Turned out that the trigger spring was mounted upside down with the legs pressing against the hammer pins, instead of down against the lower receiver cavity. I started laughing after just shotgun’g the action open and looked inside.
While I had the FCG out of the rifle to correct the spring, I installed a pistol grip set screw above of the grip screw to take up some of the slack (had trigger movement between the trigger and selector when set on safe; not fairly tight against the bottom of the selector). Since Alkoe had asked about the 15-minute trigger job in his e-mail, I would just do my version of it since I had the parts out.
The FCG was really good for mil-spec, yet I beveled a disconnector pin opening to take off a slight bur on one side, and cleaned/polish the hammer/trigger sears (still had some small burs on the edges from milling, very minor but causing the trigger sear to engage on one side of the hammer sear only, it showed up when I smoked the hammer sear to check contact alignment). Tweaked the hammer spring to drop the weight down to 4 lb range, but left some creep in the trigger. After the FCG parts have mated to the receiver (firing to finish breaking in the FCG and allowing the anodizing to wear in the pin holes), I will have Alkoa come back so I can adjust the disconnector and hammer sear to take the last 1/8” creep out of the trigger (the set screw took a lot out of unneeded creep from the start). Checked the extractor claw and channel, it looked really good (still took a file and cleaned the mill burs off the edge of the channel cut) Also checked the firing pin protrusion to confirm that it would work with the lighten hammer spring.
All and all, the Eagle receiver and the J&T kit looked very good. The fit between the receiver and the upper were not as tight as when you use a RRA receiver, but the little movement that the two can be tighten up with a Accuwedge for a nice rock solid mating of the two. I had not laid my hands on a J&T kit in a few months and it was nice to go over a kit that needed no attention (still had to tinker or it wouldn’t seem right). What little work that I did to the rifle was really not needed, it would have just broken in normally under live fire, but since I had the rifle open, I just polished out a few small milling burs to have the trigger smooth from the start, instead of having to fire it until the parts broke in.
Hint: For anyone in the market for a kit, J&T is on top of the must buy list. You get Colt, Armalite, and Bushmaster quality, with out having to pay the extra money that is caused by the others having to mark up to pay for their SOT/FFL (competition against their own completed rifles).
P.S. Alkoe, your daughter was great and well-mannered, Tam even comment on her having a blast hanging out with daddy. Tam and I went to blockbuster after you left and a woman had here 2-year-old boy in the store. The little spawn from hell fell out in the checkout line and a time-out wasn’t stopping the fit he was having. The nice thing about the ordeal was we where checking out when he (satin’s child) let loose and didn’t have to sit threw the whole show.