Pre-travel and Over-travel Adjustment Explained

Our “Victory” triggers are one of the most popular product lines we have, and they perform phenomenally. The adjustability for pre and post travel can massively cut the amount of trigger travel and it is that feature that deserves installation instructions of its own.

For a quick and easy explanation of how to install the set screws on our triggers:

1. Apply some blue thread locker to the threads and start the screws into their holes prior to installing the trigger.

1. Leave the over-travel screw installed by a few threads and work on the pre-travel screw. As the screw extends further, you will see the face of the trigger begin to rotate rearward. Stop when the face of the trigger is perpendicular to the top line of the frame. See photo above for example.

This will put you in the ballpark and you can fine-tune the trigger from here by screwing it in further and checking that you can dry-fire and that the trigger will reset.

1. Continue adjusting the pre-travel screw inward and check function by dry-firing and racking the slide after each adjustment. At some point, you will get failures to reset and the trigger will go “dead” after the trigger is pulled and the bolt/slide is racked.

1. Adjust the pre-travel screw back outward until it works reliably again, then back it off an additional quarter to half-turn. With changes in temperature outside and as the pistol begins to heat up, you can lose reliability if these screws are adjusted to the brink of function.

1. Use the same technique for the over-travel screw and everything will be ready for the range after a 24hr cure on the thread-locker.

Note: If this trigger had been installed previously or is getting a deep clean, clean the threads in the trigger and the screws with rubbing alcohol or acetone to remove grit, oil, and old loc-tite.

Nearly every case of a pistol behaving strangely after installing our trigger is because the adjustment on the pre-travel screw is off. What it comes down to is that in order to decrease pre-travel, that simple screw is doing a surprisingly complex job. The specifics will be dependent on the model so there is no one-size-fits-all here. The best way to diagnose it is with a concept-level understanding of what is going on. Having this knowledge will help you understand your pistol better and will make diagnosing issues of all kinds easier.

As always, if you have any questions pertaining to your specific “Victory” trigger or any TANDEMKROSS part, please reach out to the customer service team at customerservice@tandemkross.com or by phone at 603-369-7060.

Deep dive into the tech:

When the pre-travel is engaging, it acts like a “finger” partially pulling the trigger so let’s run through what happens when the trigger is pulled. Internally, the trigger is connected to a long bar. This bar serves the function of linking the trigger to a sear. As the bar is pulled forward, it in turn will pull the sear forward. Once the sear has cleared the notch in the hammer, the hammer is free to move forward and strike the firing pin. The trigger will not reset until you have let up on the trigger enough, so by the same token, the trigger will not reset if your pre-travel screw is in too far. If you continue to insert the screw well past being too far, the trigger will not function at all since, at rest, the pistol is behaving like the trigger is being held all the way to the rear.

You could also encounter some other behaviors with the same route cause. Take the Taurus TX22 “Victory” trigger as an example. The pistol incorporates a factory striker block safety that will activate when the trigger bar is being pulled forward. If the pre-travel is over adjusted, this block will prematurely rise and could make it difficult to remove the slide because the striker block cannot drop down and it physically blocks the slide from moving forward on the rails. Again, the action components are acting like the trigger is being pulled and it is leading to unintended consequences.

One more particular behavior that can be induced, this time in the Smith and Wesson VICTORY, is light strikes on a follow-up shot. The first shot will go off fine, but the second one will be a light strike. In this case, the sear is not allowed to move far enough back after the first shot to catch the full-cock notch on the hammer and instead is barely catching on the half-cock notch. When the trigger is pulled the hammer is released with greatly reduced force, thus a light strike.

The specifics will be dependent on the model so there is no one-size-fits-all here. Having that concept-level understanding will help you understand your pistol better, make diagnosing issues of all kinds easier, and will also help when it comes to triggers we have yet to come out with.

In technical support, more commonly I will see inadequate adjustment. On a pistol like the Ruger Mark 4 or Mark 4 22/45, to see the pretravel screw flush or recessed in the hole is not unusual at all. If over-tightening the screw is adding too much tension, then an under-adjustment is leaving too much slack in the system. Typically this will be seen as a dead trigger. When the trigger is pulled forward, there is still too much slack on the connector bar to allow for the connector bar to fully pull the sear out of engagement. If there is too much slack, the trigger connector bar can also angle upwards and could rub the underside of the bolt or slide.

As always, if you have any questions pertaining to your specific “Victory” trigger or any TANDEMKROSS part, please reach out to the customer service team at customerservice@tandemkross.com or by phone at 603-369-7060.