CNF (Castle Nut, Forward Controls Design)

[fledge]

When it comes to retail, I appreciate less sales and more rewards for loyalty. Yeah, give your loyal guys some creative discounts. It doesn’t diminish the value of your profit that way but builds relationships for future sales. Let the insiders keep spreading enthusiasm beyond marketing enthusiasm.

I think Black Friday is stupid from a retail perspective unless you have to dump inventory and make an event of it.

Looking forward to the pics when they come, Roger.

[Duffy]

We email the folks that signed up for our newsletter, but not all customers sign up for it, and you can do that without buying a thing.

We spend a lot of money on swag last year, more expensive swag gets included for repeat customers. I keep finding new and hopefully useful swag, not the typical hat and T shirts, I had so many of them, I donated most when we moved in 2014.

Sling Keep was something I made, then realized how useful it was, it became a swag, then I decided to list it as a regular item, most of our swag isn't listed for sale, but only given to customers and friends.

I'll give the builder's kit more thought. We still need a few more items to flesh out the kit, not all of which I want to outsource, but I don't want the factory fare either

Depending on when CNF can be black nitrided, we'll be showing pics a few days prior to its public release. We'll receive the prototypes today, and chances are they'll go into production before 2018.

I don't want to appear to downplay the CNF, but we strive to be as honest to customers as we are to ourselves. CNF is an incremental improvement to the factory unit. It's a ring with inside threads, in keeping with our design philosophy, we keep to the same parts count and keep it simple, and we make it with all the precision and care due a precision instrument. FCD and CMT are capable of it, it's the only way we know how to make things, a binary choice between the best, or nothing.

CNF came about not so much because the TDP spec castle nut is poorly designed, but I've always found it wanting in some aspects. The smooth surface without serrations isn't a big deal for most, but I don't like using the wrench notches for traction while screwing it onto the RE, so we added some useful serrations there.

The serrations are the one time feature we mentioned. After it's been installed, they cease to have any function. It doesn't cost anything to add, no reason to leave them out. The staking notches are slightly modified in number and geometry, also simple changes to make it difficult to remove, once properly staked in 2 places, per Army manual, unless the user wants to loosen it, and even then, it'd require more effort than with a factory castle nut.

We've been asked numerous times to design a new castle nut and end plate with some unidentified feature (just make it better, that kind of unclear directive), we'd steadfastly declined. When we did decide to make one, it is a decidedly old fashioned nut that doesn't differ from TDP specs much, for its mission is to keep the RE securely screwed on the weapon in adverse conditions and hard use, and nothing else. Come to think of it, that is precisely the castle nut's job, it's a fastener. Nobody wants the fastener to come loose, it needs no other functions.

With CNF, we'll make staking great again

[fledge]

I find your discounts tasteful and minor, Roger. And I like that you give us loyal folks a code. :)

I must admit, making staking great again sounds fancy.

[Stone]

Roger Wang, Making castle nut staking great again, one nut at a time.

[Duffy]

I'm surprised how many castle nuts are out of spec. Some notches are too small, some larger than TDP specs, some don't even conform to either width, angle and depth.

Sad thing is this isn't an isolated example, we found some billet receivers' FA plunger hole is too thin, and doesn't allow TDP spec FAs, including LDFAs, to be installed.

[aamp84]

I hand pick most of the parts in my builds, even down to detents and springs. I buy your parts not so much for the improvements you make, but because of the quality in materials you use and your standards of quality in design and manufacturing.

[Duffy]

Thank you, I do hope you find them functionally improved as well

[Duffy]

We're 2 to 3 weeks away from release, so we can now post some pics



We made some last minute changes to the serrations so they're less prominent. If these flutes look familiar, it's because they took their styling from a revolver's cylinder flutes. They seemed to be the first thing folks commented on, and thought of as cosmetic. The widely spaced flutes are coarse serrations, a single use feature while the castle nut is rotated clockwise toward the end plate on the receiver extension.

The new flutes are shorter, the original design's longer length wasn't necessary, and attracted too much attention.

We changed the staking notch angle from 45 to 30 degrees to allow more displaced material to "flow" into the notch, and increased the number of staking notches from 3 to 4. A castle nut is to be staked in two places. At all times, 3 of CNF's staking notches are available for staking. We're not advocating staking the castle nut in more than 2 places, we offer more staking locations/options.

Below is the prototype CNF with original flutes. Latest revision has shorter flutes.

[Big_Tom]

We email the folks that signed up for our newsletter, but not all customers sign up for it, and you can do that without buying a thing.

We spend a lot of money on swag last year, more expensive swag gets included for repeat customers. I keep finding new and hopefully useful swag, not the typical hat and T shirts, I had so many of them, I donated most when we moved in 2014.

Sling Keep was something I made, then realized how useful it was, it became a swag, then I decided to list it as a regular item, most of our swag isn't listed for sale, but only given to customers and friends.

I'll give the builder's kit more thought. We still need a few more items to flesh out the kit, not all of which I want to outsource, but I don't want the factory fare either

Depending on when CNF can be black nitrided, we'll be showing pics a few days prior to its public release. We'll receive the prototypes today, and chances are they'll go into production before 2018.

I don't want to appear to downplay the CNF, but we strive to be as honest to customers as we are to ourselves. CNF is an incremental improvement to the factory unit. It's a ring with inside threads, in keeping with our design philosophy, we keep to the same parts count and keep it simple, and we make it with all the precision and care due a precision instrument. FCD and CMT are capable of it, it's the only way we know how to make things, a binary choice between the best, or nothing.

CNF came about not so much because the TDP spec castle nut is poorly designed, but I've always found it wanting in some aspects. The smooth surface without serrations isn't a big deal for most, but I don't like using the wrench notches for traction while screwing it onto the RE, so we added some useful serrations there.

The serrations are the one time feature we mentioned. After it's been installed, they cease to have any function. It doesn't cost anything to add, no reason to leave them out. The staking notches are slightly modified in number and geometry, also simple changes to make it difficult to remove, once properly staked in 2 places, per Army manual, unless the user wants to loosen it, and even then, it'd require more effort than with a factory castle nut.

We've been asked numerous times to design a new castle nut and end plate with some unidentified feature (just make it better, that kind of unclear directive), we'd steadfastly declined. When we did decide to make one, it is a decidedly old fashioned nut that doesn't differ from TDP specs much, for its mission is to keep the RE securely screwed on the weapon in adverse conditions and hard use, and nothing else. Come to think of it, that is precisely the castle nut's job, it's a fastener. Nobody wants the fastener to come loose, it needs no other functions.

With CNF, we'll make staking great again

As to the swag, I was surprised to get a carpenter's pencil with my order. Which I use them time to time working with my dad. But that one won't see any action just cause I like it.

Which reminds me I've been needing to get a 308 bolt catch from ya.

[Duffy]

I try to find items folks may find useful to include. Most swag I get when I order things from others is a business card, or something I can't use. Carpenter's pencil is kind of cool in that I've never got one as swag, and folks can actually use it :)

CNF has a slight design change to tone down the aesthetics. The flutes / coarse serrations in the original design were kept understated, but they seem to attract too much attention onto themselves, this is not the intent. These flutes serve a function, a single use feature while installing the castle nut, but they're the most noticeable things on CNF, and lead folks to think they're cosmetic.

The flutes are only on the spanner wrench side, not on the staking notch side. Serrations that go end to end just don't look good on a castle nut, especially when installed. ARs have lines and curves we're used to, the flutes on CNF were small to begin with, the production unit's are smaller still, as to maintain the classic looks, and not disrupt them.

This is the prototype with the original design, still in the white. A black nitrided CNF will stand out much less.


The 0.04 shorter flutes do the job just as well, and give the illusion of being smaller in width at the same time.

Original design on left, production unit on right:

[DekNgo]

I try to find items folks may find useful to include. Most swag I get when I order things from others is a business card, or something I can't use. Carpenter's pencil is kind of cool in that I've never got one as swag, and folks can actually use it :)

This is the prototype with the original design, still in the white. A black nitrided CNF will stand out much less.

I'm guessing this picture is showing POF's ambi QD endplate. I'm not sure if its dimensions are the same as the LWRC ambi QD sling mount, but aesthetically it looks strange with the CNF not being flush with the endplate.

Here's a picture of the LWRC ambi QD sling mount with a standard castle nut on one of my rifles. You can see that the castle nut is flush with the endplate. Does the CNF have the same dimensions as a regular castle nut? If not, maybe that can be a future enhancement for CNF 2.0.

[Duffy]

It's a KAC carbine end plate sling adapter. I thought about making the CNF shorter to make it compatible with the KAC end plate, but gave up on the idea for now. KAC's end plate sling adapter shipped with the old style slip ring that can't be staked, it's not very tall, though it does allow the stock latch to engage the first stop. A milspec height castle nut will not allow the stock latch to engage the first stop on the RE when KAC's, or many sling adapters with side QD sockets are in use.

With the spanner wrench notches, the castle nut would have to be pretty short to be flush with them, but it can be an option down the road. CNF uses the same height as TDP specs and tolerances.

[Stone]

Will these be nitrocarderized?

[Duffy]

They'll be black nitrided

[homeless]

I just got my filthy hands on a a CNF, I had to use up all my favors and bribes and black mail material, but man is it worth it.

This little nut is nice. The machine work is top notch. I can't say anything about the coating because mine is still in white.