Full disclosure on the Timney Alpha Glock17 trigger is that we paid our own money for this trigger, we have absolutely no affiliation with Timney whatsoever, they don't know we're doing this video, they don't know who we are.
Getting into the Timney Alpha competition trigger for the Glock 17 to Gen 3/4, well, that is specifically exactly what it is, this is a competition, precision, speed-focused trigger for your Glock 17 Gen 3/4, and then I believe they also make a Gen 5 model as well.
When this came out, several months ago, this is a fairly exciting upgrade for a lot of people, as Glock triggers are not bad by any means and for their intended purpose of a duty or carry gun, ultimate reliability, safety, that sort of thing. They work quite well, 6 ½ -7-pound pull or so, they're fairly decent triggers, they have a hard wall, a little bit of mushy break, short reset, that sort of thing. So overall, as far as stock triggers go, they're squarely in the fine category and very acceptable for their intended use case and the biggest complaint that people are gonna have with them is that they're mushy, they're a little too heavy, and they can't shoot well with them, which is most of the time generally a user error.
The Alpha competition trigger seeks to redefine how the trigger breaks, although it is still a very Glock-esque trigger, it doesn't really change the dynamics of the gun all that much. We'll get into all of that a little bit later on. It does use a very interesting, a very novel mechanism to adjust how the trigger breaks, but it is still a Glock-esque trigger that pulls at about 3 pounds, so we'll go ahead and get into just how the trigger performs in general.
Keep in mind that these are recommended to work on stock Glocks, this is not a stock Glock, most of the internals are stock, but there were some finagling that I had to do to get this gun to work. The trigger itself, you can adjust the pre-travel or the take-up, if you will you can basically completely remove it. I tend to not do that because if you take out too much of the pre-travel, then the included trigger safety, the trigger blade safety, will no longer properly function, so I leave it all there, It doesn't really bug me to take it up and it allows me to kind of give me a little bit of time before I hit that wall.
You have a normal amount of Glock take-up, you can adjust that all the way out if you so desired, you hit a wall that is pretty soft. It's defined, but we're only talking about a 3-pound wall, so you hit the wall and there's a little bit of a rolling break, a little bit of creep, if you will, and then it breaks only at about 3 pounds, so if you're pulling it quickly, you will never notice the creep or the bit of mush, and has a very short soft reset, you have that take-up kind of like a standard Glock take-up, at least as I have it adjusted currently. You have a pretty decent wall, and then, you have like a rolling 3-pound brake, maybe one, two, three millimeters of plate, which is not too bad. The reset itself is pretty short, it's very soft though, it's a soft reset.
Overall, that 3-pound break is what you're going to be buying the trigger for. It does not change it into a 1911, it does not change it into like a really nice AR trigger or something like that, where it has like a glass rod snapping, it's just super crisp and well-defined, it is still fairly Glock-ish, just at about 3 pounds, it's not overly mushy, it is crisp enough, but it's at 3 pounds, so if you're going slow enough to notice it, it might be a little bit mushy, but if you're trying to run it quickly, you won't notice any of that mush, but you will notice that it does break very quickly.
This is recommended to be installed on a stock Glock 17, this is not a stock Glock 17, this one here has a ported barrel on it, which we are having some accuracy issues with, which we'll probably talk about at a later point in time; however, on this specific Glock, it does have an aftermarket connector, I did try this Timney Alpha trigger with a bunch of different connectors, I did have to finagle with it a little bit, adjust the lift a little bit to get it to function properly, but it still pulls very lightly and has an okay reset. The way that they achieve the reset on this trigger because they actually have a secondary trigger spring, if you will, that kind of opens up and forces that trigger shoe to go back forward.
What's included in the kit is going to be trigger shoe safety bar, and the rear insert, which kind of drops into your standard rear trigger shoe, so while Timney has definitely adjusted how the trigger actually functions internally, in some fairly novel ways the end result is still a very Glock-feeling trigger, if you will, but at a 3-pound pull instead of a 7-pound pull.
While this trigger is installed, I don't really think I'm going to be carrying this gun, this is a gun that I do carry at times, but with this Timney competition trigger I don't think I'm going to be. The trigger break is just very light at about 3 pounds, so for like concealed carry, if you did need to draw it in a hurry, high-stress situation, you might break around earlier, when you didn't mean to. It is something to adjust if you're used to heavier, more duty or concealed-carry style triggers, and then you go to something like this, you pull it up and you think you're on the wall, and then you pull right through it because that wall is only about 3 pounds.
One very interesting characteristic about this trigger, and that was a bit of a problem for me, is that the way that the trigger resets spring, I guess you could call it interacts with the trigger, is that the trigger is currently hot. We are clear, of course, so pull to the wall breakthrough, the trigger automatically resets to the forward position, unlike a stock Glock, It will only do that if the sear is cocked basically. With this one here it is always in the forward position.
They include two different trigger-reset springs, one for a standard connector, which I'm not using, I'm using the red one, which is for aftermarket connectors because this does have an aftermarket connector on it, which is a little bit higher tension, a little bit stronger of a spring, to kind of force that reset a little bit more.
Timney wants this trigger to be as light as possible, so they went a little bit too soft with that trigger return, spring or trigger reset-spring, basically on the trigger shoe itself, so for me, I actually had to go in there and tweak it a little bit, kind of open it up a little bit to get a little bit more force on it, so that it would consistently reset the trigger every time. Basically, what I was getting when I was initially playing around with it, is you would go, pull the trigger, break, and then, that trigger reset spring would not be strong enough to push the trigger all the way forward, and which would mean the gun was basically dead at that point, and he'd take it apart, so on and so forth, and that was after playing with the connector as well, adjusting the lift to get it just perfect, so where it was not dragging at all, and still that very, very anemic trigger reset-spring, even the stronger of the two of them, was just not quite enough.
I didn't quite get a full reset on one of those. I was waiting for it because that trigger return spring is so weak!
As long as you can see it, currently, perfectly fine, so you can pull without resetting the gun, and it will automatically reset itself, very nice.The reason Timney went very, very weak on those springs is because they're putting tension on the trigger, so by definition, you need to defeat that to get the gun to go, so if you make that spring a little bit stronger, you're going to increase the pull weight.
For me, this still feels like nothing, it feels incredibly light, it feels better than just about, or I shouldn't say necessarily better, but it definitely feels lighter than 99% of other striker-fire guns that I've fired, In fact, I don't know if there is a lighter striker-fire trigger that I fired, it is a very, very lightweight trigger. With that super light, overall trigger weight, and the fairly decent break, fairly crisp break, it's not perfect by any means, but it's fairly decent, especially for a Glock.
Accuracy should be very good. If you're having trouble with accuracy, it's either a mechanical problem, like the barrel in this case, the portable barrel is causing me some odd accuracy issues, which we'll probably get into it some other point in time, or it's just you because the trigger pull, it does do what it's supposed to do, lightens up the trigger from on a stock lock from 5 ½ to 7 pounds, all the way down to about 3, retaining a lot of the dynamics, still has a wall, it's just very light. It still has some creep, some mush, and then, a total break of 3–3 ½ pounds, very, very respectable, and certainly something that will allow you to shoot accurately and quickly.
Personally, when it comes to just raw speed and split times, most the time, for me personally, reset matters a little bit more than overall trigger weight because my finger is strong enough to pull a 5-6-7-8-9-10 pound trigger, so on and so forth, but having that reset nice and forced, so it's just kind of automatic almost, you just let off a little bit of pressure on your finger, and then, it's right back to the wall again. That's going to help you go quickly, so while this trigger versus like a stock Glock trigger in terms of split times, maybe I'm from a 0.16 to a 0.15, maybe there's that big of a difference in terms of like the average split times. I was still able to run the trigger very quickly, but I'm also able to run other triggers very quickly.
The lightweight certainly does help in certain regards, but the weak and anemic reset kind of hurts you in some other regards, so it is definitely not a perfect trigger. If you're looking, if you're trying to buy just straight up upgrade for your Glock 17 to take you from a 70 to an 85, this really isn't going to do that, this is definitely going to improve some aspects. If you're having some issues keeping, maintaining a level of accuracy with a stock Glock trigger, this might make it a little bit easier for you, but this isn't just a perfect upgrade.
Being that this is a competition focus trigger, there is definitely a market for it, and definitely value for some people out there, some people are going to get a lot of benefit from using a trigger like this in certain applications, specifically competition, with a Glock. There are definitely better guns than Glock for competition, but if you're using a Glock and don't want to spend 2, 000 dollars on a race gun, but you want a little bit better trigger, 150 bucks, it's not the worst way to go, and it will improve some aspects of the trigger while harming it in others. There's definitely a market for the trigger, it's definitely good, there's a lot of people who really like the trigger.
If you're planning on the ultimate carry trigger, this is probably not it, just because of that overall, a little bit too light of a wall. In my personal opinion, if you're somebody who trains with it extensively, and you are very comfortable with that wall under high-stress situations, then by all means go for it, It is a very good trigger, you can have a very light, very crisp break for a Glock trigger.
For a 150 bucks I think that there is a market for it, it is definitely not for everyone. If you're planning on using your gun in a more serious role, I would probably look past it, and because it's a Glock trigger and most Glocks are kind of designed for a more serious role. It's a little odd in that regard, but there's also everybody has a Glock and everybody does everything to them. This is another option out there.The trigger is good, it's not perfect, it's not for everybody, but it is still another option you can consider for certain applications.
