Follow up to trigger work

[agalindo]

Originally Posted by TweakRacer

Agalindo and Mike+P+,

Thanks for the prompt and expert advice. Much appreciated!

Hmmmm... let's see:

1) Lever-to-Sear Bonding:

Agalindo - Yeah, I read that thread; still couldn't find a better way to shorten reset with that little tab on the safety lever. However, I did not mean to glue the lever to the trigger bar (they need to be able to move independantly). I'm thinking the lever to the sear.
The reason why the factory made those pieces separately is just so that when the slide trips the "bump" on the trigger bar, the sear pops back up, and the lever pops down (note, that the lever will travel more to the 'all-the-way-down' position, which is the cause of the long factor reset).
However, if using the spring/screw-head method to keep the lever from going to that 'all-the-way-down' position, then you'll see that the lever and the sear move together, always. Let me see if I can explain. If you pull the trigger, then while using a little pressure to hold/lift the lever, bump the trigger bar down (as the slide would have done), then you'll see that the lever and sear move together (even if you pull the trigger again now).
Compare this to if you don't hold/lift the lever, where the momentem of the lever snapping down is what seperates it from the sear and makes it continue to the 'all-the-way-down' position.
I was also thinking that as the slide moves back after firing the long central block in the slide would push down on the sear, and in the stock configuration, would not move the lever. However, even if the lever/sear are bonded together I can't see how the lever would intefere with anything else in the slide from that point on.
Rich

I'll have to take my XD apart and look at the parts it's been awhile since I've looked at those parts. I can't quite remember how the saftey lever and the sear interact.

[TweakRacer]

Hey guys,

Thanks for all the help, especially to Agalindo and Mike+P+!

I've finally finished everything, I did it Agalindo's way. Made the spring out of a ball-point pen spring (even made a spare). Then used two plastic blocks glued to the inside of the frame to limit pre/post-travel; I went so far with the limiters that my trigger safety is always 'in' now (but I don't mind). Also kind of tweaked the trigger return spring a little (not sure if compressing it really did anything, but I tried). I also shaved the top of the safety lever, so now it doesn't snag so much when putting the slide back on. Lastly, I ground the front of the trigger bar 'hump' back a little, because with my pre-travel limiter in, the hump barely touched the curve in the slide (with made reset not 100% reliable).

One thing I noticed after the mods:
Now I can field-strip/reassemble with an empty mag in the gun; and can sort-of reassemble with loaded mag. But I never strip the gun down with a mag in place anyways, so should be fine.

After everything, I think that if I were to do another XD, I would just grind down the tip of the safety lever (flush with the rear plastic frame rails), rather than grind any of the parts in the slide. Then I'd just glue the lever to the sear.

Let me know if anyone has questions or needs pictures.

Best regards,
Rich

[Boricua]

Did you deactivate a safety?

If you did not a good idea especially if it is a carry gun. But even if it is a range gun you never know when something bad might happen.

I was able to do all the work on mine without deactivating any of my safetys and the trigger is very tight. It is 3000% a better shooter now so to me it was worth all the time. Just be careful when you do this kind of work on any pistol.

[Frenchy]

TweakRacer,

I'm concerned as to how much you may have affected your warrantee…? There seems to be a lot of changes to the stock geometry.

[agalindo]

Deactivating the saftey is not a good idea. The trigger work can be done without affecting any of the saftey features the gun has.

[pat3332]

I've been following this with a lot of interest because I'm a DIYer, love to tinker and have completely torn down my XD's several times cleaning, polishing and smoothing things out. I've considered trying my own trigger work, but I've been thinking along the same lines as Frenchy and decided to throw a few cautions out.

1. Doing this kind of work voids your waranty and having SA fix it will probably be about as expensive as buying a new gun.

2. Making a mistake or miscalculation on trigger work can cause the gun to discharge unexpectedly.

3. #2 can lead to real big liability problems. I'm sure SA and probably Rich have liability insurance to cover problems of this type, but I don't.

I have one of Canyon Creeks trigger jobs and he guarantees his work because it does affect SA's warranty and he's a professional and knows what he's doing, not just experimenting. From what I've seen it looks like most of you are doing a pretty good job and I'm not attacking you in any way.

Just want to make sure you've considered the consequences.

[TweakRacer]

Hey guys,

Thanks for the concern and constructive criticism.

About the trigger safety:
-This is my steel/range shooting gun, not my carry gun (it's really hard to get a CCW permit in CA anyways).
-I have limited the pre-travel as much as I could without starting to move the sear; so yes, I could trim the limiter down to where the trigger safety works, but then the pre-travel would be much longer. Right now, I have what feels like a single-stage trigger, and I like it for now.
-The grip and firing-pin block safeties are in place. So, I'd still need a proper grip on the gun; and, the gun will not discharge unless the trigger is pulled (since the firing-pin block safety will block the firing-pin of the gun is dropped hard).
-I have always thought of trigger safeties as kind of redundant, since it is extremely rare/difficult to be pulling on the trigger and intending to fire, without deactivatin the trigger safety anyways. If I am pulling the trigger, the gun will fire, as it should. The only benefit of the trigger safety is if the gun is dropped so ridiculously hard, that the momentum from the weight of the trigger keeps traveling that it overcomes the trigger return spring and the sear spring, that it would stop the gun from discharging; AND, that's if it is dropped ridiculously hard onto/disengaging the grip safety.

As for the warranty:
-It seems, from other forum member's posts, that SA will honor its warranty against damage for non-modification-related parts, and those not related to parts that have been modified. Like if my extractor claw broke, which itself is not modified, and is not related to my mods, then it is okay. Also, if I were to need replacement of say the safety lever, which if modified; I'd have to pay for the part through SA (since SA won't sell us the part directly), but maybe not the labor(?).

Hopefully my observations are correct, let me know what you guys think.

Best regards,
Rich

[Loves2Shoot]

Talk about making something really simple really complicated...

Be safe.

[tripper]

So I messed up my carry piece xd9sc. I glued the trigger saftey to the trigger. Now what do I do. How do I get the glue off?

[tripper]

the gun works fine I'm a little concerned about legal issues. I know I did not think this through.but its done.