Creeky73
22 July 2010, 17:44
so myself and a friend received our MOE carbine hand guards yesterday, and I wanted to give a head's up about one thing and ask a question about another.
First off, I wanted to give owners of hbar's notice, you might have to work a little to get these installed if you plan on using the magpul rails on the upper half. The problem is, the screws that are included with the rail sections stick out almost a good 1/4" inside the hand guard once they are snugged up. The bottom half then has a really nice (and very easily scratched, not that it will be noticed once installed) heat shield that goes almost all the way around the barrel, but it also must get around these protruding bolts from the rail sections. On the heavy barrel profile, the barrel is no more than about a 1/16" from actually touching these bolts, and it just doesn't leave much room for that heat shield to get around. We tried strategically bending it in places, and a few other methods, but in the end, we had to grind down the bolts to get more clearance. None of this was an issue on my light profile upper and I doubt if it would be on anything other than the heavy profile.
Now for the question. On mine, which is a BCM upper, the hand guard feels super snug, and I am almost tempted to put a laser on it just for testing purposes, and see how well it will hold zero. On my friend's RRA, the hand guard will move around a little bit, with maybe about an 1/8" play from left to right if you are looking down at the top of the hand guard. Any reason why this might be? I am wondering if the barrel nut might be kinda stripped out in places, allowing for some play. It is not that I was expecting a drop-in hand guard to hold zero for a laser or optic, but I don't know if I would be all that happy with the amount of play on his gun. Possible fixes?
Oh, and if you haven't seen MOE hand guards up close, no picture I have seen online does them justice. Very nice pieces.
Thanks for your time, guys.
First off, I wanted to give owners of hbar's notice, you might have to work a little to get these installed if you plan on using the magpul rails on the upper half. The problem is, the screws that are included with the rail sections stick out almost a good 1/4" inside the hand guard once they are snugged up. The bottom half then has a really nice (and very easily scratched, not that it will be noticed once installed) heat shield that goes almost all the way around the barrel, but it also must get around these protruding bolts from the rail sections. On the heavy barrel profile, the barrel is no more than about a 1/16" from actually touching these bolts, and it just doesn't leave much room for that heat shield to get around. We tried strategically bending it in places, and a few other methods, but in the end, we had to grind down the bolts to get more clearance. None of this was an issue on my light profile upper and I doubt if it would be on anything other than the heavy profile.
Now for the question. On mine, which is a BCM upper, the hand guard feels super snug, and I am almost tempted to put a laser on it just for testing purposes, and see how well it will hold zero. On my friend's RRA, the hand guard will move around a little bit, with maybe about an 1/8" play from left to right if you are looking down at the top of the hand guard. Any reason why this might be? I am wondering if the barrel nut might be kinda stripped out in places, allowing for some play. It is not that I was expecting a drop-in hand guard to hold zero for a laser or optic, but I don't know if I would be all that happy with the amount of play on his gun. Possible fixes?
Oh, and if you haven't seen MOE hand guards up close, no picture I have seen online does them justice. Very nice pieces.
Thanks for your time, guys.