Just wanted to report on last night's fiasco with the Bushmaster Pivot Pin Tool. I had heard that installing the pivot pin spring, detent and pivot pin was a bear, so I ordered the magic tool from Bushmaster. Let me tell you, it was still a pain in the derriere. I spent over an hour wrestling with the parts, carefully pressing the spring and detent pin and attempting to push the tool out with the pivot pin, as the instructions said. After the first ten tries or so, things settled down, and the pivot pin detent was giving me nice sub-moa groups on the kitchen ceiling. SPROINNNG! reload. SPRROINNNNG! reload. SPRROINNNNG! reload. Finally, I gave up, went to bed and bright and early the next morning visited my local smith. "Happens all the time" he said. "Whatcha do, is cut a loop or two off the spring. Then it slides right in." And sure enough, it did. But there's still plenty of upward pressure to hold the pin in place.
In my humble opinion, the Bushy tool isn't worth the money. It's very soft, and when I turned it to hold down the detent, it deformed badly. And when it's rough, it doesn't slide out smoothly, which means the pivot pin is even harder to get into the hole. I had to file and sand the tool smooth about four times during the whole process, just to keep it "working". I do think having the pin held down is a good thing, and I saw another, home-made tool on one of the boards here, and it looked like a better setup anyway. So, that's my two cent's worth. I just had to vent. Hope the rest of the assembly is easier. If it isn't I'll be too old to shoot by the time I get it all together.