Palmer's Pursuit Shop

What do you think?
Add your comments in WARPIG's TECH TALK FORUMS.

Palmer Stop
by Bill Mills

In the early days of paintball, most paintguns were built with thin triggers, made of stamped or cut metal.  The end product wasn't that comfortable.  An early product to combat this was the trigger shoe.  Trigger shoes put a wide, comfortable face on a narrow and sometimes rough edged trigger.  While most paintguns today are built with wider triggers, some, like the Worr Games Products Autococker still use a flat trigger plate, and include a trigger shoe as a stock component.

Some of the most commonly requested work for airsmiths is performing trigger jobs.  That is, fine tuning a paintgun to reduce the weight and length of it's trigger pull.  Usually this entails polishing of parts, changing springs, and adding limit screws.  Limit screws are now stock on some high end paintguns like the Angel and Matrix.  Their purpose is to allow the trigger start and stop points to be precisely adjusted.  For other paintguns, they must be added.

Installing set screws to adjust a trigger isn't a quick bolt on process.  In involves full disassembly of the grip frame, drilling and tapping threads, and finally reassembling with the set screws in place.

On an Autococker, one of the adjustment points that can make the most performance difference is the stop point at the rear of the trigger pull.  By adjusting the sear lug and the 3 way timing rod, active parts of the trigger pull (firing and recocking) can be moved up close to the start point of the pull.  This will leave a longer "dead" pull.  In essence, after firing, the user will have more room to pull the trigger back without accomplishing anything more.  A stop screw allows the rearmost limit of trigger pull to be moved forward.

Palmer's Pursuit has made installing a trigger stop screw on an Autococker into a quick and painless process.  The Palmer Stop is a nickel plated trigger shoe with a trigger strop screw built into it.  Rather than putting the screw in the trigger frame as most airsmiths do, Palmer's' puts it on the shoe, extending backward so that it will hit the trigger frame.  On the end of the screw is a piece of rubber like material that acts as a bumper so the shoe won't dig into the grip frame.

Installation is easy.  The hex wrench included with the Palmer Stop is used to remove the existing trigger shoe.  The Palmer Stop goes in it's place, and two set screws on the side lock it down.  Then it is a matter of adjusting the stop point.  This should be done with air in the 'gun and a barrel sock or barrel plug in place.  Basically the trigger pull needs to be set to where the trigger will come back far enough to fully activate the 3 way valve, and not much further than that.

It can be tempting to shorten the trigger pull to the absolute minimum.  That can cause problems on the field though.  Because the timing on the Autococker depends on the person pulling the trigger, a little extra back space in the trigger pull can help ensure - especially in rapid fire conditions) that the bolt stays back long enough for a ball to drop into the breech.

In testing, I put the Palmer Stop on an Autococker built in 1994.  This 'cocker had a set screw on the bottom of the trigger plate that cleared up slop in it's top and bottom movement but didn't act as a stop screw.  In literally less than a minute the Palmer Stop was on, and made a noticeable difference in the trigger pull, making it shorter and easier to shoot faster.  It did take some testing in the field, to find the optimal setting between a trigger pull that is shorter, and one that is so short that feeding problems arise.

The Palmer Stop is available directly from Palmer's Pursuit, or from dealers that carry the Palmer line.

Copyright © 1992-2019 Corinthian Media Services.

WARPIG's webmasters can be reached through our feedback form.  All articles and images are copyrighted and may not be redistributed without the written permission of their original creators and Corinthian Media Services. The WARPIG paintball page is a collection of information and pointers to sources from around the internet and other locations. As such, Corinthian Media Services makes no claims to the trustworthiness or reliability of said information. The information contained in, and referenced by WARPIG, should not be used as a substitute for safety information from trained professionals in the paintball industry.