engagement. The pictures show a tiny amount of engagement, consistent with a standard breaking trigger. In theory, increasing the engagement will give you more of a rolling trigger. However, it's not designed for that, so the length & smoothness of the second stage may not be what you are looking for. Any adjustments should be done in dry fire mode, preferably with the cylinder off, just to be safe. It wouldn't hurt to make a careful drawing of where the hex key points with the factory setting, and keep track of how many turns & fractions thereof you move the screw.

If you try to get a rolling trigger and it is not to your liking, you will need to try to go back to the factory setting. You can try to use the drawing and notes on turns to get back, but depending on how delicate the engagement is, that may not be adequate. The standard approach when starting from scratch is to make sure you have plenty of sear engagement so you can cock the action. If you have just tried to introduce a rolling trigger, you should be there already. SLOWLY decrease the engagement until it fires. You then want to increase the engagement by a small amount. Vendors that actually provide complete instructions will usually say to turn the screw back by something like 1/8th to 1/4 of a turn. Every pistol mechanism is a bit different, but 1/4 turn should be pretty safe with almost any design. However, if you do that on the Steyr, you may find that you now have a small (but annoying) bit of travel before the trigger breaks, and you will want to adjust that out. When you think you have it set to your liking, cock it, and take a stick or small plastic mallet, and tap the bottom front corner of the trigger guard up & back at about a 45 degree angle. If a good jolt there & in that direction doesn't trip the sear loose, it should be safe. Try cycling the action and dry fire it a dozen times and then tap it again just to be sure.

[David M]

A break like glass trigger will need 150-200g on second stage and little or no second stage travel.
it has a hard feel and release but needs the weight for minimum sear reset.
A softer roll trigger with a increased second stage travel can have the second stage weight reduced
to 50-80g, giving a softer feel but with movement and a reliable reset with greater sear overlap.

[TenMetrePeter]

A break like glass trigger will need 150-200g on second stage and little or no second stage travel.
it has a hard feel and release but needs the weight for minimum sear reset.
A softer roll trigger with a increased second stage travel can have the second stage weight reduced
to 50-80g, giving a softer feel but with movement and a reliable reset with greater sear overlap.

Too light for Olympic air pistol which must have 500g minimum. That is the problem with rolling single stage air pistol trigger - it is ALL at 500g to pass the Equipment Control test.

The FAS 604/6004 can be set up with a single stage rolling trigger but it would need to be all second stage to reach 500g. The second stage is almost always needed to pass the deadweight test.

[rmca]

TenMetrePeter

The total trigger weight is the first stage plus the second stage.

[TenMetrePeter]

TenMetrePeter

The total trigger weight is the first stage plus the second stage.

OK I assumed he meant the weight at the second stage is 120g (i.e. first plus second). I don't know how you measure just the second stage on its own but I guess it is possible.

First stage of 380 and second stage of 120, or first stage of 450 and second stage of 50 is not my sort of trigger but it is personal choice.

[sportex]

I don't know how you measure just the second stage

Indirectly - you can measure total weight and weight of the first stage.

[Gwhite]

A Lyman electronic trigger gauge is enormously helpful for this sort of thing:

https://www.amazon.com/Lyman-Electronic ... B00162QGLS

The only trick is reading the 1st stage weight just before it hits the 2nd stage. Also, the roller doesn't always stay in the notch, depending on the trigger. I keep meaning to make a new rod without the roller and a wedge to mate with the notch, but haven't gotten around to it. You could also just remove the roller. Unlike a real weight set, it will calibrate out the change in weight of the rod.

[Rune Kanstad]

Also keep in mind that 500g is the minimum. I always adjust my triggers so I have some safety margin. Some pistols are more temperature sensitive than others, for instance. The old Walther GSP was a nightmare at times in cold weather. After being disqualified once when I failed a spot check after the precision stage in a centrefire competiton I bought Loctite AND made my triggers a little bit heavier.

The few extra grams don't hurt my scores, but they give me some much needed peace of mind.

[David M]

My test for a trigger is the 20cent (11g) and 50cent (15g) test.
Airpistol 500g plus 20cents.
1000g plus 50cents and 1360g plus 70 cents.

[hundert]

I sold my Steyr Lp 10 E because there was too much movement in the second staget.

apparently you can adjust that, but removing the grip isn't enough, you need to remove the whole trigger block and apparently there's a screw there where you can shorten the 2nd stage roll to a minimum. However, I didn't feel comfortable enough removing the trigger block on a gun that costs so much.