Versamax Lifter Mod

[Whoops!]

Don't feel like waiting for a gunsmith to modify your Versamax and don't want to worry about it going through a shipping service across state lines? I don't either.

For the life of me I can't figure out why someone hasn't already done this. Instead of welding and lengthening the lifter to get rid of thumb bite, shorten and polish it. I made it short enough so that when the lifter is horizontal in the loading port, I can still slide my thumb in and out of the loading port in front of it. In order to minimize the right side jams people may get on Versamax platforms, I left the right side of the lifter just slightly longer than the left (from this underside view, it's the left side that is ever so slightly longer). The U-shape is still preserved to guide the shells into the chamber. After doing this mod, I ran 100 mixed shells through with no issue. In fact, the bolt now runs much smoother thanks to the lightening and polishing of the lifter. This was the fastest polish job I've ever done. I went from grinding the lifter with a stone on a Dremel to 1000 grit sandpaper and finished with MAAS crème. It looks great, there are some very minute pits from the grinding that would've been eliminated if I went through the sandpaper grits instead of jumping to 1000, but I did this really quickly this morning before heading to the range. Even if I really try hard and jam my thumb against the lifter when coming out of the loading port, there is a lot more material to jam it on since the prongs on the lifter are thicker and cover more surface area the farther you shorten it. This means no bleeding, at least for me.

There are additional benefits to shortening the lifter instead of lengthening it. The lifter has less weight to deal with and moves faster. Quads are now easy even with a stock shell catch. Why is this you ask? The shells now have plenty of room to touch the bolt in front of the lifter when loading with the shotgun upside down or to the side. The closer the shells are to the bolt (the higher they are in the loading port), the less likely they are to jam on the shell catch when loading. I don't even feel like I need to open up the loading port area now.

It runs slick.

If I want to run in open it will be easier to speed load because you can jam the tube farther up there and push the shells out. For right now, I really think it's a better route than lengthening.

Edited September 8, 2014 by Whoops!