M&P 380 EZ 380 trigger pull @ 4 1/2 pounds

Using my trigger pull gauge from Brownells, my stock trigger breaks and measures at 4 1/2 pounds. It feels a bit scratchy or tight or staged although only 85 rounds have been fired thru it. The trigger feels like it could be smoother. Comments invited.

While smooth is good, an EZ is not a competition gun and I wouldn't want the trigger much lighter on a defensive gun. I'd probably just shoot the gun and see how the trigger smoothes out over time.

If something is "scratchy", you may want to polish it.
With 4 and 1/2 lb trigger pull I wouldn't recommend doing anything and as gc70 posted, just give the handgun some time.

If you want to make it smooth - take it apart, polish all moving action parts and you will see the difference.
The only disadvantage, in your case, is that you may end up with even lighter trigger pull, which is not a good thing for this firearm.

You can try simple trick to smoothen the action. Make about 500 dry fire repetitions - rack the slide, press the trigger and keep it, rack the slide, reset the trigger and press it back than release. (repeat)

jurek said:

If something is "scratchy", you may want to polish it.
With 4 and 1/2 lb trigger pull I wouldn't recommend doing anything and as gc70 posted, just give the handgun some time.............

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The hammer-sear contact surfaces actually don't offer much metal surfaces to work with; I mean, one misapplied gentle stroke and......

A four and a half pound pull out of the box for this firearm is nothing to sneeze at, I should count my blessings in view of the trigger pulls plaguing some other members here.

tjkoko said:

The hammer-sear contact surfaces actually don't offer much metal surfaces to work with;

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The trigger bar has 2 contact places that you may polish. Check the lifter if it rides freely on the pin. There is a small part sitting in the frame, just in front of "fire control unit" where trigger bar rides on it.
If you work on these parts, be sure they are mirror-like smooth.

jurek said:

The trigger bar has 2 contact places that you may polish. Check the lifter if it rides freely on the pin. There is a small part sitting in the frame, just in front of "fire control unit" where trigger bar rides on it.
If you work on these parts, be sure they are mirror-like smooth.

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You're talking about this pin and also where that other horizontal pin rides inside the "U" of the trigger bar?

And also the lever off to the right side, it disengages the trigger bar from the sear when the lever itself is depressed by rearward motion of the slide. The trigger bar is also disengaged when the thumb safety is activated or the grip safety deactivated.

OK. The first of all - are you willing to take the handgun apart? You cannot polish parts without removing trigger, trigger bar and firing control unit out from the frame.
When you look at the pictures you will see:
1. pin in firing control unit with lifter (pivoting on the pin)
2. small ledge with the spring which sits inside the frame, just below the trigger bar
3. trigger bar with red circles which show contact points you need to focus on.

If I'd do this - I'll go and polish whole trigger bar.

jurek said:

OK. The first of all - are you willing to take the handgun apart? You cannot polish parts without removing trigger, trigger bar and firing control unit out from the frame.
When you look at the pictures you will see:
1. pin in firing control unit with lifter (pivoting on the pin)
2. small ledge with the spring which sits inside the frame, just below the trigger bar
3. trigger bar with red circles which show contact points you need to focus on.

If I'd do this - I'll go and polish whole trigger bar.

Click to expand...

I've twice viewed the video you recommend. That first photo, the part appears unfamiliar but perhaps the video did not depict it from that view. I gotta' inquire, is that part like mine, from a M&P Shield EZ 380 with thumb safety?

With the hammer in the forward "unfired" position, the trigger pull feels smooth. And with the hammer and sear engaged, the pull feels scratchy. The engagement of those two surfaces lead me to believe is where the source of my issue arises.

tjkoko said:

I've twice viewed the video you recommend. That first photo, the part appears unfamiliar but perhaps the video did not depict it from that view. I gotta' inquire, is that part like mine, from a M&P Shield EZ 380 with thumb safety?

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I think you are referring to the video that was recommended by CB3. (I mistakenly linked videos to 1911)
I watched it and the part I was taking is named "disconnector" at that video.

It doesn't matter if you have or do not have thumb safety.

tjkoko said:

With the hammer in the forward "unfired" position, the trigger pull feels smooth. And with the hammer and sear engaged, the pull feels scratchy. The engagement of those two surfaces lead me to believe is where the source of my issue arises.

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I'm not quite sure if I get your explanation correctly... so take-up is smooth, then you get the wall and it becomes scratchy?




I made the screenshot from that video with the part I was talking about.

jurek said:

.......I'm not quite sure if I get your explanation correctly... so take-up is smooth, then you get the wall and it becomes scratchy?............

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Correct. The "wall" occurs when the bottom paddle on the trigger bar engages that large square surface underneath the part shown in your preceding post. That's the take-up. After which scratchiness occurs when the sear begins to slide on the hammer shelf.

I measured my 380 EZ, it was a bit inconsistent but throwing out high and low the average is 5 lbs even.
Geoff
Who notes the EZ 380 is difficult to measure because of the grip safety, just like hinged triggers on other guns and dingus triggers on Glocks-n-clones.

jurek said:

OK. The first of all - are you willing to take the handgun apart? You cannot polish parts without removing trigger, trigger bar and firing control unit out from the frame...................

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In another thread I alluded to the fact that I've done trigger work on both my 1911s and Glock 17. I should have stated it more clearly.

Skeptic 9c said:

I measured my 380 EZ, it was a bit inconsistent but throwing out high and low the average is 5 lbs even.
Geoff
Who notes the EZ 380 is difficult to measure because of the grip safety, just like hinged triggers on other guns and dingus triggers on Glocks-n-clones.

Click to expand...

As to the grip safety, many will "disable it" by wrapping a rubber band around the upper part of the grip and so it becomes a non-issue when measuring the pull.

To facilitate measuring the pull, I place a small diameter clear plastique tube around the section of the hook (of the gauge) that engages the trigger shoe. The tube also prevents the hook from scratching the firearm should the hook slip away from the shoe. Guaranteed one will never again be labeled as an idiot.

tjkoko said:

Correct. The "wall" occurs when the bottom paddle on the trigger bar engages that large square surface underneath the part shown in your preceding post. That's the take-up. After which scratchiness occurs when the sear begins to slide on the hammer shelf.

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That means you may need to take care of the bottom end part of trigger bar. But it doesn't hurt to polish whole surface of the trigger bar.
The bar is usually well made, so I wouldn't bother with sandpaper - just Flitz paste and cloth. DO NOT USE ANY DREMEL-ISH TOOLS!

The next step would be to take apart whole firing control unit and give it a good cleaning bath. I use 90% isopropyl alcohol. Then dry it off and smoothen all parts that interact during firing process. Which parts - you can easily figured it out, once you start disassemble it.
DO NOT REMOVE ANY MATERIAL. For all dark metal parts use sandpaper grit 1200 and above. Give them max 3 - 4 slides and then clean with alcohol and polish with Flitz paste.

I wouldn't expect miracles after this procedure, but definitely you won't be able to blame material's roughness anymore.

All these described above are only "fast forward" version of frequent life fire or dry fire process.
I've never seen any aftermarket parts for M&P380EZ that could make action smoother. (Like you can do for M&P regular pistols).

Good luck and let us know whenever you succeed or not.

My opinion? The grip safety is the trigger booger on this gun, after all else is fine.

My 380EZ also had a somewhat gritty and inconsistent trigger pull. When I looked at what full dis/assembly for polishing entailed, I did not want to do that. I have done partial or complete polishing jobs on a dozen styles of handguns and rifles, more than a few dozen total. All successful.

I decided to polish what I could without disassembly. This fixed about 50% of the problem. I still had an annoying “click” or sharp bump right after take up but before getting to the wall. It was the grip safety deactivation bump. I polished that heavily and reduced the click about 75%.

With the slide removed I stripped all lubrication from the fire control parts. I placed my left thumb in front of the cocked hammer. I pulled the trigger but caught the hammer, easing it forward until I could reset it by pushing it back with my thumb. This allowed me to dry fire and polish the trigger parts through cycling at about 3x the speed of doing it with slide on. I did this approximately 450x in three sessions.

My trigger pull lightened a 1/4# to 4.5#, and smoothed out to about 90%. There is still a tiny click noticeable to me from the grip safety deactivation mechanism on a slow, dry fire. In actual live firing, with a proper, quick trigger pull, it is not noticeable.

My hint? Polish by cycling instead of disassembly, using the hammer stop method for greater speed. Then lubricate mating trigger control parts with a swipe of moly grease because it stays in place. Perform 50 or so assembled dry practice firing cycles. I’ll bet you’ll be happy.

Measure your satisfaction with proper live fire trigger actuation, not slow “feel it” target pulls.

My wife has a .380 EZ with about 350-400 rounds thru it. It had a scratchy feel to the trigger when new but it has smoothed considerably and is now a quite nice trigger.

CB3 said:

..............I decided to polish what I could without disassembly. This fixed about 50% of the problem. I still had an annoying “click” or sharp bump right after take up but before getting to the wall. It was the grip safety deactivation bump. I polished that heavily and reduced the click about 75%.

With the slide removed I stripped all lubrication from the fire control parts. I placed my left thumb in front of the cocked hammer. I pulled the trigger but caught the hammer, easing it forward until I could reset it by pushing it back with my thumb. This allowed me to dry fire and polish the trigger parts through cycling at about 3x the speed of doing it with slide on. I did this approximately 450x in three sessions.

My trigger pull lightened a 1/4# to 4.5#, and smoothed out to about 90%. There is still a tiny click noticeable to me from the grip safety deactivation mechanism on a slow, dry fire. In actual live firing, with a proper, quick trigger pull, it is not noticeable.

My hint? Polish by cycling instead of disassembly, using the hammer stop method for greater speed. Then lubricate mating trigger control parts with a swipe of moly grease because it stays in place. Perform 50 or so assembled dry practice firing cycles. I’ll bet you’ll be happy.

Measure your satisfaction with proper live fire trigger actuation, not slow “feel it” target pulls.

Click to expand...

Exactly EXACTLY what I had discovered over the weekend.

In the first Full Size M&P 9mm, I found the terribly gritty trigger pull was due in large part to the geometry of surface contact between the trigger bar and the striker safety plunger (SSP). The SSP needed not just polishing, but actually enlarging and rounding the contact area with the polished trigger bar. The same problem was noticeable on two other V1 FS M&Ps I bought, as well as four Shields.

Apex resolved the problem with a properly contoured and polished SSP, so in my later purchases I just bought and installed the Apex solutions. All are now wonderful triggers. I assume S&W finally corrected their mistake in the V2 models, as most shooters say those models have much improved out of the box trigger pulls.

I bring this up as justification for the hypothesis that S&W may have screwed up the interface geometry for the EZ grip safety. My daughter’s 380EZ had the exact same problem I fixed the same way. I believe a change is necessary in the mating surfaces rather than just polishing. Will S&W do it? Or maybe I’m hyper-sensitive to bad triggers and there really is no problem. That wasn’t the case with the Full Size V1 though.

Good to know.

CB3 said:

In the first Full Size M&P 9mm, I found the terribly gritty trigger pull was due in large part to the geometry of surface contact between the trigger bar and the striker safety plunger (SSP). The SSP needed not just polishing, but actually enlarging and rounding the contact area with the polished trigger bar. The same problem was noticeable on two other V1 FS M&Ps I bought, as well as four Shields.

Apex resolved the problem with a properly contoured and polished SSP, so in my later purchases I just bought and installed the Apex solutions.............

Click to expand...

Good to know. Would you kindly post the link to the exact replacement SSP for my Shield 380 EZ with thumb safety. Please.

TIA 8)) 8))

I am not aware of any non-OEM fire control parts for the 380EZ.