Juche90
Active Member
- May 10, 2014
- 414
Sounds like it would be easier to get a new upper altogether.
It's your rifle. You can do what you want. That said, the handguard you picked is fugly. You might want to look around a little bit more.
If you do change to a free float. You can cut the sight tower off the front sight base. This keeps the gas block in place and allows you to take off the barrel nut and delta ring. There are even some free float rails that use the stock barrel nut. (Fortis comes to mind)
Whatever you decide, good luck and welcome to the forum.
Sounds like it would be easier to get a new upper altogether.
Buff:
You may very well be right. My tearing apart is for aesthetics, not to improve it's shooting. That probably annoys the real gun lovers, ex-military, LEOs etc, but in my world, I'm going to have fun shooting it regardless. Not trying to be a marksmen, I enjoy shooting period. So these changes boil down to making my new toy look sexy.
"Don't judge me".
No he can't... He has to take the gas system off, before attempting to remove the stock barrel nut, doe to how the gas tube fits into the notches of the barrel nut. No matter how he plays this game, he will have to remove the gas block, if he puts a free floated rail on. He has to remove the delta ring and spring, and unless he cuts them off, he will have to remover the barrel nut.
Thank you everyone. This thread both annoyed me and taught me a lot about what is needed to get the job done.
Annoying because people don't seem to respect that people want what they want. That what you might find ugly, others like. I can almost feel the age ranges based on some comments. I'm 34, I'm not a veteran, LEO, or a marksman guys. I enjoy shooting for fun and that's about it. I want to customize my gun to what appeals to me aesthetically (since let's face it we live in MD, we won't get to shoot as much as we want), and those saying I'm "doing too much too soon" I thought changing handguards was one of the milder mods.
Yes everyone wants to keep the iron sights, and after shooting it maybe I will to. But you can't miss what you never had. If I start shooting with my magnified scope and I hit the target who cares how I did it? You may, but I don't. It's fun, period. If I totally suck and require iron sights, you can say "told you so".
By the way I take no offense, every forum to me is like a dysfunctional family. Every one wants to be there to help out, "care" for one another, but you also have the belligerents, and the drunk uncle in the corner shouting profanities, or telling you what you should have done. lol.
Nevertheless opinions aside I learned a lot here. That video I originally posted of Unique ARs installing a handguard confused the hell out of me because for one I didn't realize my sight was also part of the gas block. Hell I didn't know what a gas block was. Then the video showed reassembly with the new handguard but already had a low profile gas block on it. Confusing because they skipped that part. Shoddy video editing, or they thought it was obvious whereas a newbie like me didn't know.
So it appears that due to the length of my handguard, the front sight will have to come off, or at least be moved up much farther (not sure if that is even useful).
New low profile gas block will be required.
By the way while I'm confident I could do it all myself, I've decided to let my gun shop handle it. Mainly because it's likely not worth it for me to screw with it since these are likely the only mods I'll ever do to it, can't see dropping boatloads of money on this and it won't get much use. If I lived in GA it might be a different story.
I'm just babbling now but whoever said I wouldn't notice the front sights with my magnified scope was right. But my handguard is longer than stock so that front sight has to come off or move up to the front.
I went with a SIG TAC CP1 Prismatic Scope with Illuminated Reticle, while I haven't used it in a range environment yet, it's pretty nice for a cheapo (again with my limited AR and scope knowledge).
Thank you everyone. This thread both annoyed me and taught me a lot about what is needed to get the job done.
Annoying because people don't seem to respect that people want what they want. That what you might find ugly, others like. I can almost feel the age ranges based on some comments. I'm 34, I'm not a veteran, LEO, or a marksman guys. I enjoy shooting for fun and that's about it. I want to customize my gun to what appeals to me aesthetically (since let's face it we live in MD, we won't get to shoot as much as we want), and those saying I'm "doing too much too soon" I thought changing handguards was one of the milder mods.
Yes everyone wants to keep the iron sights, and after shooting it maybe I will to. But you can't miss what you never had. If I start shooting with my magnified scope and I hit the target who cares how I did it? You may, but I don't. It's fun, period. If I totally suck and require iron sights, you can say "told you so".
By the way I take no offense, every forum to me is like a dysfunctional family. Every one wants to be there to help out, "care" for one another, but you also have the belligerents, and the drunk uncle in the corner shouting profanities, or telling you what you should have done. lol.
Nevertheless opinions aside I learned a lot here. That video I originally posted of Unique ARs installing a handguard confused the hell out of me because for one I didn't realize my sight was also part of the gas block. Hell I didn't know what a gas block was. Then the video showed reassembly with the new handguard but already had a low profile gas block on it. Confusing because they skipped that part. Shoddy video editing, or they thought it was obvious whereas a newbie like me didn't know.
So it appears that due to the length of my handguard, the front sight will have to come off, or at least be moved up much farther (not sure if that is even useful).
New low profile gas block will be required.
By the way while I'm confident I could do it all myself, I've decided to let my gun shop handle it. Mainly because it's likely not worth it for me to screw with it since these are likely the only mods I'll ever do to it, can't see dropping boatloads of money on this and it won't get much use. If I lived in GA it might be a different story.
I'm just babbling now but whoever said I wouldn't notice the front sights with my magnified scope was right. But my handguard is longer than stock so that front sight has to come off or move up to the front.
I went with a SIG TAC CP1 Prismatic Scope with Illuminated Reticle, while I haven't used it in a range environment yet, it's pretty nice for a cheapo (again with my limited AR and scope knowledge).