Which SS TTU do you prefer, Stick? Standard or MIL/LE?
Roger, this isn’t a ding against you personally. This post is, however, emblematic of a sentiment that I don’t get, which seems pervasive on the forum.
Firstly, YES, we are a fickle bunch. If Any company is riding a wave top we will say that they have all the solutions to all of our problems. If that company gets surpassed and stops innovating we will forget them quickly. I’ve been guilty of that myself on so many occasions.
Secondly, and this is what I find typified in the post, I see a lot of posts about how something isn’t the standard when in fact it is. The collective internet hive mind of gun folks thinks “mil spec” is super important. Most folks don’t know what that means, but it’s super important to them, so they love to talk about it and they buy things from companies that sell “mil spec” stuff, even if it isn’t. I bet “Colt” and “TDP” have been used 10k times on this forum as a benchmark. For good reason too; Colt builds the standard. For all intents and purposes, one can purchase this standard (within the limits of tyranny) for a paltry sum of around $800. ‘Merica!
Things go off the rails about other stuff that is absolutely standardized, though. Take this atopic of triggers that aren’t GI; there are standards, they just don’t jive with some opinions. I can think of two non Colt/FN/contract vendor GI triggers. They are the Geissele SSF and the KAC two stage. They are officially adopted triggers that are held to a specified standard put forth by the military. Guess what? They are “mil-spec.”
Same goes for .308 gas guns. There are a few officially adopted .308 gas guns. There have been for decades. The main one has gone through a few iterations, just like the M16 FOW. Those iterations were specified and subsequently adopted by the military. Mil-spec. That rifle is of course the SR-25, type classified by a few different monickers. The Mk17 is also a “mil spec” .308 gas gun.
I realize this is slightly off topic, but people keep saying over and over that there isn’t a standard for certain things when there is. Plenty of other items get the same treatment, but I don’t want to totally derail things. The point is that just because the price of admission is cost prohibitive or a given person may like something else better doesn’t mean there isn’t a standard. So while the guy whom called a certain Geissele product “standard” was wrong about the specific product, it is derived from something that actually is.
Flame on haters.
Again, Roger, this isn’t a slight against you, but your post just carried what I thought was a sentiment that needed addressing in general. I see these ideas getting used a lot.
On the topic, I’m over the whole two-stage trigger thing for AR15 pattern rifles The Wilson TTU MIL is fantastic. I tried the lighter pull TTU, but the reset wasn’t as good. Having owned nearly everything in the Geissele AR15 trigger catalog, I thoroughly enjoy a nice single stage. The TTU MIL is amazing in that as soon as you apply the requisite lbs, it just goes. Reset is exactly what it should be. There’s no two-stage nonsense. I don’t understand the logic of pulling the trigger until you hit a wall, then finalizing alignment, breathing etc, and pulling through the that wall. I’ve shifted to a “first best sight picture” style when trying to shoot little things far away.
Been using the TR-TTU (4lb) for 5 years. I paid a lot more than today’s prices. At first it felt too light but soon proved plenty heavy. It doesn’t get too cold here so even on the coldest days only light gloves. If I lived up north I might have chosen the heavier TR-TTU-MIL.
It’s interesting what you get used to. I used a GI trigger for 20 years. It worked fine. Since then I’ve become used to the TTU over the past few years. A couple months ago I shot a rifle with a GI trigger. I thought it was so bad that I’d rather not even have a rifle if I had to use a GI trigger. But I suppose if I shot with it for a while I’d get used to it. That said, I won’t be reinstalling GI triggers from the parts box. 
The finer differences between two comparable spec Wilson/Geissele triggers… maybe feel the difference if side-by-side but I don’t know if it’s going to yield much difference in use. Happy trigger hunting.
Nong Shim,
on the subject of Geissele triggers being issued in military rifles, in the fairly recent 11+ years of SOF experience, I was never once issued a weapon with a Geissele trigger. Every weapon I’ve been issued came with whatever trigger it left the factory with. Perhaps my hair just wasn’t long enough. If some dude buys something and puts in in his gun, that doesn’t quite mean the same thing as “standard”, or “x unit uses it”.
I’ve always chalked up claims of .mil and especially SOF usage of gun products to marketing hype and BS. A great example is .300 BLK. “Its what the secret squirrels from CAG’s Alaskan Yak Brigade use while operating operationally!” I’m pretty sure AAC has sold more stuff to civilians with that type of hype and rumor capitalization than anyone will ever sell to DoD. Or, “6.8SPC is what Special Forces use!”. How’d that work out? Fact is, these rumors and hype are easy to take advantage of, because they are difficult for the average LARPer to verify or dispel.
I’m sure Geissele triggers are sitting in some DoD rifles, but I would only consider them a “standard” in that most civilian trigger nerds would be familiar with them as a reference point. If you NEED a SSF or SSA to conduct Enter and Clear, Hostage Rescue, or Vehicle Interdiction, you SUCK, and will not be the one going on those targets. Real funeral arrangers concern themselves more with footwear and booze than triggers.
Epic. :neo:
Never gave a shit about triggers on my issued guns as long as they went bang. But on personally owned guns, they were/are just a “nice to have” thing. This is why I only use single stage triggers in my gas guns; it’s what I’m used too.
Just because you weren’t issued something doesn’t mean it’s not a program of record and being issued in droves. No snark implied.
No doubt.
Picked up a Wilson TTU MIL with anti-walk pins for $160 on sale, couldn’t say no to 20% off.
excellent buy. but i can say that the wilson units are well designed so don’t need anti-walks. they are one of the few cassette triggers that don’t.
I figured but they nudged the cart total just over $200 for the discount to kick in.
Standards don’t change as often as trends and popularity of a product or manufacturer. TDP specs haven’t changed much, so for many of us, these dimensions and tolerances are our guidelines.
I think the standard you’re referring to is more of the adopted, or perceived variety that are not necessarily on the books as minimum conditions to meet. My standards may be set higher than others, but they’d be mine, they’re not necessarily compatible, or similar to ones held by others, they’re not published and adhered to by anyone but my company, thus I don’t impose them on anyone but ourselves, as they’re not applicable to anyone but us. Anyway, we may be parsing words and reading too much into it 
I purchased two SSA-E’s from either PSA or Primary Arms a couple years back for $170.00 each to my mailbox. My first Geissele was from Geissele direct way back relatively speaking, it was electro pencil numbered/etched and I believe it was marketed simply as the Geissele Super Semi Auto trigger and IIRC I paid $178.00. If any of these three ever get FUBAR I will be getting the MTB from LaRue to try as a replacement.
The repartee between Nongshim, 1168, and Roger has been really great. M4C has it’s moments, and this was definitely one of them.