Understanding and Working the LEM Trigger

[Jay585]

I've got a LEM/V1 trigger in my HK P30L and I've been trying to understand it.

Research turned up some thoughts from Todd Lewis Green (may he RIP) on the LEM trigger: no prestaging - treat the trigger like a DAO pull: a smooth rolling break without stopping. My summation, not his

I've got a Mantis and my "control" would be my Gen5 G19 I've had for about 5 years.



I'm not seeing much of a reason not to prestage.

Here's some even more informal tests shooting the P30L and G19 live fire:

10 rounds 7 yards this info is a redundant because I didn't track my times. I also cannot recall if I used the reset.


2nd attempt of the above targets but with 5 rounds instead recording times. My 2nd shot was a reset shot, the rest of them were full trigger presses:


P30L both targets. The right target "felt" faster I do not have a metric that shows it was actually faster:


I will continue to experiment but in the meantime I'd like to hear your thoughts on the usage of the LEM trigger, as well as more possible tests that I can do either live fire or with the MantisX.

I'm fully aware that irons to red dot is not a fair comparison, but I'm doing what I can with what I got.

[flyrodr]

If you haven't seen it, the thread started by @Dagga Boy has a wealth of info on the LEM:

https://pistol-forum.com/showthread....t-trigger-quot

[JonInWA]

In addition to the Dagga Boy superb thread, in the past few years we've had some excellent and very detailed threads diving deep into LEM. Using the Search function will easily enable you to find them, and they'll probably be useful in your LEM journey.

Best, Jon

[M2CattleCo]

Treat it like a long travel Glock trigger.

Smash through all of it.

Finger all the way off the trigger during reset.

Repeat.

[ER_STL]

Try running the gun at speed and measure your performance. Also note what you're really doing vs. what you think you're doing.

I personally cannot pre-stage a trigger under any semblance of run-and-gun pressure, and most of the faster shooters I've watched on video don't do it either; they flip and press instead. I've been through a few classes where staging was hammered home and despite all of my dry-fire reps, it's still an issue at speed for me. Since I want caveman simple choices in front of me when trying to solve the shooting problem I've been given, I've defaulted to always running the trigger like it's a DAO revolver. It's the speed at which I press that varies, depending on the difficulty of the shot.

[RevolverRob]

Treat it like a long travel Glock trigger.

Smash through all of it.

Finger all the way off the trigger during reset.

Repeat.

This.

You treat it like any other long-stroke trigger.

If you prestage you will inevitably push shots low at speed, by anticipating. If you try to ride to the reset you will inevitably get a false reset. I've done both and gotten the t-shirt.

Todd was correct, you treat it like a light DA revolver pull and run it accordingly.

[Jay585]

It was recommended to me to read Daryl Bolke's thread "Why I like the LEM as a 'street trigger'"

I read through it fairly quickly, skipping posts that weren't directly about the LEM so I may have missed something.

So the why of the LEM as I understand it: safety. No decocking to worry about and long trigger press to fire (which translates to more time to make better decisions). Better than a TDA due to it's lighter press, but similar length of pull.

I am talking in general. I will also contend that I have watched some of the toughest hard as wood pecker lips bad ass's who are very used to dealing with bad guy street level induced violence and chaos lose their situational awareness and stress/multi-tasking control after a shooting (FAR more of an issue than "during").

Source: Post #12 Dagga Boy/Daryl Bolke

What put the LEM ahead for me is the "post shooting" part of the equation. Forgetting, unable, or for whatever other reason failing to de-cock after the shooting (see the post above what can happen to John Q Public when faced with one of these events). A non de-cocked pistol is scary for AIWB. The LEM provides for both ends of the equation-before and after, same action of trigger to register and that hammer and trigger return to where they should be all by themselves.

Post #38 Dagga Boy/Daryl Bolke

As I continued to read the thread I came across something called "flip and press"

GJM explains it as:

At the risk of catching arrows for over simplifying, the cliff notes version is that after breaking the shot, rather than trying to release the trigger to reset, or just past, you "flip" your trigger forward, often hitting the inside of the trigger guard, and then quickly move your finger back, which is the "press" part.

This is what the Rogers School teaches, and is a technique associated with Robbie Leatham.

Post #73 GJM

In the same post the author says

...TLG (Todd Lewis Green, the creator or pistol-training and pistol-form) gets thru technique by only releasing the LEM trigger to slightly past reset.

GJM finishes with

Interestingly where long travel hurts my fast follow up on successive shots, I like it on an initial shot, as it helps me avoid anticipation, smashing and other imperfections that can happen with a 1911 type trigger when drawing or presenting from a transition.

Later on in the tread a Dr. No comments:

If you work the reset properly, the LEM will shoot like a single action on the second shot at a much lighter weight and shorter travel than the DAK.

Post # 45 Dr. No

Continuing the thread I found something that confirms (short of) my original statement saying that the "flip and press" felt faster than using the reset

I'll start by saying the LEM trigger is very responsive.The light travel of the trigger after the first shot means you get to reset almost instantly .It leads to a feel for the shooter of the gun being ready to fire before they are.With the LEM,it encourages you to shoot it faster.

Post # 124 GardoneVT

"The light travel of the trigger after the first shot means you get to reset almost instantly". Is this referencing a pin + reset technique of the flip and press? As far as I know there's no reset if you've released the trigger so I presume he must be talking about a pin/reset technique.

In summation it seems that everyone advocates a TDA type press for the first shot (a steady press without stopping or slowing down) with successive shots using flip and press or using the reset. I suppose it's up to me to experiment and see what works best for me

[Jay585]

Treat it like a long travel Glock trigger.

Smash through all of it.

Finger all the way off the trigger during reset.

Repeat.

Try running the gun at speed and measure your performance. Also note what you're really doing vs. what you think you're doing.

I personally cannot pre-stage a trigger under any semblance of run-and-gun pressure, and most of the faster shooters I've watched on video don't do it either; they flip and press instead. I've been through a few classes where staging was hammered home and despite all of my dry-fire reps, it's still an issue at speed for me. Since I want caveman simple choices in front of me when trying to solve the shooting problem I've been given, I've defaulted to always running the trigger like it's a DAO revolver. It's the speed at which I press that varies, depending on the difficulty of the shot.

This.

You treat it like any other long-stroke trigger.

If you prestage you will inevitably push shots low at speed, by anticipating. If you try to ride to the reset you will inevitably get a false reset. I've done both and gotten the t-shirt.

Todd was correct, you treat it like a light DA revolver pull and run it accordingly.

It induces a wince to hear that I've been shooting inefficiently all my life. I've always prestaged and reset when shooting a semi-auto (except when using a DAO).

[RevolverRob]

It induces a wince to hear that I've been shooting inefficiently all my life. I've always prestaged and reset when shooting a semi-auto (except when using a DAO).

I'm speaking specifically about LEM triggers.

If you haven't gotten a false reset on an LEM trigger yet, you aren't going fast enough. If you think pre-staging is working, you aren't going fast enough yet. If you think pre-staging is working you aren't going fast enough at a far enough distance yet.

The wheels fall off of most LEM shooters somewhere around .25 splits and 25-yard hard accuracy standards.

ETA: Lest folks get confused. I am not "anti-staging", particularly for longer, braced, shots without a hard time limit. When I shoot long distance revolver shots I will often stage the trigger. Particularly small guns (J-frames) at 25+. Staging and riding the reset on LEM/DAO at speed, however, is often a recipe for false resets and low shots due to anticipation. False resets on an LEM suck extra hard, because when you get a dead trigger, then let it all the way out, you get one of the heaviest and worst DA pulls out there.

[gomerpyle]

Just be mindful that the late TLG was using a V4 or V4.1 LEM trigger, not the V1 that you are using. TLG did describe the V1 LEM as a two stage trigger, which I can attest to - I once owned a P30L with a V1 LEM that shot lights out when taking your time - the first time I shot it I was able to get a nice tight group at 25yds while prepping the trigger (in fact I had unwittingly met a fellow PF member while he was shooting his 1911). But the long, super soft pretravel and the tepid and LONG reset (long in perception of time, not necessarily in distance of travel) proved its undoing for me. I suspect others can make it work (though I am skeptical, easier to simply convert to a V4 or V4.1) but the training involved might not make the effort worth the squeeze.

The V4 LEM trigger feels like more of a true DA pull that you can roll through like any other DA pull. What's more, the stronger reset (vis a vis LEM V1) allows for more quick follow-up shots.

Also, a relevant link: https://pistol-training.com/articles/hk-lem-vs-sig-dak/

I've got a LEM/V1 trigger in my HK P30L and I've been trying to understand it.

Research turned up some thoughts from Todd Lewis Green (may he RIP) on the LEM trigger: no prestaging - treat the trigger like a DAO pull: a smooth rolling break without stopping. My summation, not his

I've got a Mantis and my "control" would be my Gen5 G19 I've had for about 5 years.



I'm not seeing much of a reason not to prestage.

Here's some even more informal tests shooting the P30L and G19 live fire:

10 rounds 7 yards this info is a redundant because I didn't track my times. I also cannot recall if I used the reset.


2nd attempt of the above targets but with 5 rounds instead recording times. My 2nd shot was a reset shot, the rest of them were full trigger presses:


P30L both targets. The right target "felt" faster I do not have a metric that shows it was actually faster:


I will continue to experiment but in the meantime I'd like to hear your thoughts on the usage of the LEM trigger, as well as more possible tests that I can do either live fire or with the MantisX.

I'm fully aware that irons to red dot is not a fair comparison, but I'm doing what I can with what I got.