In the spring of '96 USAMU International and Olympic Rifle gunsmith Chuck Gartland and I were playing with the 10/22® rifle. Gene Clark and Simon Reynolds had just returned from England where they had tested a dozen Anschutz barreled actions at the Eley plant in hopes of finding the best lots of rimfire ammunition available for the AMU International Rifle Team. They found it! 1.5 million rounds of it! By the way USAMU now holds the Eley plant record for smallest group aggregate.

I have always wanted to visit England and was talking with Simon, who at the time was an English citizen, about his travels. We were looking over targets and I noticed that the groups from the Anschutz barreled actions were no smaller than Chucks tricked out 10/22®. That $150 rifle shot great but that $10 trigger needed some serious help.

I knew I could improve on the Ruger® single stage geometry and make a better hammer and sear. However no matter what I did, although better than stock, it was still a Ruger®. I came to the conclusion that you just cant put enough parts in a Ruger® trigger to make it good. One thing led to another and before I knew it I was redesigning the assembly. Obviously it had to be two stage, light, repeatable, and reliable.

While working on the prototype trigger, rifle shooter extraordinaire, Troy Lawton, came to me and asked if I could help him with his 10/22® trigger. His trigger was about 1 1/2 lbs and worked in some guns but not this gun. I told him about the new trigger and he wanted to check it out. Originally the 10/22® was going to be a Smallbore Silhouette rifle used for windy conditions. Using the 10/22® would allow Troy to engage targets quickly when the wind settled. His primary rifle would be an Anschutz bolt gun.

After a week with the prototype, Troy called to tell me the 10/22® with the KID trigger was going to be his primary rifle. It was as accurate as his Anschutz and the trigger was as good as his Anschutz so why shoot the Anschutz? Three weeks later Troy won the Smallbore Silhouette Nationals. This had never been done with an autoloader much less a 10/22®.

I got busy and developed a safety and bolt hold open. I applied for and finally received a patent for the KIDD trigger. I ventured into a couple of bad business deals over the next few years and began to think I would never see this great trigger come to market. I owe a great deal of thanks to my family and many good friends for supporting, believing in, and pushing me to make this thing happen. What a learning experience this has been. But WOW! it's here and I have met a lot of great people because of it.