New triggers for your AK: Upgrade for accuracy

Do you own one of the AK family of rifles and think the trigger isn’t measuring up ? I was in the same position and decided my current Tapco G2 trigger wasn’t cutting it. That’s when I began to look into an AK Trigger upgrade. Right from the start I ran into issues like ; who’s trigger is best ? Do I want a drop in trigger kit instead of individual parts ? I also needed to make sure I complied with the requirement of the treaded 992(r) restrictions.

The Main Players

There are several big names and options I ran into in the AK 47 trigger game, and many of them are household names, some are not. Below Ive posted a list of some and wether or not they made the initial cut for my selection.

ALG Defense AKT (Geissele Automatics, Made the cut)
CMC Triggers (Made the cut)
Elftmann Tactical (Too Expensive)
Red Star Arms (Made the cut)
Arsenal Inc (Made the cut)

To be 100% transparent, CMC has not put their AK47 family of drop in triggers out to market at the time of this writing. That being said I had a chance to use one in a Saiga AK47 conversion at SHOT 2016 Industry Day and it was amazing, that is one of the big reasons it was on the list.

When I was considering my selection I honestly looked on the internet to see who had the best reputation and best install videos available. I have tried my hand at gunsmithing several times before and it generally ends in chaos and broken parts. You can understand my caution as I approached this project. Out of all of the ones I looked at ALG Defense and Geissele Automatics put out a video that made installing their trigger to be way too easy. They were the clear winner because partly of the video.

WINNER : ALG DEFENSE AKT Trigger

Removal of Trigger

There are thousands of videos on disassembling the AK47 trigger, one of the best ones is done by Nate Schultz and the link is included at the bottom of the article for reference. Word of caution that I don’t think anyone really stresses enough, the AK47 trigger spring is a coiled spring and it is a BITCH when it snaps you in the hand. Imagine a very small mouse trap, it got me twice and I was shocked at how much power that little spring has. After complete removal of the safety, and the entire fire control group you are ready to go and your gun should look something like this.

Once I had the old trigger removed and set aside I brought up the ALG/Geissele instal videos that are very long but extremely detailed and helpful. In today’s day there is a fairly good chance that whatever you are wanting to do, someone else has done and made a video about it. This is exactly what Geissele did. Even if you don’t choose a Gissele trigger the video does an outstanding job of laying out how the AK family of rifles trigger and safety interact. Since the AKT came out many top manufacturers such as Rifle Dynamics of Las Vegas, Nevada have been using them on custom builds. That speaks volumes.

In Depth Install Video

Install Notes

I will say that the AKM (AK47) I was using is my old faithful Atlantic Arms built from a 1979 Polish parts kit with Krebs safety and I needed to install the supplied roll pin that was mentioned in the video. This came as a shock to me but i considered the tolerance variable allowed in any AK rifle and went forward slowly. I must have disassembled and checked the spacing on the roll pin eight times while sanding it down slightly with a small micro file. I went slow and just told myself to only take off a little at a time and make sure the safety locked up rock solid. The process took some time but I now feel 100% comfortable with taking apart my AK trigger.

Once I was sure the safety would lock up and clear the hammer and trigger while being disengaged I lubed and reassembled the rifle and tried it on some snap caps first, then some live rounds. I can proudly say that I’ve successfully installed my first AK trigger, and if I can do it, then anyone can. Once I was sure it was good to go I grabbed my Lyman digital trigger pull gauge so that I could semi scientifically say what the trigger pull was. The average was between 2.22 lbs and 2.6 lbs. That seemed very odd to be so I rechecked it several more times. That weight seems really low but it feels much better than the Tapco G2 for several reasons.

The Tapco G2 that was in my rifle was very odd to me and I wanted it replaced for several reasons. The first reason was that it lacked an audible click and positive feel on the reset after firing it. I wasn’t the only person who thought this either, James Foley my friend and owner of Arctic Arms in Chugiak, Alaska shot it and made the same comments. The second reason I chose to change it out was that it was nearly impossible to feel the trigger break while firing it, which is in reality the other side of the primary problem of not feeling or hearing a reset of the trigger. The Tapco was an unmodified trigger from Atlantic Arms and new when I received the rifle.

My overall experience with the ALG Defense AKT trigger has been amazing. The frustration of having to fit the roll pin and file it down was short lived and left me with a rifle with a fantastic trigger. This trigger is great for people who are building an AK rifle that need U.S. made components (counts as three), or anyone who is tired of a squishy trigger than sometimes come on AK family of rifles. The cost of the ALG trigger is reasonable at $49.00 and available threw our friend RobSki at the AK Operators Union Local 47-74 Store. The link is provided below.

We will be running a few thousand round test of the ALG Defense AKT trigger in the next few weeks, be sure to check back for video and comments from the range day portion of this install. We will have several different shooters try this out and get their impressions as well. Until then here is one final picture of the trigger installed, If you look closely you can see the roll pin installed.

Rick