On my Spear LT upper and the full Spear LT, the handguard link makes it extremely hard to push the takedown pin out and especially in. The manual doesn't say to do anything different. I chalked it up to being new, but even after being lubed I often need a tool to push the pins out. Pushing the front one in is especially difficult. Is there a trick to it?

Every MCX/MPX that I’ve ever owned was like that when new.They do loosen a bit over time though.

my rattler is like that. Took a year before I didn't need to use a punch

I called SIG and they said the same thing. It's because of the HG link. It's designed to apply spring pressure to keep the HG aligned for any devices that need to be zeroed. They also added the 2 screws on the Spear LT to accomplish this. The one thing I found that made it easier was to loosen the HG link screws. Then the pin just pops right through like an AR15.

So y'all are saying that with time, like a year of normal use, it gets easier? I basically was using the included chamber flag to punch out that pin.

Figured it out.

I loosened the HG screws and sure enough the pin is much easier to remove. I then experimented with various torque values for the HG screws. If you go to 35 to 45 in-lb (the manual spec) the HG link gets super tight as before. But when I picked 15 in-lb (what the manual calls for a suppressor compliant handguard whatever that is), the pin isn't super loose but is more akin to a brand new AR15 where you might want to use the MCX chamber tool to help push the pin out enough so you can pull the rest manually. Insertion is also much easier. I don't detect any play in the handguard with the screws at 15 in-lb.

Also I am now pretty sure what I read from others on reddit is accurate, these screws are torx plus and not regular torx. 45 in-lb for a T-15 screw is an awful lot of torque. #8-32 screws generally are rated for much lower torque values.