Excellent Gunsmithing review

[Jeff In TX]

Last year I purchased my first AR-15 rifle for pig and varmint hunting. I bought a left-handed DPMS 20” bull panther. The rifle shot very well out of the box, but I needed to make some adjustments. The trigger pull was extremely heavy with a lot of creep. The gun was front heavy due to the heavy bull barrel and the balance with the scope on felt wrong for me. With scope, sling and everything else I was close to a 13 pound rifle.

I placed a post on the LR board for assistance in tuning my trigger. Shawn Carlock of Defensive Edge in Rathdrum ID emailed me back a set of detailed instructions on how to set the trigger. His directions were very good, but the best I could get the trigger was around 3.5 pounds with a lot of creep. I called Shawn and asked what to do next. It was now down to doing some honing so I opted out and sent Shawn my lower so he could do the trigger job.

Shawn set the trigger to a very crisp 2 lbs with no creep. I started bouncing ideas off of Shawn to see what I could do to lighten up the rifle and get a better-balanced gun. Shawn suggested a carbon fiber free floated hand guard and turning the barrel down under the hand guard and past the gas port to a uniform .795”. This would take weight off the front end and give me much better balance. So I sent my upper to Shawn and told him to take care of the changes.

I got my rifle back yesterday from Shawn and spent this morning at the range. His work was fantastic. He shed almost 1.75 pounds off the rifle, which really made it balance out well. Groups were slightly tighter than before I sent the rifle off, but I attribute that to the trigger job, which is just like pulling the trigger on bolt-action rifle. Groups before the work averaged in the high .6s’ to mid .7s and now they were in the low .6’s to low .7s with the same loads.

I couldn’t be more pleased with Shawn’s work and wanted to give him a plug on the board. If anyone else is in need of GS services, I’d recommend Shawn. He’s a stand up guy that does fantastic work at reasonable prices.

If anyone would like his contact info, email me