trigger choices

wigwamitus

wigwamitus

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Jan 5, 2014
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#1
I have five 5.56 lowers ... three of them are for carbine uppers, 10.3 10.5 and 14.5 though I also run a CMMG .22lr 16 inch upper on one of them usually. They all have "mil-spec" 5 lb-ish triggers in them and they are fine.

The other two 5.56 lowers support 5.56(18) and a 6.5g(18) uppers (the "dmr" style uppers) and those have timney 3 lb "drop in" triggers. I have two issues with the timney's ... they generate occasional "inadvertant bump fire" symptoms ... which is funny the first few times it happens but then becomes annoying if you are trying to hit a target with x number of rounds and an IBF event happens because the extra 1-2 rounds that went down range will inevitably be high and are essentially thrown away and if you are counting rounds fired then you take a hit. The other symptoms are less frequent but include various types of stoppages. In some cases I could say the ammo is related, but then I take that same ammo and run it out of guns not using the timney triggers and no stoppages. In other cases, I get "fail to cock" or "fail to hit the firing pin hard enough" ... I spray out with brake cleaner and that resolves the non-ammo related issues. But when I view the reliability of the timney 3 lb drop in triggers compared to the reliability of the 5-ish pound "mil-spec" triggers the timney's do not come off well. I have had zero issues with the mil-spec triggers in 5 years and at least several issues per year with the timney's ... and when others shoot my weapons they have more frequent IBF or more frequent stoppages (possibly caused by lack of follow through).

Note I have timney trigger in .300WM bolt gun and it has had zero issues, so not talking about timney triggers in general, just the drop ins.

So I am looking at geissele, specially this one.

https://geissele.com/super-semi-automatic-enhanced-ssa-e-trigger.html I figure I will get one first and see if I like it, but I would like to use the same trigger in both lowers.

All thoughts welcome.
 
#2
I have both Timney & Geissele in my AR's. The Timney have run fine and that included alot of fast fire 3-gun use. I have have had stoppages with the geissele due to primers that got loose and locked them and the gun up because that aren't "sealed" like the drop-ins.
 
#3
Now that you mention it I have had the "primer stuck in trigger and locked it up" problem with a mil-spec trigger - one time in 5 years. I had forgotten about that.

Have you ever had inadvertant bump fire issue with either?
 
#4
wigwamitus said:
Now that you mention it I have had the "primer stuck in trigger and locked it up" problem with a mil-spec trigger - one time in 5 years. I had forgotten about that.

Have you ever had inadvertant bump fire issue with either?
Click to expand...

No, never had anything even close to a bump fire type of issue with either trigger type and as stated before, that includes years of very rapid fire double taps on stages requiring 30-40 nonstop rounds of 223 ammo. I will say my competition AR'S are very finely tuned what with adjustable gas blocks, modified buffers, lightened BCG's, etc, so these are not stock guns so may be a bit of an apples to oranges type of comparison with a stock rig which could have an impact on the potential for bump fire behavior.
 
#5
The only times IBF events occur with the timney drop ins is when shooting long distance prone or off tripods and using slow trigger squeeze. The formula seems to be "light trigger finger" plus "light trigger" = bump fire (occasionally) ...

Well good data !! What I am hearing is there are no "perfect" triggers ... and switching from Timney to Geissele might not be the "silver bullet" .
 
#7
A solution to the IBF events with longer range shots (slow trigger pressure) might be to be sure you are following through with the trigger pull, that is, being sure you hold the trigger down through the recoil impulse, similar to how follow through is done on a bolt gun. I know it can be challenging going from rapid fire when what you want is a very fast trigger reset, and then mentally having to make the switch to a determined follow-through on longer range prone, barricade or tripod type shots...but there you have it!
 
#8
Thanks Optics ... I've seen people talk about the ALG ACT, but I am unfamiliar with it ... I will google and read.

==

Fur ... yes .. my general theory has been lack of follow thru is involved in the IBF events ... and for me I called that out as a "major issue" a couple of years ago and not just due to IBF, but on general principles and I had to think about it for the next hundred trigger pulls and I still found myself reverting ... but I believe about a year ago ... I conquered that one by pure forced repetition of slow deliberate follow thru. My shooting buddy however, 3 weeks ago was out shooting my 6.5(18) and he was getting IBF about every 3rd shot and I coached him on follow thru and the frequency reduced. So I do believe lack of follow thru is a factor in the IBF ...

I just worked on the 5.56(18) which was having "fail to cock" issues this week. The hammer roll pin was loose. After I replaced the mil-spec trigger with the timney in this lower about a year ago, the regular hammer roll pin was loose. The trigger roll pin was not loose. So I got some JP anti-travel roll pins and put one in for the hammer roll pin. But the screws had come slightly loose and the roll pin could wiggle back and forth. So I just removed it and reinstalled it and fired 60 rds of my "don't know exactly what it is" ammo (collected from a round you see here and 2 in that mag over there, and such over time - to be my testing ammo) ... and no stoppages. So maybe the roll pin was just loose enough to cause the "fail to cock" though I must say I've never had that issue before.

Maybe the Timney triggers are perfect and all the issues are due to other factors, but I'm not sure. The frequency of issues with the Timney drop ins still seems to be 20x or so greater than the mil spec triggers.

I wonder if the geissele cannot IBF due to the 2-step design?

==

Thanks again for all the data!
:)

 
#9
wigwamitus said:
Thanks Optics ... I've seen people talk about the ALG ACT, but I am unfamiliar with it ... I will google and read.

==

Fur ... yes .. my general theory has been lack of follow thru is involved in the IBF events ... and for me I called that out as a "major issue" a couple of years ago and not just due to IBF, but on general principles and I had to think about it for the next hundred trigger pulls and I still found myself reverting ... but I believe about a year ago ... I conquered that one by pure forced repetition of slow deliberate follow thru. My shooting buddy however, 3 weeks ago was out shooting my 6.5(18) and he was getting IBF about every 3rd shot and I coached him on follow thru and the frequency reduced. So I do believe lack of follow thru is a factor in the IBF ...

I just worked on the 5.56(18) which was having "fail to cock" issues this week. The hammer roll pin was loose. After I replaced the mil-spec trigger with the timney in this lower about a year ago, the regular hammer roll pin was loose. The trigger roll pin was not loose. So I got some JP anti-travel roll pins and put one in for the hammer roll pin. But the screws had come slightly loose and the roll pin could wiggle back and forth. So I just removed it and reinstalled it and fired 60 rds of my "don't know exactly what it is" ammo (collected from a round you see here and 2 in that mag over there, and such over time - to be my testing ammo) ... and no stoppages. So maybe the roll pin was just loose enough to cause the "fail to cock" though I must say I've never had that issue before.

Maybe the Timney triggers are perfect and all the issues are due to other factors, but I'm not sure. The frequency of issues with the Timney drop ins still seems to be 20x or so greater than the mil spec triggers.

I wonder if the geissele cannot IBF due to the 2-step design?

==

Thanks again for all the data!
:)
Click to expand...

You got me, I've been in a ton of multigun matches and while I HAVE seen a few AR'S occasionally cut loose with a few rounds of full auto "misfires"over the years, (not bumpfires) (those guns were DQed from any further use during the match) I don't recall bumpfire type problems. Perhaps, depending who the RO is, it may be difficult to differentiate between the two depending on how close of attention is being paid by an observer.
I DO KNOW that friends and family members are the only ones that get the privilege of shooting the "I don't know what it is ammo, lol! I don't touch the stuff, ha!
 
Last edited:
#11
Thanks everyone for the data ... I will cogitate further on the matter ... but provided data does not indicate changing triggers is the silver bullet ... so appreciate that!
 
#14
I have the geissele high speed national match in my rra 5.56 and it has been a great trigger! I have the first stage fairly low and the second stage pretty light too. Never had any problems out of it.
 
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