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M4 Disconnector Problem?


Stevejg16

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1 hour ago, StrangerDanger said:

None of the kits I’ve seen came with a disconnector plunger, so that should be fine. Them supplying a spring with the trigger is news to me. 

The kit came with the trigger spring (that goes into the hole on the bottom towards the front of the trigger), the spring that goes onto the plunger for the disconnector, the hammer spring that goes into the hammer plunger and then the shell release (?) spring on the left side of the housing.  I think it says on their website, "FFT 922r compliant trigger pack and springs"

I just got home and took everything apart again.  Tried a few things. I did check to make sure there were no obstructions in the spring holes as you suggested.  All testing below is when holding trigger to the rear after trigger pull and manually resetting hammer.

1. OEM disconnector, all other FFT parts - nice audible click when releasing trigger after hammer reset. 

2. swapped out disconnector spring (that goes on plunger into top of trigger), still using all FFT components - no audible click, hammer gets hung up and sometimes takes a couple "trigger pulls" to get hammer to fall again.

3. swapped FFT disconnector and supplied springs to OEM trigger - nice audible click when releasing trigger, hammer falls with each trigger pull. Hammer release not as crisp as FFT trigger.

Thank you again for your suggestions.  As of right now, I think I'm going to use the OEM disconnector with all other FFT parts until I receive the A&S trigger housing, then try this all again.  Fingers crossed.

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Good tests. Interesting that the OEM trigger and the FFT disconnector works fine. Same as with the FFT trigger and the OEM disconnector. But pairing the FFT trigger and disconnector presents problems. 
 

Checking where the disconnector fits into the trigger, does it appear to be seating poorly or at an odd angle? Limits of movement compared to the OEM one?


I’m hoping the trigger frame removes some tolerance issue and resolves the issue. 

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3 hours ago, StrangerDanger said:

Good tests. Interesting that the OEM trigger and the FFT disconnector works fine. Same as with the FFT trigger and the OEM disconnector. But pairing the FFT trigger and disconnector presents problems. 
 

Checking where the disconnector fits into the trigger, does it appear to be seating poorly or at an odd angle? Limits of movement compared to the OEM one?


I’m hoping the trigger frame removes some tolerance issue and resolves the issue. 

It is odd.  In my first post the other day, I attached a couple pictures, one was factory disconnector in FFT trigger and the other was FFT disconnector and trigger.  In the latter, the disconnector seems to be pushed further forward when spring/plunger installed (you can kind of see more of an angle where the bottom edge of the disconnector sits above the trigger (looking from the side).

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Tough to say without having them in hand and with another set to compare against. Benelli May have fit the trigger parts to that particular frame. Or it’s possible the dogs the disconnector rides against in the FFT trigger are not shaped right and it is allowing the disconnector to rock forward too far. I guess it could be the bottom of the disconnector also.
 

You’ll like the A&S frame. It has a recess for the trigger spring to seat in. It’s also a lot more open on top so cleaning the trigger components is a lot easier. 

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Just looking at the pictures, the replacement disconnector visually seems to sit further forward.

Get an Amazon set of shim gages Shim gage, and figure out how thick a shim you need to fit between the disconnector and the trigger housing to get it to work correctly.  Then, cut a thin piece of that shim and silver solder it on to the front of the disconnector.

I get it that when you buy something, you want it to work out of the box, but between being unable to identify which part is faulty, plus with no replacements being available, plus the vendor taking the attitude that you have to return all or nothing .... it looks like you need to fix this one on your own it you want it.

 

As an aside, what motivates the market for triggers and disconnectors?  To get to 922(r), I was under he impression that after the magazine tube and follower, and forestock, you only needed a hammer to get complient.  Why spend the extra and higher complexity to buy the rest of the TG?

Edited by shootingsight
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8 hours ago, shootingsight said:

Just looking at the pictures, the replacement disconnector visually seems to sit further forward.

Get an Amazon set of shim gages Shim gage, and figure out how thick a shim you need to fit between the disconnector and the trigger housing to get it to work correctly.  Then, cut a thin piece of that shim and silver solder it on to the front of the disconnector.

I get it that when you buy something, you want it to work out of the box, but between being unable to identify which part is faulty, plus with no replacements being available, plus the vendor taking the attitude that you have to return all or nothing .... it looks like you need to fix this one on your own it you want it.

 

As an aside, what motivates the market for triggers and disconnectors?  To get to 922(r), I was under he impression that after the magazine tube and follower, and forestock, you only needed a hammer to get complient.  Why spend the extra and higher complexity to buy the rest of the TG?

Appreciate the input. I don’t think I’m going to make any changes to the parts until I get the new trigger housing. I’m thinking that the hole for the disconnector spring/plunger might be slightly less deep than the oem, causing the the disconnector to be pushed just a hair forward. 

As for compliant parts, personally, I would prefer to keep the gun as stock as possible. I opted to go with the Benelli factory extended mag tube which means I would still need to replace 3 parts. The trigger kit would have done that for me in one go with the added benefit of a more crisp trigger pull/hammer reset. And FFT only sells the entire kit. With everything I’ve read about the FFT forearms not having a good fit, that’s not a part I want to go with. The only forearm that I would consider would be the Strike Industries Hayl rail but not a huge fan of the look although it does add some versatility.

I was planning on replacing the recoil tube with a 3 position tube (I have the 1014 with single position skeleton stock), which would mean I need to replace an additional “compliance part” (gotta love these wonderful gun laws).  So if this trigger kit works fine in the trigger housing I ordered, we’ll be good to go. 

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1 minute ago, shootingsight said:

The follower in the magazine tube is a cheap and easy part to replace.

I know, but I feel like if there's no added benefit (other than just being a "compliant part") and I already have enough parts, I don't feel like it's a necessity yet.  I'm going to wait and see how the new trigger housing works out with the trigger parts first.

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54 minutes ago, drock said:

I had the same issue with the Polymer trigger housing and switched to the aluminum one and the FFT trigger worked fine. 

This is good to hear, hopefully all will function fine once I get the A&S trigger housing!

 

1 hour ago, StrangerDanger said:

If you went with a titanium full length tube, you’d cut 5.5 ounces of weight off the front end. Plus you’d get the extra compliance parts. 
 

The weight reduction was worth it alone to me. 

Definitely considered it and maybe will in the future.  I really wanted to try to stick with as many OEM parts as possible, but lighter weight would be nice.  My only other hang up right now with FFT is their perceived "attitude" towards their customers.  Really, their website, videos, responses to their customers' concerns.  Just don't feel like that's a good way to attract and keep customers. Just my opinion, which can change.

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Todd definitely voices his opinion. Him and I have bumped heads in the past a few times. The trigger packs hold up well when they fit. One set of mine has about 10k rounds on it with no issues. 
 

There is no down side to the titanium. The color even matches better than OEM. At least carriercomps does. The machining is better too. 

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16 hours ago, StrangerDanger said:

Todd definitely voices his opinion. Him and I have bumped heads in the past a few times. The trigger packs hold up well when they fit. One set of mine has about 10k rounds on it with no issues. 
 

There is no down side to the titanium. The color even matches better than OEM. At least carriercomps does. The machining is better too. 

Will definitely look into the carrier comp titanium one and either sell or keep the Benelli full-length as a backup.

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Update:  I was starting to wonder why I hadn't received an email with an order update/shipped from A&S, a few minutes later my wife sent me a picture of a package that arrived.  So, just finished installing and function testing FFT trigger kit with A&S trigger housing and everything is working properly now!  Thanks everyone for your input/advice.  

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  • 7 months later...

So I bought my Benelli M4 roughly a year ago and immediately installed the FFT trigger kit. I don’t remember if I did the (or was aware of) the  trigger system check. The gun operated great.

Fast forward almost a year: Today I took it shooting for the second time since new.

i was using the same 2 3/4 bird shot and experienced the M4 cycling the shells but pulling the trigger only resulted in a slight click, but manually cycling the bolt resulted in a normal fire.

Got home and read about the trigger group tests, namely cocking the hammer with the trigger pulled back.

With the trigger assembly out of the gun, I found the hammer hanging on to the disconnector after releasing the trigger.

Looking at the hammer while stuck on the disconnector, I saw it was barely hanging on.

Since I had access to the hammer without having to disassemble the trigger assembly, I decided to file it where it mates with the disconnector. I only took off a 64th, if that, and now it passes the tcg system checks. I have not fired it yet though.

My question is, did I make a mistake filing that tiny bit, even though it worked? The disconnector still grabs the hammer strong while the trigger Is held pulled back, but now releases it to the trigger catch when I let go, like it should.

As to why it worked a year ago; only explanation I can think of is I had lubed the heck out of it for its first outing. This time, I did not.

Thank you for any input!

Alan

 

 

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Alan -

While I prefer not to modify trigger sears, it will probably work fine for you. The biggest issue is now knowing those components are now fit to that trigger frame. If you were to upgrade to an A&S Engineering frame down the road, those trigger parts may not function in it. 
 

Best thing to do is to test fire it a bunch and see if your failures return. Conducting the safety check of the trigger pack is also very important. 

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So...

After reassembly and more dummy round testing, the hammer would only let go from the disconnector half of the time. The other half, tapping on the action (sometimes banging with my palm) would make it release. Frustrated. I took the Freedom Fighter Tactical trigger, hammer and disconnector, along with it's included springs, out of my M4. I reinstalled the Benelli parts. Now the hammer lets go from the disconnector every time. This after dozens of dummy round tests.  I need to live fire test it.

What a waste of a day!  But....I learned a lot. I sure need the 922r parts but they are useless if the gun won't fire.

I will give Todd the benefit of the doubt and shoot him an email.

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3 hours ago, AlanE said:

So...

After reassembly and more dummy round testing, the hammer would only let go from the disconnector half of the time. The other half, tapping on the action (sometimes banging with my palm) would make it release. Frustrated. I took the Freedom Fighter Tactical trigger, hammer and disconnector, along with it's included springs, out of my M4. I reinstalled the Benelli parts. Now the hammer lets go from the disconnector every time. This after dozens of dummy round tests.  I need to live fire test it.

What a waste of a day!  But....I learned a lot. I sure need the 922r parts but they are useless if the gun won't fire.

I will give Todd the benefit of the doubt and shoot him an email.

I imagine you're using the polymer trigger frame. I have experienced this multiple times when installing the FFT trigger kit. The only surefire way to resolve the issue without modifying the fire control parts is to buy the A&S Engineering trigger frame. These frames are much better made than the OEM ones and I haven't found one that needed any kind of fitting. The frame counts as a 922 compliance part as well.

 

Your only other option is to continue modifying the disconnector until it's 100%.

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Todd from FFT responded to my email the next day. He had me call him to spare us the back and forth emails. I appreciated the fast response. My lesson learned is don't modify the FFT trigger pack without giving Todd the opportunity to come up with a better solution. He simply can't take back a modified part and I get that.

I can tell you that Todd at FFT went out of his way to make sure I knew he valued my business. 

I will report back here once I have got the FFT/A&S combination up and running.

A big shout out to StrangerDanger. You are the M4 FCG man!

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