AR 15 INSTALLING A TRIGGER STOP

One of the most common sources of complaint with milspec triggers is the large amount of creep before slack is taken up against sear. Creep and travel can affect accuracy, especially if inconsistent or excessive. We have a couple ways to deal with creep, first takes a little more work but is super cheap, to second is super easy but adds ten bucks to price of your trigger job. I usually opt for inexpensive due to large number and custom trigger jobs of builds the extra ten bucks could lead to hundreds of dollars per year. First we will look at the inexpensive method and next the easy peasy method. Anyone with a better way please send in your method.

AR 15 Triggers Milspec and Custom

First we need to gather our parts and tools. There are seveal vendors on fleabay and the internet that sell both screws needed but they can be purchased in small packs of three to four at Lowes or Home Depot for about the price of one set online. I buy 100 count boxes of each from a local industrial fastener supply that brings my cost to pennies per screw. I use stainless which we will discuss a little later. Your normal pistol grip screw is 1/4"x28x1". To do this modification requires a 1/4"x28x3/4" to give room for the grub screw we will install to adjust creep. Once we have our screws then we need to chase the threads of the pistol grip thread as most stop about 1/8" from top inside of receiver or on some billet uppers will be tapped completely through but have burrs that make installing our short socket head grub screw difficult. Remember to always use some form of tapping lubricant, back tap out every few turns to clear and chips that may accumulate and follow all thread chasing/tapping procedures. You can use a chasing tap of standard tap, i grab whichever comes out of the toolkit first, usually a blind hole tap. After chasing from bottom to cut threads all the way through I make a short pass from the top just to be sure grub screw has nice threads to engage.

INSTALLING THE GRUB SCREW AND ADJUSTING

After tapping hole from bottom there will be a lot of chips inside the receiver and some burrs. Clean all chips out, chase threads a few turns from top, use a file or champhering tool to remove then clean super well.

Next its just a matter of installing the grub screw form the top, assembling lower as normal then installing your trigger. The worst part of this method is that you will have to remove and reinstall the trigger multiple times while you adjust the stop screw. If its too high trigger will not function, if its too low then you still have more creep than necessary. More you do, the better you get at adjusting with minimum fuss. Even if have to fiddle with, losing the creep out of your trigger is well worth the less than dollar in parts and a little extra labor while assembling a rifle. Once you have it set to your satisfaction then you have to remove trigger one more time, back screw out a few turns (count them and index wrench or will have to adjust again) place red thread locker and readjust to preferred height. When install the pistol grip will have to use the 3/4" replacement grip screw or customary 1" screw will hit your adjustment screw and not tighten grip properly.

THE EASY BUT EXPENSIVE WAY TO SKIN THE SAME CAT

This next way to adgjust the creep out of your trigger is much easier, requires on alteration of lower receiver but at an average cost of $10 to $14 each on fleabay and $9 each in dozen count volume orders online if you tweak a lot of triggers it gets expensive. I do use these in about one out of four applications. Either needing to get job done quickly or don't want to modify a $250 or more custom lower. Usually when building on a $500 custom billet receiver set am using a custom trigger but not always. Sometimes just need a super strong receiver in a bomb proof build for durability in rough conditions.