Things That Don’t Suck: Apex Tactical’s Action Enhancement Trigger for the Springfield Hellcat

We were impressed by the Springfield Hellcat (see our review here). It’s a serious — and seriously popular — competitor to the SIG P365 in the “high” capacity micro-compact carry gun market segment (a segment that’s comprised of exactly two guns at the moment).

The Hellcat’s stock trigger is a good one. As we wrote . . .

…the Hellcat’s trigger is clearly one of the best bangswitches I’ve shot on a striker fired carry pistol. It may not be at the top with the likes of Walther, but it’s definitely up there. There’s a clean take-up with an ever-so-slight bump right before it’s fully staged. Then it breaks very cleanly at 5.7 pounds.

So when we heard that Apex Tactical was coming out with a new Action Enhancement Trigger for the Hellcat, it wasn’t something that jumped to the top our the want list. But then we installed it.

And by “we” I mean Jeremy S. installed it. Here you see everything you get with the Apex Action Enhancement trigger. A striker spring, a sear spring and the Apex trigger.

Here you see the original Springfield parts on the left and the Apex replacements on the right.

This is why I had Jeremy install the Action Enhancement Trigger. I’m good with basic work on my guns, but this wasn’t a job I wanted to tackle. Not that it’s terribly difficult. It took Jeremy about a half hour to complete.

Apex has produced a helpful video showing you how to install the upgrade (check it out here).

Once installed, the difference was immediately obvious. The take-up is now wonderfully clean and smooth. The break is — as they say — clean and crisp, far more so than it was and a huge improvement over most other stock striker-fired triggers.

Best of all, the reset has been shortened. As you can hear from the video below, it’s plainly audible and very tactile.

Apex says the Action Enhancement Trigger drops the pull weight to between 5 and 5.5 pounds. We found it did even better.

I’ve put about 150 rounds through the Hellcat since the trigger was installed and the difference is positive and very clear. Apex has priced the trigger upgrade at $79.95 for the black and Thin Blue Line versions (they’ll start taking pre-orders on 8/13). A red anodized version will be $84.95. That’s a very reasonable price for a big upgrade in your carry gun’s performance.