FRT Trigger Guide (2026): Forced Reset Triggers and the Law

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An FRT trigger is the most argued-about part you can drop into an AR-15, and most of what gets written about it is wrong. The single most repeated claim online is that a federal appeals court ruled these legal. That is not what happened, and the difference matters if you are about to spend real money on a part federal agents were seizing three years ago.

I went and read the Justice Department’s own release and the Colorado statute rather than copying another buying guide. Here is what a forced reset trigger does, what the law actually says in 2026, and what is genuinely in stock.

Table of Contents

FRT Trigger: The Short Answer

What a Forced Reset Trigger Actually Is

Pull a normal AR-15 trigger and it stays back until you let it go. Your finger does the resetting, and that forward travel is dead time between shots.

An FRT takes that job off your finger. It uses the energy of the bolt carrier moving rearward to physically shove the trigger forward again, against the pressure you are still applying. The trigger resets whether you cooperate or not, so by the time the bolt is back in battery the trigger is forward and ready to go.

Here is the part people miss. The gun still fires one round per function of the trigger. You are not holding a trigger down while the gun empties a magazine. You are pulling it very fast, over and over, because the mechanism keeps handing it back. That distinction is the entire legal argument and it is why the courts landed where they did.

The parts are unglamorous. Most are a shaped steel plate that sits over the factory disconnector, plus a spring. The one below is Hoffman Tactical’s, photographed on a bench beside a standard trigger, hammer and safety selector so you can judge the scale.

Facts and Figures

Are FRT Triggers Legal? The Federal Position

This is the section everyone gets wrong, so I will be specific about who decided what.

In June 2024 the Supreme Court decided Garland v. Cargill. That case was about bump stocks, not FRTs. The Court held that the ATF had gone beyond its statutory authority, because a machinegun fires more than one shot per single function of the trigger and a bump stock does not change that.

The following month, on July 24, 2024, Judge Reed O’Connor of the Northern District of Texas applied that reasoning to forced reset triggers and vacated the ATF’s classification. That district court ruling is the one that actually deals with FRTs. If a page tells you the Fifth Circuit ruled on forced reset triggers, it is repeating an error. A Fifth Circuit appeal existed, numbered 24-10707, and it was never decided because the government settled first.

On May 16, 2025 the Justice Department announced that settlement in press release 25-520. It resolved three cases at once: NAGR v. Garland in Texas, United States v. Rare Breed Triggers in the Eastern District of New York, and a forfeiture case in Utah. Rare Breed agreed to two conditions worth knowing about. It will not, in the department’s words, “develop or design FRTs for use in any pistol”, and it will “enforce its patents to prevent infringement that could threaten public safety”.

So the federal position is favorable. It is also a settlement between specific parties rather than a law passed by Congress, which is a thinner foundation than it first looks. A future administration could attempt a fresh rulemaking, and it would have to get past Cargill to do it. Nobody can promise you what happens to a part you already own if that fight restarts.

FRT Legal States: Where They Are Banned

I checked three published state-by-state guides while writing this. They contradicted each other. One listed Minnesota and Nevada as bans, another dropped both, a third added Colorado and dropped Washington. All three announced a total of fourteen while listing different numbers of states. On a question where being wrong is a felony, that is not a rounding error.

So here is the mechanism instead, which is more useful. Almost no state bans forced reset triggers by name. What they ban is a category, written for bump stocks and trigger cranks, using terms like multiburst trigger activator, rapid-fire device or trigger activator. Those definitions are broad, and an FRT lands inside them.

Colorado is the clean example, and I read the legislation rather than trusting a summary. Senate Bill 25-003 added a definition of a rapid-fire device to Colorado Revised Statutes section 18-12-101, covering anything that has the effect of increasing the rate of fire of a semiautomatic firearm above its standard rate. An FRT does exactly that by design. There is a wrinkle: that definition arrived numbered as subsection (1)(g.7) and was relocated to (1)(u.3) when two bills were harmonized, so sources still citing (1)(g.7) point at a subsection that no longer exists.

Treat the contested four as prohibited until an attorney in your state tells you otherwise. Check your own state code. Do not take a buying guide’s word for it, including this one.

Super Safety vs FRT: What Is the Difference?

The Super Safety gets lumped in with forced reset triggers constantly and it is a different part in a different place. An FRT lives in the trigger group. A Super Safety replaces the safety selector, and in its third position it interrupts the disconnector so the hammer follows the bolt carrier down. Your trigger group stays exactly as it was.

Practically, that makes it the cheapest way into this category by a wide margin. It is roughly $75 against $219 and up for a drop-in FRT, and installation is a selector swap rather than a trigger job. Hoffman Tactical make the best known one and also sell the Trigger Kicker, which is the part photographed above.

Legally, do not assume the cheaper part is the safer choice. State statutes are written around effect, not around which component you changed. A device that raises the rate of fire above standard sits inside a rapid-fire device definition whether it is a selector or a trigger. If your state is on the table above, the Super Safety is not a workaround.

FRT vs Binary Trigger vs Bump Stock

A binary trigger is the closest cousin and the easier thing to live with. You get a second shot on release, it is mechanically simple, and Franklin Armory and Fostech have been building them for years. An FRT is faster and much less forgiving of a sloppy build.

Tuning: Buffer, Spring and Gas

This is the part the legal explainers skip, and it is the reason most people are unhappy with their purchase. An FRT is a timing device. It depends on the bolt carrier arriving at the right speed with the right momentum, and a rifle that runs fine with a normal trigger can be badly out of tune for one.

The variables that matter are buffer weight, action spring rate, gas port size and ammunition power. Under-gassed, the carrier does not drive the reset hard enough and you get failures to reset. Over-gassed, the carrier comes back too fast, outruns the hammer and you get light strikes or hammer follow. Most makers publish a recommended buffer weight for their unit and it is worth following before you start experimenting.

A few honest cautions. Suppressed shooting changes the gas curve, so a rifle tuned unsuppressed may misbehave with a can on. Cheap steel-case ammunition is often milder than the brass you tuned with. And a carbine-length gas system on a short barrel is the hardest case of all.

Troubleshooting a forced reset trigger

• It doubles or runs away. Stop shooting. Unload and check the disconnector engagement and the reset spring. A gun that fires without a trigger function is a machinegun in law regardless of what you intended.
• It fails to reset. Usually under-gassed or too heavy a buffer. Try a lighter buffer before touching the gas.
• Light primer strikes. The carrier is outrunning the hammer. A heavier buffer or a stronger hammer spring is the usual answer.
• It works on the bench and not on the range. Ammunition. Test with the load you actually shoot.

Function-check every time you reassemble, on an empty gun, before you take it anywhere. If you have never had a lower apart, pay a gunsmith. This is a poor first build.

FRT Triggers For Sale: What Is Actually In Stock

Worth setting expectations. Rare Breed is the name attached to this whole saga and they sell direct rather than through the retailers we track, so you will not see an FRT-15 priced below. What the retail channel carries is the second wave of designs that arrived once the legal picture cleared, and at the moment that means Texas Triggers and Partisan.

Reading that card, a single unit runs $219 to $299 and the higher numbers are two-packs rather than a more expensive trigger. The Texas Triggers Diablo is the AK-pattern option, so it is the one to look at if your build is not an AR. Partisan’s Disruptor is the AR-15 drop-in with selectable positions. The Super Safety sits well under both at around $75 because it is a selector rather than a trigger group, and it is stocked separately.

None of these are FFL items. They ship like any other parts order, with no background check, though plenty of retailers will refuse to ship to the states in the table above. Check the listing before you pay.

One rifle has already shipped from the factory with a forced reset system fitted rather than leaving it to the buyer, which we covered at launch: the One Horse Express. If you are still choosing a host rifle, start with our AR-15 buyer’s guide, and use the price check tool to see what your shortlist costs today.

Who Should Skip One

• Anyone in a listed state. No ambiguity. Not worth a felony.
• New shooters. Learn a trigger before you fit one that resets itself. A standard drop-in trigger teaches you more.
• Anyone with an untuned or marginal rifle. Fix the gas system first. An FRT will expose every weakness in the build.
• Competitors. Most action shooting sports will not let you use one. A competition trigger is the right buy.

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