Free Float Rails on AR15

[smokey]

hmm. good to know. thanx guys. and kev, hope ya did well hunting and have good luck for the rest of the season. shoot me a pm if u need anything cheaper than normal from basspro.

 

[glock_forty5]

the 50 -90 range is to properly line up the spline on the barrel nut. The actual procedure is to tighten and untighten the barrel nut 3 times to seat the barrel nut. I didn't make this up. Clint McKee told me - and he knows a little bit about ARs. With free floats I usually tighten to 50 and then increase in 5# increments until the 60 to 70 range. It all depends on the feel.

This is the same way I do it. It is in the manual for a reason (usually the reason was someone's blood) and does not take much time to do it the right way.

JT

 

[glock_forty5]

Resting a non free floated barrel on either a wall, sand bag, car hood or anything else does cause barrel movement and POI shift.

I can take my hand, and with very little pressure cause the barrel on my 20" Gov Profile barrel to move significantly, same goes for my 11.5" barrel. While simply resting the barrel on something may not cause movement you can see, it will change your POI. You can easily shift the POI an inch at 100 yards by simply resting the barrel/hanguards on something.

Jeep is right, the two gun match I shot tow weekends ago there was a stage with baracade at 180yds. Guys were bracing the rifle hard in the port and missing, once they moved to the prone position they were hitting. The free floating rigs ran that stage.

JT

 

[Kevp]

hmm. good to know. thanx guys. and kev, hope ya did well hunting and have good luck for the rest of the season. shoot me a pm if u need anything cheaper than normal from basspro.

Thanks Smokey. I left Friday evening for the duck opener. We shot a few birds, but I expected it to be much better than it was with the kind of weather we had. I've heard guys did well on the Flats so I guess that is where the birds wanted to be. Do you know Tim Funk from Bass Pro? I played softball with him, DU stuff, and his wife is an exec for my support contractor. Good guy.

 

[alucard0822]

I may be in the minority, but most of the ARs I have built have been budet builds for playing around at the range, and some light competition, and so far UTG gurds have worked well for me, as have Midwest industries free float rails. They clamp securely, and the finish is pretty good on them, they do not free float, but at the usually 100 yards and under ranges I shoot it at, they have been fine. I have my EOtech mounted right over the gap between the reciever and handguard rail on my latest 14.5" M4gery, and it seems to hold 0 well, although there is about 2-3" of shift if I rest the front grip on a sandbag compared to shooting while standing. However, I have been getting more and more into competing, and my needs just might outgrow the UTG rig. I have been looking into a YHM diamond series rail to replace it with as my needs evolve, still looks to be a good rail, and I can justify the cost. I do like the daniels defense and troy rails, and the ones I have seen have been nothing short of spectacular, they are indeed the best quality, but are too pricey for my needs, If I used the carbine for defense, then they would be justified, but I don't so they aren't. The one precision 24" AR I built got an inexpensive vented free float tube with a short section of pic rail on the bottom for mounting a bipod and sling adapter, free floated the barrel, and it shot very well, consistently grouping well under 1" at 100 yards.

In torquing the barrel nuts there is one thing to keep in mind, you have to have the AR wrench at a 90 degree angle to the torque wrench in order to get an accurate reading, if it is straight out, the measured torque will be a good bit below the actual torque on the nut. I use moly grease, and use a barrel vise instead of a reciever vise, and have had good luck. I also use a set of calipers to make sure the top flute or hole is lined up exactly with the reciever rail and gas tube hole, so that the rails that use bolts to clamp into or onto the nut are straight.