Field stripping begins the trigger switch program. The Guardian Duty/Carry Kit is nicely packaged.

My piece on the glocktriggers.com Vogel Competition Trigger Kit appeared in our companion service, Shooting Wire on June 22, 2012. The Vogel Kit was placed in a friend's Glock 34. Jeff Wilson sent along the Guardian Kit, a street-ready Glock trigger kit - one that's recommended by combat shooting authority Ken Hackathorn. The gun that received the Guardian Trigger Kit sure needed it. I've never gotten a new Glock pistol - not the dozen or so for T&E over the years or the 150 our agency purchased nor Glocks I've come in contact with at the ranges over the years - that really needed a trigger job. None of them were target-grade triggers in the tradition of bull's-eye competition or PPC or even the street-grade combat revolver triggers of my day - but they were all easily manageable. The Generation 4 Glock 19 I recently got came with a gritty 7+ pound trigger - I was surprised. A quick field-stripping showed there was plenty of lube on the gun - by plenty, I mean more than armorers are taught to put on and in places we normally don't lubricate. That said, there wasn't the grunge between connector and trigger bar that is the usual bane of Glock triggers. I'd fired the gun a little and the performance more than made up for the trigger pull. It's one of the more accurate Glock 9mm pistols I've ever fired - gilt-edged accuracy in the Glock line usually occurring for some reason more in their .45 caliber guns, including those chambered for .45 GAP. This compact service 9mm thinks it's a target pistol. With better sights and cleaning up the trigger some, it could get scary. The Guardian Kit arrived from glocktrigger.com and it was, as requested, destined for the Generation 4 guns. It's a complete trigger kit from smooth-faced trigger, along highly polished trigger bar back to the sear block with polished connector. A jewelry-grade finish adorns the striker safety plunger. It has a new spring. The kit includes a new striker spring and a pair of spring cup halves against that likelihood of loss when futzing with the striker spring. Unlike the Vogel kit, you get one choice of striker spring weight and the trigger travel is not adjustable on the Guardian unit.

Lyman Trigger Pull Gauge shows a result of one of ten pulls of the trigger - 5 pounds, one ounce - after the trigger switch.

Installation was unremarkable and trouble-free. Normally I'm all thumbs, but I'm getting used to Glock innards after eleven years of dealing with them. The Lyman Digital Trigger Pull Gauge - a handy piece of gear for gun tinkerers - displayed an average of just over five pounds on the Gen 4 Glock 19 after Guardian's installation. I have to say it's the cleanest feeling Glock trigger I've ever used. While it wasn't required, I put the normal dab of lube on the connector and trigger bar where the one slides against the other. That's protocol on any Glock pistol after cleaning - something I do infrequently. (Not that I recommend that, by the way. When I go through a detailed disassembly, inspection and cleaning, I always fire the pistol before relying on it to make sure everything is right.) Post-installation, I gave the newest Glock 19 a fifty-round orientation. My usual 10 yard "Test" was remarkable in that the size of the cluster was unusually small. It was also high and left at about 11 o'clock out of the bull. My concentration was apparently shifted to that new trigger and away from the sharp top edge of the blocky Glock "ball in bucket" sights. The five-yard "half" Test burned the top left quadrant out of the bull's eye of the NRA B-8 repair center. Seeing that I needed to reacquaint myself with the gun and it's new trigger, I shot Drill #15. This also uses the NRA B-8 and calls for ten rounds slowfire at each distance: 5 yards shooting support hand only, 10 yards shooting dominant hand only and fifteen yards shooting with both hands on the gun. At the end of the event, I found a pair of rounds leaked out at 11 o'clock. I clearly need to spend more time with this setup. Re-examining my notes from the original test of this new Glock, I find that it was tending high and left when it first arrived. I could see where spending an entire high volume shooting class with this pistol before the new trigger kit installation would be a chore. Now, with its crisp five-pound trigger I can see a class with the Guardian Glock would be a pleasure. The kit's not coming out of this gun - as I find out, the Vogel kit found a home in the Glock 34 previously tested. Jeff Wilson is conscientious and it's clear he's worked hard to improve Glock triggers without compromising reliability. He has a gun with thousands of rounds on its glocktriggers.com kit. That's my objective with this G19. He also offers a discount to police, military and firefighters. For more information, see http://www.glocktriggers.com/.