Every December, you see the same two types of folks. One group has its Christmas shopping squared away before the turkey hits the table. The other is running around like Santa at zero hour on Christmas morning, Seamaster ticking down to when little Joey comes charging down the stairs. If you are reading this, you are probably in Tribe Two. If you are still shopping for that someone who measures fun in split times and clean hits, sharpen your blade with this article and slash through the rest of your list.
Here is your easy win: an Elftmann Tactical drop-in trigger. Small enough to drop in a stocking. Serious enough to change how a rifle runs. “Elf on a Shelf” for grown-ups, except this elf makes your AR faster and more predictable.
Elftmann Tactical is a family-run shop out of the Phoenix area, led by Art Elftmann Sr. and his son Alex. They have been at it for roughly 17 years, starting garage small and staying tight on quality control by keeping manufacturing close to home. If you have ever talked to Art Sr., you know the type. Hyper smart, builder brain, lives in the details. Once he gets spun up on triggers, it is like drinking from a fire hose. You can’t take notes fast enough, and you are looking for a way to switch your pen to full auto.
Before he was a trigger designer, Art built houses with his dad. That “measure twice, cut once” mindset carried straight into guns. The spark for Elftmann’s AR triggers came from paintball. Some paintball guns use a long trigger shoe that lets you run two fingers on one trigger. Still one pull per shot, still legal, just a faster cadence because two fingers share the work. Art tried to bring that idea to ARs with an early dual-trigger project. It worked great, but the market was not ready. Whether it looked too different or folks just didn’t like fast, we will never know, but that setback only set fire to Art’s drive and turned that dead end into the on-ramp for what Elftmann is known for now: cassette-style AR triggers built for speed without turning the gun into a delicate race toy.
What Elftmann Makes, and why people buy them
Elftmann’s core products are drop-in cassette triggers for AR-15 and AR-10 platforms. The current lineup includes Match, SE, Pro-Lock, Legacy, and Apex models, with straight or curved shoes depending on preference and mission. Most of them are adjustable without pulling the trigger group back out of the lower. Elftmann’s promise is simple: blazingly fast, crisp, and still duty safe.
Inside that lineup, the Legacy and Apex are the two flagship patterns. The Legacy Match trigger is the “classic” Elftmann feel: sealed bearings, that double-double torsion hammer spring, an external pull-weight adjuster you can set from roughly 2¾ to 7 pounds without pulling the trigger from the lower, and geometry that gives you a wide, stable sear surface so it stays safe and consistent even when it has a lot of rounds on it. It is the one that built its reputation.
The Apex takes that foundation and adds more control and more insurance. You still get the same materials, smooth pull, and external pull-weight adjuster the Legacy uses, but the Apex adds an adjustable sear and a “double sear” layout inside the cassette. That double-sear style geometry gives the hammer two chances to get caught instead of one, which is why Art talks about it as “no-skip.” Run it hard, ride the reset, get sloppy under stress, and the trigger is still fighting on your side to stay safe and predictable instead of letting the hammer follow.
Construction is not mystery meat. Elftmann uses wire EDM machining, an aircraft-grade aluminum cassette housing, hardened A2 tool steel internals, sealed bearings, and a patented “double-double” torsion hammer spring system. That spring setup and full-power hammer energy are there for one reason: light pull weights are great until you get light strikes on hard primers. Elftmann keeps the pull clean while still using a man hand to drop the hammer.
Across reviews, shooters consistently describe Elftmann triggers as having very short take-up, a crisp “glass rod” or, in this case, a “candy cane” style break, and a fast, tactile reset. That translates into better control at speed, especially under stress or on the clock.
The Pro-Lock system: why their cassette does not wiggle
Most drop-in triggers are held in by the same pins used on a mil-spec fire control group. That works, but pins require a little play to install. Play equals movement, and movement can mean a slightly different break point shot to shot.
Elftmann’s Pro-Lock system swaps that floating fit for a threaded mounting setup. Precision-ground threaded bushings and screws lock the cassette into the lower so it beds tight instead of drifting on pins. In plain English, it removes slop. The break stays consistent even when the rifle is running hard or has thousands of cycles on it.
This is one of the reasons Elftmann sits in the same performance category as Geissele, Timney, TriggerTech, and CMC, but still feels mechanically different when you start riding the reset fast.
The duty lane: Service and Apex triggers for MIL and LEO
Elftmann is not just building gamer gear. Their Service trigger and Apex family target military and law enforcement users who want speed but still need a trigger that stays safe, predictable, and reliable in ugly conditions.
The ELF Service Trigger is built specifically for duty use, with a heavier adjustment range around 4 to 7 pounds, drop-safe geometry, full-power hammer spring, and the same bearing-driven smoothness Elftmann uses elsewhere.
The Apex line keeps that duty mindset but adds modularity. The standard Apex is adjustable, and the Apex Pro adds the Pro-Lock threaded mounting system. Factory specs list the Apex adjustable range around 2.75 to 7 pounds depending on model. That gives you one trigger that can live in “comp mode” during a match and in “work mode” when the rifle is doing real-world jobs.
On top of what’s in the normal line up, Art sent over a concept Apex-based duty trigger he has been tuning. Think Apex bones, stripped down for ugly work. No frills, no external pull-weight knob, no bearings. The only external adjustment is for creep, so you can set how much movement you feel before the wall. If you want to change the pull weight, you take it apart and swap springs; set up this way, it can be tuned anywhere from about 2¾ to 7 pounds. The sample unit he sent runs a very consistent, duty-ready 4.7-pound pull with the same Apex-style no skip technology. This is a military/LEO trigger from the ground up. It is the kind of trigger you drop into a rifle that might ride in a cruiser rack, sit in an armory, or stay in a closet for years, then get called on for one bad night. It is built to just work, and keep working, instead of needing to be babied like a race gun part.
New hardware: Elftmann’s next trigger pin concept
Elftmann already sells anti-rotational, anti-walk pins, which do exactly what they sound like. They keep pins from drifting or chewing up receiver holes during rapid fire. Solid, proven, boring in the best way.
But Art is not wired to leave “good enough” alone. In discussions with him, he has been working on a new pin concept aimed at simplifying install and locking the fire control group in place without the usual screw plates or thread locker. As described, the pins use a spring-driven retention idea that seats itself once aligned with the receiver holes. Think anti-walk function built into the pin itself. This is still a new design you are tracking, not a finalized product drop on their public catalog yet, so treat it as “coming attraction” until Elftmann publishes full specs. That said, he sent me a couple of these one-off concept pins, and they’re simply genius.
The warranty: the flex
Here is the part that sold me as much as the reset.
Elftmann backs their triggers with a lifetime guarantee. The company’s own policy says warranty requests get priority handling, and they will repair or replace and ship back to you.
What Art is telling you goes beyond the usual “defects only” language. His stance is basically, “If something happens to your trigger, I will take care of you.” – message ends.
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