Wide Open Trigger Wot For AR 15

About this product

The Wide Open Trigger, known as the WOT, is a drop-in hard-reset trigger built for AR-15-pattern rifles chambered in 5.56 NATO, .223 Remington, or .300 Blackout. It's priced at $349.98 and installs without gunsmithing, but before getting into the mechanics, buyers need to understand this category of trigger has a genuinely unsettled legal picture that varies significantly by state.

What is a hard-reset (forced-reset) trigger, mechanically?

A hard-reset trigger uses a mechanical design — in the WOT's case built around a patent-pending spring-locking bar and Hardox steel components — that forces the trigger to reset forward after each shot using the rifle's own recoil impulse, rather than relying entirely on the shooter's finger to release and re-press the trigger. The result is that a shooter can cycle follow-up shots faster than with a standard AR-15 trigger, while the design still requires one distinct trigger pull to fire one round, keeping it within the technical definition of semi-automatic operation rather than fully automatic fire.

What's the current federal legal status of this design?

Following a U.S. Department of Justice settlement announced in May 2025, the federal government agreed that hard-reset and forced-reset triggers meeting specific conditions — releasing the hammer and resetting the trigger for every single round fired — are not machine guns under federal law. That settlement resolved years of contested ATF enforcement action against this trigger category at the federal level.

How is this different from an illegal auto sear or a machine gun conversion?

The appeal of a hard-reset trigger for a lot of buyers is exactly that it isn't an NFA item — it requires no ATF Form 4, no $200 tax stamp, no SOT dealer transfer, and no months-long wait, because (per the DOJ settlement, at the federal level) it doesn't convert the rifle to fully automatic fire. Every trigger pull still fires exactly one round; what changes is how quickly the trigger mechanically resets and how light that reset feels to the shooter's finger, not the fire-control group's fundamental semi-automatic function. That's a meaningful legal and cost distinction from a Glock switch, lightning link, or drop-in auto sear, all of which remain illegal machine gun conversion devices under federal law regardless of any state's position.

Does that federal settlement mean it's legal everywhere, including California?

No, and this is the most important thing to understand before ordering. Federal legality doesn't override state law, and California specifically restricts devices that increase a firearm's rate of fire under its own statutes covering rapid-fire trigger activators, independent of how the device is classified federally. Given how actively contested this trigger category has been, and how much state law can differ from the federal settlement, buyers should confirm current California law on hard-reset/forced-reset triggers with a knowledgeable FFL or attorney before ordering — we're not going to tell you this is legal to possess in every state, because that claim wouldn't hold up.

Who is this product built for?

Setting the legal question aside, the WOT is aimed at AR-15 owners in states where this trigger category is confirmed legal who want faster, more consistent trigger reset than a standard mil-spec or even most aftermarket triggers provide, without swapping to a full custom trigger group.

As an accessory part rather than a firearm, this trigger ships directly to the address on your order with no FFL transfer required — but that shipping convenience has no bearing on whether possessing it is legal where you live, which is entirely on the buyer to confirm first.