polishing a mil-spec AR trigger ?

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John A.
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Re: polishing a mil-spec AR trigger ?

Post by John A. »

cwlongshot wrote: So making the best of whats there is whats called for. like gunsmiths of old. Improving a guns trigger is becoming a lost art.
Yes it is.

Too many drop in parts available from multiple sources where people can run up their credit cards with near instant gratification with no experience necessary.
When those totally ignorant of firearms make laws, you end up with totally ignorant firearm laws.
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Walkers Bay
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Re: polishing a mil-spec AR trigger ?

Post by Walkers Bay »

John A. wrote:
cwlongshot wrote: So making the best of whats there is whats called for. like gunsmiths of old. Improving a guns trigger is becoming a lost art.
Yes it is.

Too many drop in parts available from multiple sources where people can run up their credit cards with near instant gratification with no experience necessary.

Agreed. Yes some people have a tendency to over do things or get outside of their ability but then nobody ever learnt by getting everything right the first time.
As long as the newbie takes their firearm somewhere safe to test I can't see why a mistake isn't anything but a learning opportunity

I've done about 3or 4 ruger 10/22 triggers a few AR's and my M&P 9mm.
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John A.
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Re: polishing a mil-spec AR trigger ?

Post by John A. »

True story,

I posted photos of how I shortened the trigger pull and stuff on my Springfield XD back years ago. 2006 maybe?

Not long after, there were companies that were offering aftermarket parts/services after I spent 30 minutes figuring out what to do, and doing it.
When those totally ignorant of firearms make laws, you end up with totally ignorant firearm laws.
dammitman
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Re: polishing a mil-spec AR trigger ?

Post by dammitman »

Another fine trick i figured out for ar15 triggers is i cut a piece of aluminum that is .125 thick and maybe .750 wide and long and attach in lower under trigger to take out a huge amount of OVERtravel. Actually could be fine tuned even better but a teal improvement.
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plant.one
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Re: polishing a mil-spec AR trigger ?

Post by plant.one »

Walkers Bay wrote:
John A. wrote:
cwlongshot wrote: So making the best of whats there is whats called for. like gunsmiths of old. Improving a guns trigger is becoming a lost art.
Yes it is.

Too many drop in parts available from multiple sources where people can run up their credit cards with near instant gratification with no experience necessary.

Agreed. Yes some people have a tendency to over do things or get outside of their ability but then nobody ever learnt by getting everything right the first time.
As long as the newbie takes their firearm somewhere safe to test I can't see why a mistake isn't anything but a learning opportunity

I've done about 3or 4 ruger 10/22 triggers a few AR's and my M&P 9mm.
unfortunately under US federal law, even if your modifications unintentionally allow your trigger group to run away on you and double, triple, or even go mag dump on you, you're still in violation of federal law for manufacturing and/or posession of an unlicensed a machine gun - which translates to a federal felony and a permanent loss of all firearms rights upon conviction.

and with the way an AR trigger is made, with just a thin surface hardening on the contact surfaces - if you accidently stone/sand that hardened surface off, and then your trigger group can wear over time and one day without warning start acting up as the geometry changes due to the wear.

end result, if it happens at a public range and some authority figure isnt having a good day - you could easily be in a whole mess of legal trouble. So there's more risk involved than just a learning curve, unfortunatly.

done correctly, its a safe mod to do, but there's a very fine line between ok and oops. so its something that needs to be approached VERY VERY VERY Carefully - especially by the inexpierenced.



i have an AR trigger group thats been done by Bill Springfield (a "professional" smith) that i wont use anymore because its had a similar process done to it. google bill springfield trigger job failure. he's hit or miss - at best - with his results, and i'm just not willing to risk it. i never had a problem with it (it came in a used gun i bought) but once i found out about the risk, with the possible repercussions of something going south at an inopportune moment ... its not worth it to me when a trigger that hasnt been monkey'ed with that way by someone with his sketchy reputation is so relatively cheap compared to a lawyer. that lower now sports a timney that i got a good deal on used. said modified trigger resides in a bag, properly labeled, in my spare parts bin - unable to even be sold for risk of putting someone else in a bad spot.
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NeVs24
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Re: polishing a mil-spec AR trigger ?

Post by NeVs24 »

I'm a huge fan of the Hipertouch EDT triggers and they are less than $100
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John A.
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Re: polishing a mil-spec AR trigger ?

Post by John A. »

plant.one wrote:
unfortunately under US federal law, even if your modifications unintentionally allow your trigger group to run away on you and double, triple, or even go mag dump on you, you're still in violation of federal law for manufacturing and/or posession of an unlicensed a machine gun - which translates to a federal felony and a permanent loss of all firearms rights upon conviction.

snip
so its something that needs to be approached VERY VERY VERY Carefully - especially by the inexpierenced.
I agree.
When those totally ignorant of firearms make laws, you end up with totally ignorant firearm laws.
dammitman
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Re: polishing a mil-spec AR trigger ?

Post by dammitman »

So try my OVERTRAVEL upgrade. Cannot effect rate of fire
golfindia
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Re: polishing a mil-spec AR trigger ?

Post by golfindia »

Life is too short for screwing around with AR triggers. Too much risk to save a couple bucks, and too many cheap alternatives. Start out with decent parts at the beginning, and use those grip screw adjusters.
Deude_Mann
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Re: polishing a mil-spec AR trigger ?

Post by Deude_Mann »

For what it is worth, nitriding is a very, very thin metal treatment. Depending on the metal, it typically only penetrates to about 0.002" to 0.004" with full hardness (say Rockwell C60) before the hardness drops off very quickly. The pros of nitriding is that it can be applied without warping the substrate material and thus the component does not need to be fine ground afterwards. Note i said grind, not machined, because at that point it is too hard for standard machining.

The experience I have is relative to designing military aircraft gear boxes. Typically for gear teeth they use a steel that can be carburized, which penetrates much deeper than nitriding. The problem is that carburizing will warp a precision part, so it has to have a final grind finish after the treatment. If the gear teeth or feature cannot be reached with grinding tooling after the case hardening, then nitriding is used instead.

Technobabble aside, be careful when polishing nitrided components. It is possible to remove the nitriding treatment and end up with a surface that is much softer, and more prone to wear. Surface scratches and machining marks can be 0.002" thick so if you remove them all you may have gone too far. Hence the previous comments about the downside of polishing too aggressively.
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