Get a lighter hammer spring. They makeum

 

Buy a USP DA/SA and carry cocked and locked . Get about a 4.5 lb trigger pull. Another option is to train to master the trigger in DA . 😎👍

 

I ordered a new P8A1 from Midway and picked it up Tuesday. Checked it over and the DA trigger felt really heavy. So, I got out the ol’ trigger gauge and measured it at 12 pounds! I had never felt a trigger that heavy before. I think this is going to be a problem when get to the range.

What can I do about this?
View attachment 488457

Take it to the range .

 

I've shot and owned some new and surplus NYPD S&W DAO revolvers and Glocks with the 10,000lb trigger pull (ok, a slight exaggeration) You can learn a heavy DA pull after a large amount of dry fire and live fire. In your case, Id take the advice of hitting the range, putting some rounds into a small group and test the trigger after a few trips to shoot.

 

I was just going to say welcome to NYPD triggers circa 1987!
(And Glock Model 19 'NYPD trigger' [orange] circa 1995)

 

Learn your gun’s trigger and become proficient with it.

With that being said, I never shoot in DA, but like having the ability to do so should I need/want to.

 

Honestly, it’s not that much of a hindrance. Go to the range and practice. I carried a DA/SA P229 with a 13 pound DA/ 4 pound SA for years on duty. They just take practice. Best of luck to you and love the P8A1 💪 that pistol will put in some work.

 

What can I do about this?

Like the gentlemen above me already stated: Train with the gun.

Out of a 15 round mag I use the decocker at least 13-14 times because it's more prudent to train that first DA shot than the following SA shots.

 

I tested a USC trigger and over the limit on that trigger guage.

 

What can I do about this?

Get a set of lighter hammer springs, as mentioned above, and test your gun with progressively lighter springs for reliability of ignition. Settle on something that ignites your ammo without causing atrocious pull weight. In my time I even sourced ammo with harder primers for that.
Or you can make an experiment and see if suffering through that pull will make you a better shooter, as many suggested above. There's a very low chance that it will but maybe that low chance will be yours.

Out of a 15 round mag I use the decocker at least 13-14 times because it's more prudent to train that first DA shot than the following SA shots.

This is not a good practice, born out of a concern for that first DA shot, that is cautioned against by people who are pretty good with TDA guns. They also caution against pulling through DA on each and every shot in dry fire.

 

This is not a good practice

And the reason for this not being a good practice is?

 

You're building a 12 lbs or whatever tension in your trigger finger with corresponding sympathetic tension in the rest of your fingers and hand. That finger tension for duty TDA guns is, arbitrarily, three times excessive than what's needed for the second and the rest of them rounds. Tension creates a specific amount of input on the gun. Practicing DA shot preferrentially, whether live or dry, habituates you to the levels of tension that is OK for DA but is excessive for SA and people end up throwing the second or subsequent shots low/left or low/right, depending on their handedness. This is a very common finding in competition shooters who dry fire their guns a lot pulling through DA on each and every dry shot and cant figure out why their SA shots land low/lateral.
You can't and you really shouldn't modulate your grip between the shots so when you practice live, you want to fire at least two in a true DA/SA sequence to train not to overgrip, which is what the DA shot promotes, for the second shot.

 

There was a NY State Police one that’s like a Plus version meaning more pounds!

 

This is a very common finding in competition shooters who dry fire their guns a lot pulling through DA on each and every dry shot and cant figure out why their SA shots land low/lateral.

Well, I'm not talking about gaming but serious gun use.

When you have liability and responsibility for your shots fired and your first shot is the most important (and preferably the only shot taken), all these considerations are null.

And it's way easier to train to handle the SA trigger pull than to handle the DA trigger pull, thus the priorization to train the latter. Usually duty gun users have limited budget and time allocated to training (compared to competitive shooters, expecially those that at least partly live off of it and get sponsored, and those that make money by training others). Thus the priorities might be aimed at different parts of the skillset.

And yes, of course you have to train the secondary SA trigger pull at some point, too. But this thread is about his complains of the DA trigger pull.

that is cautioned against by people who are pretty good with TDA guns.

And by that you mean competitive shooters, which is a completely different world than duty pistol users (which the P8A1 happens to be).

You can't and you really shouldn't modulate your grip between the shots so when you practice live, you want to fire at least two in a true DA/SA sequence to train not to overgrip, which is what the DA shot promotes, for the second shot.

YMMV, but in my world and in my experience, it doesn't.

But best way would be to NOT use a DA/SA gun to begin with, which is why the majority of current duty pistols are striker fired with constant trigger pull. Even the Bundeswehr with their P8A1 figured that out and will replace it with a striker fired CZ P13 in the near future.

 

You may have missed it: I was not talking about competitive vs duty shootings but the pitfalls of training up on a DA/SA gun. You asked why dedicating over 80% of live fire to the DA shot was a wrong idea, I explained.

 

OP:
What can you do? If you want a USP for a shooter, sell the P8A1 to a collector that wants it and get a modern USP with an OEM Match Trigger…unless you are the first person I am aware of who just loves the P8A1’s P38 like safety arrangement that pretty much only the Germans and Italians did in modern times but are now moving away from too?
Curious as to why you thought the P8A1 was a better choice if you wanted a shooter? To many, myself included, it’s a great gun for a collection, but that safety arrangement would be more of an issue for me than the 12# da. Plus the updates in the design that the P8A1 missed being a contract gun would make any modern USP a better choice for a shooter, but it will probably hit hold its value long term like the P8A1 if that matters. Of course using your P8A1 as a shooter will probably nullify the depreciation argument as so many of these in the states will not make it to the range.

 

Ditch that thing and get something with a lighter trigger. If it were the only gun in the world and you didn’t have that option then sure, train with it. But there’s no reason for that and it’s just stubborn.