JP Trigger and New Grinder

[John Dunn]

When the AWB expired I went nuts and bought 3 Stag Arms AR lowers, figured if Kerry won, the AWB would be coming back, and on the off chance they grandfathered anything in, I wanted to be ready for the next iteration of the AWB. Over the past couple of months I've been building the lowers into complete rifles, and tweaking them (many thanks to Sam).

The trigger pull with the factory parts was awful on all three lowers. Long, gritty, and heavy. They were all in the 8-9 lb ball park! I know you can do a decent trigger job with the factory parts with lighter springs, but my JP-15 has me spoiled, and I ponied up for JP trigger kits with the speed hammers. I installed the first one this afternoon. Man, what a difference! 3.5 lbs, and that is with a little extra sear engagement and no grease!

Also got to use my new ($44.00 Ace Hardware) bench grinder on the disconnector and safety engagement surface, worked well. If/when I need a buffer I'll go the Baldor route, appreciate the all the grinder advice.

Well, I was just having fun with the new stuff, figured I'd pass along the fun. My advice for anyone contemplating some home gun work is to do it. I'm having a blast.

[Sixgun]

Isn't it cool "making" your own gun? I have an Open and a Limited STI I built from shortblocks. The looks on peoples faces when I tell them I assembled these are priceless! There is something special about shooting a gun you have a personal investment of time into building.

How do you like those Stag Arms lowers? They are pretty inexpensive ($106.00 OTD) around here and look beautifully machined and finished.

Ray

[Sam]

BWAAAAHHHAAAA, and another evil genius is born!

[kimel]

I'm with John and Ray. Doing your own gun work is a total kick in the pants. I built my AR lower up from parts and then put the JP trigger kit in it. Had a total blast.

I am giving some hard thought to building up a short block as my next limited gun. I will probably end up spending more $$$ than if I had just bought the darn thing as a turn-key but it will be a lot more fun in the end (and an excuse to buy a few more tools for the shop).

[benny hill]

Everyone that learns to gunsmith ends up with a bucket of screwed up parts, but damn it's fun getting there.

[John Dunn]

The Stag lowers look and work great, I'm not a metallurgist, so I can't say whether they are any better or worse than any other lower. What I can say is that the JP trigger went in with no difficulty, it mates well with a Rock River upper, finish is pretty good. The internet rumor on Arfcom is that the Stag lowers are made by the same tool shop that machines Rock Rivers, whenever they have excess capacity, they just stamp them Stag instead of RR. Take this for what it is worth, internet rumor.

I bought mine from Eagle firearms for 80 bucks each, plus 52 bucks or so for the lower parts kit.

Total for the first two builds was $722, could have gone with a cheaper barrel, but found some Colt 20 inchers for sale at $250 each and went with those.

These will be my high volume beaters. The ITRC eats barrels (500+ rounds in 20-30 minutes), now I can go and train at these volumes and torture test the gear without the internal dread I would have doing that to my JP or D&L Sports AR. I also wanted a 5.56 chamber for reliability under crappy conditions. I'm also sold on the Colt taper pin gas block attachment system after seeing multiple aftermarket gasblocks fall off at the ITRC.

Whoever said (was it Sweeney?) that the AR-15 is the Mr. Potato Head of rifles was spot on.

[John Dunn]

I think in the coming years I'll lay off gun purchases, save up for a lathe, mill, welder, and see if I can become more than a parts swapper. But who knows, I may just devote some of that time to actual practice.