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Ruger 10/22 FRT Mars Trigger (Page 3 of 4)
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Well guys, I got the trigger. Its a clever design. Looks like I might have gotten a turd, though. The engagement surfaces between the disconnector and sear are different than the factory setup (id assume intentionally) and they seem to be incapable of locking together tightly enough to be able to “lock” the sear to the trigger with enough strength to be able to overcome the searing face on the hammer. Basically, instead of dropping the hammer, the sear and disconnector disengage and the trigger “clicks”. Gun cant go bang. There was a burr on top of the sear where it interacts with the hammer (stoned it off) and it is possible the burr continued onto the face of the sear. If thats the case, the burr may be digging into the hammer sear surface. Will check and stone tomorrow, if it needs it. I can get it to drop the hammer if I releive some of the tension of the hammer, say 1/16” movement at the long end. And that is with the lightweight trigger spring that is included. Also, the little adjustor screw in the trigger is 1.5mm and I did play with it too. No luck, but be warned- you can screw it in too far and have it fall out into the trigger mechanism. Dont do that. Also, it doesnt come loctited. Be sure to do that. Sigh. |
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Originally Posted By hitchhiker: Well guys, I got the trigger. Its a clever design. Looks like I might have gotten a turd, though. The engagement surfaces between the disconnector and sear are different than the factory setup (id assume intentionally) and they seem to be incapable of locking together tightly enough to be able to “lock” the sear to the trigger with enough strength to be able to overcome the searing face on the hammer. Basically, instead of dropping the hammer, the sear and disconnector disengage and the trigger “clicks”. Gun cant go bang. There was a burr on top of the sear where it interacts with the hammer (stoned it off) and it is possible the burr continued onto the face of the sear. If thats the case, the burr may be digging into the hammer sear surface. Will check and stone tomorrow, if it needs it. I can get it to drop the hammer if I releive some of the tension of the hammer, say 1/16” movement at the long end. And that is with the lightweight trigger spring that is included. Also, the little adjustor screw in the trigger is 1.5mm and I did play with it too. No luck, but be warned- you can screw it in too far and have it fall out into the trigger mechanism. Dont do that. Also, it doesnt come loctited. Be sure to do that. Sigh. Following this. Mine's been no joy so far. Mostly one bang and done. Did get 1 short burst, hopefully just needs fine tuning. |
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I got mine a month ago but just had a chance to put it in today. I could not get the trigger to make the hammer fall. When I pull the trigger I just get a soft click. The only way the hammer will fall is if I push the sear leg with a punch with the safety off. I have reinstalled it multiple times in my tigger pack and no go. I ordered another trigger pack and will try that. |
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@emrisg Same situation with mine. Ive been slowly working the sear and its matching surface on the hammer- its close but still wont drop the hammer. 3d printed fixtures to hold the sear and hammer to stone and get the desired geometry and get rid of some of the positive engagement. Still have to relieve hammer pressure by a couple ounces before the trigger will drop it. May have to take the engagement from positive to neutral before itll work, but positive engagement is what keeps the hammer from being released if you drop the gun or hit it on something. So, not a great solution. Sigh. |
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You need to turn the grub screw clock wise until it helps the trigger release the hammer. I had to replace my gub screw since it was too short to get it to work, fully. Now mine works to release the hammer. To get mine to cycle I have to use a Volquartsen firefly bolt. I cannot get my Kidd bolt to work no matter what spring rate I use For those of you that have not gotten your trigger call them. Paypal had locked their account and they where working through that. |
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Originally Posted By PKN06002: You need to turn the grub screw clock wise until it helps the trigger release the hammer. I had to replace my gub screw since it was too short to get it to work, fully. Now mine works to release the hammer. To get mine to cycle I have to use a Volquartsen firefly bolt. I cannot get my Kidd bolt to work no matter what spring rate I use For those of you that have not gotten your trigger call them. Paypal had locked their account and they where working through that. Great first post, sir! Got mine pretty well dialed in tonight and put some loctite on the grub screw. Mine is extremely ammo sensitive. Seems to like Winchester Super X best so far. Aguila 40 gr Super Extra makes it a single shot. Remington V 38 grain works so so and Remington Yellow Jackets seem to cycle fairly well. I'll keep trying different types of ammo. Mini Mags are up next. |
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Originally Posted By Jambalaya: This. I don't want a gun that I can't choose to shoot semi. I'm glad these are working for folks that want them. But they need a way to be turned on and off. Originally Posted By Jambalaya: Originally Posted By ARKAR: 22Plinkster has a video short on this product. He was impressed with it so far. Only reason I haven't ordered is it's not a three position. I don't want a gun that I can't choose to shoot semi. I'm glad these are working for folks that want them. But they need a way to be turned on and off. I like how my CMMG kit runs in the AR platform with a binary trigger. It sounds like the mags are an issue with the Ruger, definitely not an issue with the AR. |
Preferred pronoun: MARINE
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I went on record early on saying I had my doubts and was quite dubious. Like all of you I have tried for a while to get my hands on one of these. finally managed to pick one up at a gun show today (not to far from Mars shop) Mine ran flawlessly with everything I threw at it. One caveat, I did use an anti bounce bolt of my own design, I have NOT tried it with a standard 10/22 bolt. The anti bounce bolt that I made has two holes milled in the back for 3/8” tungsten weights that slide back and forth to provide a dead blow effect to the bolt and a cross pin to keep them from falling out the back. I am fairly certain that anti bounce bolts are needed for the rate of fire this provides in a 10/22. I doubt that John Norrell would have gone to the trouble of making the anti bounce bolt for his trigger pack if it wasn’t. I have been working on a more drop in design and will probably to continue to work on it to some extent, but now that I have this I probably won’t spend as much time on it. Again, I am pretty impressed with the Mars 10/22 FRT. |
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Originally Posted By jduke: I went on record early on saying I had my doubts and was quite dubious. Like all of you I have tried for a while to get my hands on one of these. finally managed to pick one up at a gun show today (not to far from Mars shop) Mine ran flawlessly with everything I threw at it. One caveat, I did use an anti bounce bolt of my own design, I have NOT tried it with a standard 10/22 bolt. The anti bounce bolt that I made has two holes milled in the back for 3/8” tungsten weights that slide back and forth to provide a dead blow effect to the bolt and a cross pin to keep them from falling out the back. I am fairly certain that anti bounce bolts are needed for the rate of fire this provides in a 10/22. I doubt that John Norrell would have gone to the trouble of making the anti bounce bolt for his trigger pack if it wasn’t. I have been working on a more drop in design and will probably to continue to work on it to some extent, but now that I have this I probably won’t spend as much time on it. Again, I am pretty impressed with the Mars 10/22 FRT. Nice to hear - Are you planning on making bolts? What are others doing for bolt bounce- are their those running their MARS without a dead blow? bolt? |
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MARS announced today (via Instagram) they finally got caught up on all their orders resulting from 22Plinkster's video last Spring and now have these in stock with no wait! 22Plinkster made the same announcement yesterday... I have 2 of these MARS FRTs, and both work fine with the stock Ruger oem bolt, even though I bought an anti-bounce bolt for this project before I had received my first order. |
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Originally Posted By cherenkov: Nice to hear - Are you planning on making bolts? What are others doing for bolt bounce- are their those running their MARS without a dead blow? bolt? I have no intention of making bolts, they are to hard to be easy to cut, it can be done, but its very slow and hard on tools |
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@jduke I have a 10/22 bolt drawn up in fusion 360 and was trying to figure out how to fit tungsten weights into it for this very reason. What length/ weight of tungsten weights are you using, and are they both the same? I was thinking of toying with either different lengths of weight or different depths of pocket so that the weights would hit one right after another, increasing the “dwell time” of the dead blow effect. Got sick as a dog back in January (autoimmune disease, turns out) and had to out all my projects on the back burner. Just now getting back to normal-ish |
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Originally Posted By hitchhiker: @jduke I have a 10/22 bolt drawn up in fusion 360 and was trying to figure out how to fit tungsten weights into it for this very reason. What length/ weight of tungsten weights are you using, and are they both the same? I was thinking of toying with either different lengths of weight or different depths of pocket so that the weights would hit one right after another, increasing the “dwell time” of the dead blow effect. Got sick as a dog back in January (autoimmune disease, turns out) and had to out all my projects on the back burner. Just now getting back to normal-ish For reference, this is a spare bolt for my Norrell 10-22 with sliding weight built in. I think the sliding piece is steel though. The notch on the bottom left side of the bolt in the 2nd pic is for a detent built into the trigger pack to also help with bounce. Attached File Attached File |
"Government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem." - Ronald Reagan
"Everything I want to do is illegal." - Joel Salatin
"Everything I want to do is illegal." - Joel Salatin
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Originally Posted By AJE: The only FRT trigger I'm interested in is for a 10/22, so I hope this is legit. Got mine yesterday, installed it last night, took it out this afternoon. 16" barrel, suppressor, stock bolt, stock recoil spring (they supply a low power recoil spring, but I didn't bother with it.) First two rounds fired ok, but left hammer down on an empty chamber. After that it was brrrrrrrt without issue right through several more mags. I'm chalking the first two up to a mag issue. This thing rips. I might get another for one of my other 10-22s. |
"Government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem." - Ronald Reagan
"Everything I want to do is illegal." - Joel Salatin
"Everything I want to do is illegal." - Joel Salatin
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My buddy’s MARS was getting lots of malfs with a live round in the chamber and hammer down. It looked like bolt bounce to me so I put my Norrell anti-bounce bolt in the gun. Success! We did have some FTE and mag issues. We didn’t try different ammo or messing with the trigger bolt (over travel stop?) It ran as well or better than my Norrell from our limited testing ![]() MARS 10/22 FRT w/ Norrell Bolt |
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Originally Posted By jduke: The anti bounce bolt I made has two 3/8” holes milled from the rear. The holes are 1.25” deep The weights are 3/8 diameter tungsten each weighing about 0.5oz about 1/2” length. The cross pin to keep them from coming out is 1/8” Works great ![]() |
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Would running a suppressor affect this FRT? I saw a very interesting 10-22 at my normal range today it had an "SD" style barrel and a sleeve that went over it as a large expansion chamber - turns normal high velocity fodder into subsonic. I love it - I'd be curious if that would impact an FRT though? |
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From my limited testing yesterday, the MARS with anti-bounce bolt worked fine both suppressed and unsuppressed Without the AB bolt it could change bolt bounce timing. FRTs are weird though so who knows I would expect a can would make the FRT reset work even better with the increased back pressure ETA: a drilled barrel and can like you mention would be even harder to predict. If it runs in semi then the FRT reset should still work |
| Got mine up and running today. Stock bolt, 10" TandemKross threaded barrel and I installed the recoil spring MARS sent with the trigger. Ran fine with wallyworld Federal and some crappy Magtech too. Ran suppressed and unsuppresed about the same. Had an occasional fail to eject, probably needs a good cleaning from running suppressed. Tweaking the little trigger screw made a world of difference. Fingers are sore from loading mags, going to have to invest in a good speed loader now. |
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I've been looking at getting one if these for my 10-22. Was waiting to see if they would come out with a 3 position selector model. It doesn't look like that will happen anytime soon. I shoot lefty so I guess I could just hold the bolt closed for single shots and work the bolt manually. Is there just one version of this still? No V2 updated version? |
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I have had three to five round bursts with a dead trigger. The rounds that were chambered but didn't fire showed light primer strikes. To me it looks like a bolt bounce issue. I did replace the stock springs with the MARS springs. I am trying this trigger in a 6-inch suppressed SBR. So, I think I am going to start with putting the factory recoil spring back in. Ammo used is CCI LRHV |
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Originally Posted By Polarbear31: I have had three to five round bursts with a dead trigger. The rounds that were chambered but didn't fire showed light primer strikes. To me it looks like a bolt bounce issue. I did replace the stock springs with the MARS springs. I am trying this trigger in a 6-inch suppressed SBR. So, I think I am going to start with putting the factory recoil spring back in. Ammo used is CCI LRHV Have you tried tweaking the set screw on the bottom of the trigger? Sounds like what mine was doing before I adjusted the set screw out a little bit. |
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| As I said in an earlier post, I had a lot of trouble getting the Mars trigger to reliably function in my short barrel 10/22, especially with standard velocity ammo. I was about to give up on it when I bit the bullet and decided to order the Bore Buddy anti-bounce bolt. These bolts are $400 and I was really torn on whether I should continue to throw money at getting my 10/22 to work reliably with the Mars. Anyway, got the Bore Buddy bolt in a few days ago and WOW! What a difference it made for me. My 10/22 with the Mars trigger functions perfectly now and reliably cycles standard velocity (subsonic) ammo. (I am using a suppressor and haven't tried it unsuppressed yet). Anyway, in my case at least, I am extremely happy with the Bore Buddy bolt even though I have put more money into this 10/22 than I originally intended to get it to work in frt. |
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Originally Posted By jgg2: As I said in an earlier post, I had a lot of trouble getting the Mars trigger to reliably function in my short barrel 10/22, especially with standard velocity ammo. I was about to give up on it when I bit the bullet and decided to order the Bore Buddy anti-bounce bolt. These bolts are $400 and I was really torn on whether I should continue to throw money at getting my 10/22 to work reliably with the Mars. Anyway, got the Bore Buddy bolt in a few days ago and WOW! What a difference it made for me. My 10/22 functions perfectly now and reliably cycles standard velocity (subsonic) ammo. (I am using a suppressor and haven't tried it unsuppressed yet). Anyway, in my case at least, I am extremely happy with the Bore Buddy bolt even though I have put more money into this 10/22 than I originally intended to get it to work in frt. I would be upset if it didn't work. |
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Anyone try one with a Integrally Supressed 10-22 Barrel - Would love to get one of these with a Vanquish-22 https://angstadtarms.com/vanquish22/ |
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"$400 for the bolt and $289 for the FRT. I would be upset if it didn't work." Yes. I agree. Pretty expensive to get frt in a 10/22, but I was unable to get just the Mars trigger to work reliably in mine, even after polishing and radiusing the back of the Ruger bolt. While it somewhat worked with higher velocity ammo, it was still not very reliable for me, and it was extremely unreliable with standard velocity subsonic ammo. I decided to go all in and try the Bore Buddy bolt and that did the trick for me. Just letting people know my experience. Hopefully most people will get their Mars running without the need to spend another $400 on the Bore Buddy. I see other people online saying their trigger works without doing a lot of tuning, But in my case at least, the Bore Buddy made a big difference. ymmv |
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Originally Posted By jgg2: "$400 for the bolt and $289 for the FRT. I would be upset if it didn't work." Yes. I agree. Pretty expensive to get frt in a 10/22, but I was unable to get just the Mars trigger to work reliably in mine, even after polishing and radiusing the back of the Ruger bolt. While it somewhat worked with higher velocity ammo, it was still not very reliable for me, and it was extremely unreliable with standard velocity subsonic ammo. I decided to go all in and try the Bore Buddy bolt and that did the trick for me. Just letting people know my experience. Hopefully most people will get their Mars running without the need to spend another $400 on the Bore Buddy. I see other people online saying their trigger works without doing a lot of tuning, But in my case at least, the Bore Buddy made a big difference. ymmv |
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I wasn't going to try getting a Mars trigger in a 10/22 running until there was a solution for the severe bolt bounce every 10/22 has. I attempted to solve it with various lubes, including grease, however by the time the lube was thick enough to dampen bolt bounce the rifle wouldn't run reliably. Enter the Bore Buddy anti bounce bolt. I installed one of these last night and slow motion video shows the bolt bounce is gone! The action also sounds much better. I have zero doubt now that this will run reliably in reset mode. The Bore Buddy bolt is expensive at $400, however the quality is excellent. The bolt appears to have more damping mass than the Norrell bolts. Additionally all internal corners of the bolt surrounding the anti bounce weight are radiused generously so cracking shouldn't be an issue as occasionally reported with the Norrell bolts. |
Middleofnowhere, Nebraska
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Originally Posted By jgg2: "$400 for the bolt and $289 for the FRT. I would be upset if it didn't work." Yes. I agree. Pretty expensive to get frt in a 10/22, but I was unable to get just the Mars trigger to work reliably in mine, even after polishing and radiusing the back of the Ruger bolt. While it somewhat worked with higher velocity ammo, it was still not very reliable for me, and it was extremely unreliable with standard velocity subsonic ammo. I decided to go all in and try the Bore Buddy bolt and that did the trick for me. Just letting people know my experience. Hopefully most people will get their Mars running without the need to spend another $400 on the Bore Buddy. I see other people online saying their trigger works without doing a lot of tuning, But in my case at least, the Bore Buddy made a big difference. ymmv Mine ran without issue in an 18" barrel and a 16" barrel with some random HV and CCI SV. I'm cutting one of my 10-22's down to an 8" SBR, so it'll be interesting to see if barrel mass might change anything. ETA - Put the 8" barrel and re-installed everything else. Suddenly, a lot of bolt bounce issues. This was with both CCI Blazer (HV) and CCI SV and with a can. |
"Government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem." - Ronald Reagan
"Everything I want to do is illegal." - Joel Salatin
"Everything I want to do is illegal." - Joel Salatin
Ruger 10/22 FRT Mars Trigger (Page 3 of 4)
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