The SMG FG42 In Detail

[Wilhelm]

It's been a while since I've posted but as they say, 'tis the season....

I received the new sear from SMG in late November but haven't has had a chance to install it until this evening. Prior to installing the new one, I thought it would be a good idea to measure the trigger pull on the original. It was somewhat hard to get a good reading on the digital meter because of the grooved sear. The meter was jumping up and down as it would clear one groove and hit the next one but I finally managed to figure an average pull of right around 10.5 lbs.

Next, I removed the old sear and took a few pictures comparing it to the new one:







The old one is on the right and you can clearly see the grooves pounded into it by the bolt carrier. Also note that the new one has a copper hue to it. When Rick sent me the new one, he recommended that I slightly radius the notch on the bolt carrier where it contacts the sear so that I don't have as sharp an edge impacting the sear. He also cautioned me not to take too much material off as this may create an unsafe situation. Here is the notch on the bottom of the bolt carrier prior to reshaping:





If you look very carefully, you will see that the edge is not rounded but is faceted.


In these next pictures, you may be able to see that the edge is now rounded. I removed only the absolute minimum required to achieve this:






Finally, I reassembled everything and tested the trigger pull again. Now it weighs in at 14.8 lbs. but at least it is smooth and consistent all the way through the pull. As soon as I get a chance, I'll take it back out to the range and try to run another 100 rounds through it. At that time I will of course report back.