Trigger Characteristics

[BarryinIN]

I hear people describe a trigger pull as having this or doing that, then hear the same gun's trigger described another way by someone else. I don't think everybody is speaking the same language. I didn't know what was called what for a long time.

Take-up or Pre-travel is the free movement before it engages anything.

Creep is the movement from the point the sear is being moved until the sear releases.

I hear creep and pre-travel interchanged a lot, although it's not correct.

Let-off is when the sear releases the hammer or striker, for the gun to fire.

Overtravel or Backlash is trigger movement rearward after the sear Let-off.

Reset is the return movement to the point the trigger resets for the next shot. That point and no further.

Pull weight is the maximum weight required to move the trigger. This could occur at any point between take-up and let-off.

Slap or kickback is when the trigger gets nudged forward after let-off. Some AKs and Macs are bad about this one. Sometimes the term "backlash" gets used here, and it does describe it well, but in older books backlash is used interchangeably with overtravel so I think that is probably correct.