First Shots: Franklin Armory AR-15 Binary Trigger

We're here on the range today to dispel a few myths about the binary trigger made popular in particular by Franklin Armory. This is a Franklin Armory Libertas AR in 5.56 NATO with one of the company's binary triggers in it. What is a binary trigger? Well, it adds a third position to your safety selector. That third position is binary and what that means is when you pull the trigger and when you release the trigger, a round is fired. It is not fully automatic. Once you release the trigger again, you would have to pull it to fire another round. So it's two actions of the trigger, bang, bang, that make it go binary. Why would you want that? Well, a controlled pair or a double tap is something that we practice a lot for self-defense. The binary trigger makes that incredibly fast because it's literally just bang, bang, bang, bang. So if you need to deliver a double tap, it's a very, very useful thing. Now, I know what you're thinking. What if I don't want to deliver a double tap? Well, you can never go into binary if you don't want to. You can just keep it in semi like any other AR-15 or you can be in binary, pull the trigger back, say, oops, I'm done, and go right back to semi, release the trigger, and it will not fire. And then you can pull the trigger again if you need to deliver another shot. So there are some advantages to it. Obviously, it's very fun. You can fire pretty quickly, but again, not at all full auto. It still requires a pull and a release to shoot, and you have to pull the trigger again to fire again. It's not holding the trigger down. In fact, if you hold the trigger down, you only fire one round. So while the binary trigger is obviously the most interesting part of the Libertas AR from Franklin Armory, this gun's got a lot going for it. It's got a B5 system stock and ergo grip, full-length rail, anodized green receivers, and MLOK slots on the fore end. It's a well-designed gun, comes with the Magpul MBUS sights and 30-round PMAG, plus, again, the binary trigger, which you can also get for your AR as a drop-in unit. For more information on this and thousands of other guns, go to shootingillustrated.com. And as always, check NRA Media for all your firearms needs.