u/SLN583

I thought the contrast between the upper and lower that came in my Bowman parts kit does a good job of demonstrating the extremes of Grey Colt Anodizing that’s possible.

I don’t believe these parts came from Hartford together, as I’m pretty sure Bowman had separate piles they grabbed stuff from.

The grey on the upper is so light it almost looks like bare aluminum, it was not painted.

The lower was painted black, but I scrubbed all the paint off and the color underneath was close enough to black to make no difference.

At first I thought maybe dye from the paint had somehow bled into the anodizing, but the inside of the lower, and the parts that would have been covered by other parts, is the same as the outside.

Just an interesting sample of one.

Picture 3 Mike from H&R posted showing various shades that happen.

Picture 4 are some other different shades.

My recommendation is, if you want a matching upper and lower, best to buy a complete black rifle.

If you want a close grey match, buy a complete grey rifle, or learn how to do moly resin.

Very excited to get my grubby little hands on this Original Upper Receiver. The seller told me it was a Police Trade In, but not from which department it came from. Unlike most Police trade ins, this one’s in really nice shape. There are a couple of marks on it, but the anodizing is a beautiful deep Grey, and is as smooth and even as the Parkerizing.

Looking with my bore scope, the barrel has plenty of life left, and the gas port looks good.

The markings make me guess it’s from the late 80s or early 90s. Parentheses around the (C) on the barrel may put it on the earlier side. It has Colt Harvey forge marks, a milspec front pin lug, a full auto sear cut, a peel washer and what appears to be the shallow early feed ramps.

This thing will really take my Gothic Serpent Delta Clone to the next level.

Comp M, Swan Sleeve, RAS, Redi Mag, LSO grip, probably has a John Masen Butt Pad zip tied on as well.

Please correct me if I got any of this wrong.

Not an exact clone of any particular Rifle, just kind of a mashup of stuff from the period.

I’m not crazy about the blueish grey anodizing on the vintage Eagle Arms A2 upper, so knowing me and my OCD, I will probably blow it apart and moly resin it a closer match to the lower eventually.

H&R Toob upper also pictured for comparison.

Colts Entry into the Advanced Combat Rifle Program, it was not adopted but did lead to some eventual improvements in Stoners Rifle.

The flattop was eventually adopted, as was the the 4 position buffer tube and the Elcan optic. The Stock was the developmental basis for the SOPMOD Stock.

It was designed to fire duplex ammunition, an idea that ordnance had been chasing since the SPIW program in the 60s.

The program ran from 1986 and was ended in 1990.

Most of these are on the Smithsonian/National archive website with no further info. Interesting, to me anyway, to see the different ways Colt marked these over the decades.

Carbon Fiber Tube Handguard Project nearing Completion.

The handguard part is finished, and I am very happy with the results. As some asstute observers guessed in my previous teaser post, this is indeed an Airsoft Artisan brand Cramblit tube that I modified to more fit my idea of how it should look,fit and work. Some Airsoft stuff is cheap crap, some is as high quality as any other gun parts made in China or Taiwan, and this handguard definitely falls into the high quality end of things.

The tube itself comes in black, and is listed as being carbon fiber, and I believe this is accurate. I worried at first that it might be plastic or fiberglass, but I don’t think that is the case. The barrel nut, collar and threaded adapter tube are anodized aluminum and appear to be of good quality. I tightened the barrel nut to 40 foot pounds of torque with no problems.

The rivet nuts that came on it don’t look accurate to me, they are too shiny and have a textured surface that looks wrong. I also wanted to make my tube green, like the one on Kyle Lambs rifle, so I drilled out all of the rivet nuts with a drill press, which was a huge Pain in the ass.

The bare tube was then coated with olive green Norrels Moly Resin. Baking at 300 degrees for an hour was no problem for the tube, as I was half afraid it would melt. Very happy with the finish as the color is a good match a compares well with the green on my H&R JSOC Tube.

The threaded adapter tube was only held on to the carbon fiber tube by the two rivets at the rear, and there was a good amount of movement between those 2 parts, so I decided to bond the carbon fiber tube to the aluminum tube with original JB Weld. Even before I reinserted the 2 new rivet nuts, it was rock solid and if you leave everything else alone, I highly recommend doing this to anyone getting one of these hand-guards.

I searched for the correct rivet nuts, and I ended up buying three different types. I will call them thin, medium and thick. The thin ones look most correct to the original pics I have found online, but they left a big gap in the recesses factory cut around the holes, so I went with the medium sized ones as they fit the recesses perfectly. If you are modifying a real Armalite tube that has no pre drilled holes, go with the thin ones.

Looking at picks, the original rivet nuts appear to have been zinc plated. But the zinc has worn off on the outside surface, so it still has a gold hue. I tried my best to replicate this.

I used a drill attachment to install the rivet nuts, which worked great.

I used a Ballistic advantage undrilled barrel, mostly because it was pretty cheap, i used a DEZ Arms bolt on gas block, because it was so much easier to tighten the set screws through the holes than it would be to bang in gas block pins. I dimpled the barrel and used blue loctite on the pins. I’ll see how well it holds up over time.

The order of assembly was as follows.

I attached the barrel to the upper by placing the handguard nut in place and torquing on the barrel nut.

I put the FSB, with the four set screws started, into the top opening of the handguard.

I then installed the gas tube into the FSB and pinned it in place by pulling it up out of the opening and resting the FSB on the corner of my bench block.

I then pulled the hand-guard, with the front sight base and gas tube, over the barrel and guided the chamber end of the gas tube through the hole in the barrel nut.

I then tightened the handguard cap onto the threaded barrel nut, until it was tight, after putting some blue loctite on the threads.

I then used an Allen bit to tighten the 4 FSB set screws through the side holes in the hanguard.

I test fit everything several times before final assembly so it went together very easy.

The tube with the perfectly machine cut openings is easily worth the 2 hundo dollhairs I paid for it.

I’ll make another post with more pictures once the complete rifle is together.

I needed a revolver to participate in wheel gun night competition at my local club, buying this one was a result of peer pressure.

Of course it needed a red dot, and this one was had been homeless for a while.

This 7000L was really cheap on eBay a few years ago, and when I see an Aimpoint for less than $200, my finger automatically hits the buy it now button without conscious thought.

I kind of looks too big on everything I mount it to.🤷‍♂️

Seriously, is it too much? I’m tempted to use one of my spare Aimpoint Comps instead, but this is kind of growing on me.

Any opinions on which rivet nuts look best? The three on the left or the three on the right?

Not my Auction.

I always wanted one of these.thought this was a postcard or magazine ad. Today I learned it’s a 22x16 poster from back in the day. I found a seller on eBay that listed a few for sale back in March and messaged him to see if he had any more. I bought a couple and figured Some of you like minded animals might be interested. They are $18+$12 shipping in a poster tube and he will combine shipping on multiples.

https://ebay.us/m/CfUzYR

Local 3 gun match, shooting the JSOC TOOB Clone

I have read that the original 2 Point Adjustable Slings were made from combining an M3 Grease Gun sling and an ALICE pack strap.

The Grease Gun Sling, also known as the M1 Carbine sling, has been around since WW2 and was still in the US Army Supply System into the 1990s, as it was still being issued to Armored Vehicle crews.

The ALICE Pack strap showed up in the early 1970s, so these slings are probably late for a Vietnam era Carbine, but I run them on guns from that era anyway, as well as just about every other Carbine I own.

One of the tricks is to top or side mount the sling instead of using the sling swivel behind the bayonet lug. Easiest to route the ALICE Strap through the triangle of the front sight base using the loop at the end of the ALICE Pack strap as shown in the pic.

In the rear, the Grease Gun sling is wrapped around the stock and exits out of the sling loop on top of the stock.

The Grease Gun sling is routed through the Loop on the ALICE Strap and snapped closed, attaching the front and rear straps in the middle of the sling.

The Carbine can then be worn across your chest and is immediately accessible. The sling routes over your right shoulder, down your back and under your left armpit. The sling can be tightened and loosened using your left hand to either pull the tail tight or grab the string on the adjuster and let the weight of the gun loosen/add slack to the sling.

I don’t know if Kyle Lamb invented this sling or not, but he certainly was influenced by it when he came up with his VTAC sling, as it is very similar.

I’ll post a link to a VTAC video in the comments illustrating how the sling works.