What a Titanium Firing Pin Actually Does

When I did the article/Video on wax shotgun slugs,  I received a lot of comments on YouTube saying they have been doing this for years and nothing had ever happened, or that “X” (who does videos of sticking all manner of things in his barrel and shooting it – (such as play-doh shotgun shells, razor blade shells, 22lr cartridges in the 12 gauge shell) said it was fine, and since he has a following it MUST be okay – well, I still stand by my statement Just cause you CAN, it does not mean you SHOULD…

I expect this article will get a similar response, HOWEVER – I stand by the words, and hope that it can keep a few people from spending money trying to improve their firearm, when in actuality they may be decreasing it’s effectiveness.

First – Titanium firing pins are intended to reduce lock time. By being lighter than the normal firing pin, they have less inertia to overcome, which should translate to a less time between the pull of the trigger to the ignition of the primer.

Theoretically, a faster locktime allows less time for disturbance of the rifle.

When dealing with AR type rifles In REAL Life, Movement of the firing pin is a very small part of the rifle’s lock time. A Lighter the firing pin produces virtually NO improvement in lock time.

No engineering or experimental data has been provided which supports a change to titanium firing pins.

In addition to the fact that it does not do anything better than the stock firing pin, Titanium doesn’t handle impact nearly as well, which means that, under intensive training, the tip can deform rendering the gun inoperable. This is enough for me, but if you need more – read on.

Titanium is lighter than steel. This means that it won’t get as much momentum in the short travel time as a steel firing pin. This translates to a lighter strike on the primer. Since we already talked about hard primers for AR type rifles to reduce slam fires – a hard primer and a light firing pin can increase the incidence of failures to fire.
Lastly, you can buy 5 normal firing pins for the cost of one titanium pin.
In my opinion, and the opinion of many others (such as the author of this great post on m4carbine.net )

The titanium firing pin one indicator you are in the presence of a great American mall ninja, an invasive  species of animal commonly sighted in gun stores, malls, internet forums, and parks – but is rarely found in classes or the range.