MickB

Do you have a 5 or 6 inch bench vise? If so, you can either use the DPMS panther Claw type device to hold the upper, or you can use two blocks of wood and turn the upper 90 degrees and hold it in the vice that way. Coat the threads on the upper with a small amount of grease. Insert barrel and hand tighten the barrel nut. Then, using a barrel nut wrench (such as the one from DPMS), gently hand tighten the nut till you just meet a little resistance. Loosen the nut and retighten until you again just meet resistance. Do this a total of 3 times. What you are doing here is seating the nut to the threads of the upper. Now, simply tighten the barrel nut to the next notch or hole in the nut for the gas tube to pass through cleanly. If you are paranoid, you can rent a half inch torque wrench from Auto Zone for free. AR15 barrel nut torque is typically between 35-80 ft/lb. This typically translates to "snug the nut hand tight, then turn till gas tube can pass". Mick

Valvoline Ford Lincoln Mercury moly fortified multi-purpose grease. Available at Walmart and Auto Zone. Cheap, and pretty much identical to the "mil-spec" grease.... Mick

Match updates and info will also be posted on our Facebook page; https://www.facebook.com/smm3g Mick

What does the indexing pin on the barrel look like? Any drag marks? Clearly something had to twist that barrel out of alignment. As Vlad pointed out, I would also be worried about the hardness of the upper.... Mick

Is it just me, or does something not sound right? How is it even possible to have the barrel locating pin dimple the slot in the upper from tightening a barrel nut? The only way to cause this type of damage should be from over tightening a muzzle device, or removing a stuck muzzle device. (of course, using a barrel clamp, would eliminate that issue). What am I missing here? Mick

"W" marked USGI M14 mags are from Westinghouse. OM marked M14 mags are Winchester (Olin Matheson). Even the USGI packaging is being faked. The tell tale sign is the number and location of the weld spots, and in the case of the fake "W" marked mags, they typically were very difficult to load the 20th round. That and they wouldn't feed properly. These fake mags popped up around 2004/2005. Mick I don't know if the W looks the same, but they don't look funky. I bought some of these a few years ago that were supposed to be USGI, they wouldn't work in my rifle or a friends rifle. The company that sold them to us gave us a refund. I have one Taiwanese mag that works and the rest are all CMIs, and they work. CMIs are a deal, considering what real M14 mags sold for during the ban. Hurley

You guys in the UK pining for the "old days" of when you could actually have something other than a pointy stick? Mick

Works on Gen 3 20 rounders as well as Gen 3 25 rounders. No, I have not yet tried the Lancer mags Mick

Spoke with Magpul again a couple of weeks ago, and there is still no resolution to the issue. Basically any modification to the mags requires another full round of testing with other platforms. Problem here is that the Gen 3 bolt actuation tab on the follower is CLEARLY LOWER than the Gen 2 mags, which is the root cause of the issue. I have dealt with the problem 2 ways. I found some Gen 2 P-mags which function fine. I also modified the Gen 3 mags to function 100% with the following follower modification; http://www.brianenos.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=201651 Mick

Newer Colt 9mm rifles use stainless steel pins to prevent this... Mick

The SLR clamp on will fit the AP custom tube.... Mick

Interesting thing about the CCR CRP-18 rifles is that they come with the slick adjustable gas block, but a standard weight bolt carrier and H-buffer. Mick

Be careful of some of the W marked mags, as they are not USGI, but repros that don't work very well. Stick with CMI or deal with known good vendors of USGI m14 mags.... Mick

What type of hammer is on the factory Colt? Notched 9mm (older gun), or M16 rounded hammer? If you have the M16 hammer, you have the ramped bolt, which means use any AR trigger you want... Mick

What 9mm AR do you have? As long as you have a ramped 9mm bolt and your current gun has a rounded hammer (not a notched 9mm hammer) you can run a JP trigger or as I do, a POF drop in trigger. Or most any AR15 match trigger. Mick

The BEST muzzle brake will be the one that uses the name I coined. Blast Enhancing Shot Tamer. Once that happens, whenever somebody asks "what is the best muzzle brake?", they will get one answer. Mick

I've compared the TACCOM ULW to a standard carbine buffer, but not to a carbine buffer with the weights removed. Tell you what, you can try my TACCOM ULW buffer with TTI spring in your rifle and see if you can tell the difference between it and the gutted carbine buffer.... Mick

Richard, have a chat with Neal. He had the exact same issue and spoke with Timney about it. I believe the fix is to adjust the disconnector screw. Mick

I saw many a 9mm Major open gun blow up back in the mid 1990's with 175 PF loads. Not a route I would choose... Mick

Somebody needs to adapt the SLR leaf spring system to the gas key to be able to hold the gas adjustment screw in place.... Mick

Get a +1 or +2 MXT tube end cap and fill it with lead... Mick

Be careful of your gas block. A fellow local shooter has a 15" version of this rail, and he had to dremel his JP GS5 gas block for sufficient clearance. Mick

I don't think anyone can top the dude that shot a Tucson shotgun match dressed as Katy Perry with hair, stockings and heels. And he shot a single shot break open action 12ga "boom stick" for the entire match! Mick

Completed modified follower

Step 2: setup for material removal with dremel