Gear Review: Apex Tactical Duty/Carry Trigger kit

\”Are YOU Ready?\”

Some of you may remember a couple months back I reviewed my new Smith & Wesson M&P40C. I have since fallen madly in love with it (Sorry to my SIGs and S&W revolvers.), and the gun goes with me everywhere I go, either as a concealed carry piece in an Armordillo Concealment kydex holster, or stowed in a dedicated pocket in my Get-home bag. I’ve got about 500 rounds through it, with nary a hiccup. It’s a damn good gun, and Mr. Gaston Glock should be worried.

But why isn’t it a great gun? The trigger. Universally people complain about the M&P trigger system. It’s stagey and gritty out of the box, and while it’s completely serviceable, people (such as myself) used to shooting 1911s, revolvers, or anything with a good trigger will find themselves anticipating trigger let-off and nose-diving the rounds low on the target. I found myself doing this frequently, especially during rapid fire: rounds fell about 6-8″ low of point of aim.

So I asked around, read the forums, probed the minds, and one word kept coming up: APEX. So I saved the funds, and soon enough, an APEX tactical Duty/Carry Action Enhancement Kit (DCAEK) was legging its way to me. It wasn’t cheap ($92 through Brownells) but I had confidence through overwhelming positive reviews that it’d cure what ailed my little gun.

APEX offers two kits for the M&P: Duty/Carry and Competition. I chose the Duty/Carry kit over the Competition kit because of the trigger pull weight. The DCAEK reported trigger pull weights of 5-5 1/2 pounds, the Competition kit was around 4. Where this is a carry gun, with no external safeties, I opted for the heavier pull, for safety’s (and liability’s) sake. If this was to be a dedicated IDPA or match gun, I would have gone for the lighter Competition kit.

APEX DCAEK, image from www.brownells.com

The kit came in about four days later, and I was pleased to see that all of the parts were of extremely high quality. The sear and striker block were beautifully machined and hardened. It also came with a small slave pin for reassembly (a godsend, I found when re-assembling the pistol) and a small, flat tool used for keeping a spring-loaded part captured. The kit did not have instructions, but instead pointed me to a YouTube video that showed one of their instructors actually doing the kit install, and he talked you through it, step-by-step. The only tools needed were a ball-peen hammer, a bench-mounted vise with non-marring jaws, a 1/8″ roll-pin punch, and a brass drift for pushing the rear sight out (The striker block comes out from a machined hole under the rear sight). A bit of patience was required too, but the job wasn’t terribly hard. If you’ve never worked on guns before, I would definitely recommend installation by a competent gunsmith.

The final results were astounding. Where before, I had a gritty, choppy trigger pull probably at about 5 pounds of pressure, the APEX kit delivered a butter-smooth pull. The pull was actually slightly heavier at around 5 1/2 pounds, but you don’t notice it at all due to how smooth it is. I was actually giggling as I sat at my kitchen table after re-assembly, dry-firing it with awe and sheer pleasure, so much so that my wife looked over at me and said, “Should I be worried?” This kit, folks, is that good, and WELL worth the money spent.

How’s it shoot?

The main black portion of the target is the product of one magazine’s worth of drawing and double taps (draw from holster, then two rounds in about 3 seconds’ time.). The upper left-hand group is one magazine’s worth, deliberately aiming using the circle above it as the aiming point. Distance was about 15 yards. You’ll also notice I got the gun grip frame stippled, another worth-while modification if you anticipate using the gun with sweaty, wet, or greasy hands.

This gun is now a GREAT gun, with the help of APEX Tactical. For those interested, APEX also offers products for many other guns: S&W revolvers, SIG autos, 1911s, AR-15s, Glocks,  etc., as well as gunsmithing services. However, their bread-and-butter is the polymer Smith & Wesson autos, the M&P, Shield, and Sigma lines. If you have one of these pistols, I can’t recommend their products enough.

That’s it for today! Stay safe!

-TRW