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Not true. The smaller firing pin collar on SOME of the civilian ARs is designed to hook the hammer notch (on the Type II style hammer) and stop the gun from runaway firing should the disconnector fail.
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While the Colt engineers did come up with that unique hammer which was designed to catch and destroy the firing pin of a runaway commercial AR-15 (runaway due to mechanical problem or an intentional attempt to 'modify' things), and the lighter collar is easier to destroy than the heavier one, the instructor in one of my Colt classes said it was also able to made lighter because it wasn't going to be subjected to the same stresses as a FA gun. Different sides of the same coin, so to speak.
Colt did a number of things to try and appease concerns over whether their rifles could be easily converted from semi to FA. Studies in engineering, if nothing else.