Low Profile

We had a nice night at the Gun Club banquet, and met some neat people who provided enjoyable conversation – and so I missed out on the 9mm Shield and the other raffle prizes but it went to a good cause. Went to bed late, about 10:30pm, and slept in until 7:30 – awakening to bright sunrise and greenery. Woot!
Nice to be out from under the damp blanket for a day, so I threw open all the windows as the temps rocketed up to 71-degrees and brought-in some fresh air. With a dry spell forecast and neighbors working outside with blowers and various yard-implements, I vacuumed up all the wood splinters and junk in the Garage then set-to the real mischief.

Oops, now I need a low-profile gas-block to fit under the Troy rail. I was unhappy with the Magpul plastic set because it did not allow me to put things where I wanted them. The M-Lok screw-down fasteners interfered with each other at the various available positions where I wanted them, and I was unable to close the clam-shell onto the standard handguard snap-ring because of the metal heat-shields kept getting hung-up on the interior bits.

I loosened up the gas-block before realizing I had to remove the roll-pin, then I realized I had to remove the muzzle-end flash-hider/compensator. Good thing for the soft-jaws on the bench vise! Now I can also put-on a jazzy compensator-thing too, since flash-hiders are Evil in California. Good thing they are practically indistinguishable from each other and Politicians are inherently stupid people.
The Troy Omega free-float Rail was on-sale and perhaps was a loss-leader and obsolete with current trends, but I always liked it and again it was at a substantial discount. Now I need to get the old handguard Delta-ring off so I can mount-up the float-tube…

AR Build

The ten-day paperwork is ticking on the lower from Richard that I “won” at the Rendezvous, so I bought a Bullet Button and a CMMG LPK – and a MOE handle in FDE. Moe of the Stooges. Flat Dark Earth looks nothing whatsoever like “flat dark earth” because it has no loamy bottom-land Super-Soil type richness. It looks more like a crusty broken dirt-clod in the California summer among the hot dry hills – everything is a bleached dirt color, and I resemble that. The Noveske build is OD Green, and the Match Rifle is just CMP-Black, so this is the other end of the color spectrum besides pink.
And then what? Seems like for Uppers the “key-mod” – AKA “my build-it-yourself shelving system from Costco”- is the latest rage. Also I think a lighter rifle than the 3/4-Ton F-250 Noveske Pickup-truck is appropriate for family-fun.
I still want a free-floating handguard for accuracy, and maybe some ~bling~ like TiN or Nickel Boron in the interior where lubricity matters. I don’t see a need to load up the stock with a lot of batteries and other things. I’m thinking “running around” gun, and maybe as this State collapses into anarchy, “run-fast and hide-somewhere gun.”
Anyhow it’s beginning.
I already have a trigger and I don’t feel like going all Giesselelly, and with the dried-mud colored handle, I’m getting a dirt-colored ambi-selector from some bad-ass tactical Ninja-named company that I can’t even remember the actual name of, but it uses the word/letters “BAD” in it so it must be bad or buiutxchin’ … And I am leaning, familiarity-wise, towards the CTR stock (in FDE). Maybe I could get the single-stage Rock-River trigger dipped in some wicked-slick boron-nitride witches-brew so the pull-weight is a scary .002 ounces!?
Yeh that would be great for home defense…and a Slide-Fire stock with the same super-slick treatment so that it jumps right out of your hands. Then the tactical gloves would rally help – finally!
It’s like selling your street-bike and putting Armor-All on the seat to impress the new rider/buyer, “Whoa Dude, it’s FAAAAST!!
Anyhow I have not kept-up with the latest booger-slinging stuff on the web-boards, so I dunno. Dirt-color is all. Ashes to dirt…

And then…

…the tiny Mossberg safety detent ball-bearing ball rolled off the receiver into space, made a small *ping* sound as it hit the plastic carpet-protector mat, and disappeared into Carpetland… Oh great.

To continue: The Brown Truck of Happiness had arrived and delivered my tacticool Vang-Comp oversize safety button, solid metal instead of plastic – so I set to work examining how this thing comes apart and goes back. I examined for about twenty seconds and then unscrewed the one-way safety top-screw.
And the bottom fell out and rattled around inside the action.

But the tiny spring and the microscopic ball-detent were still with me in Happy-Land. So then I had to remove the trigger group by pusing-out out the trigger-housing retaining pin, and two more pieces fell out. Those would be #11 and #12, the cartridge stop and cartridge interrupter. And also the safety block fell free which is what I needed in the first place. So OK, hitch up the big-boy pants and re-assemble – which is when the tiny ball-bearing took flight.

After tearing out my remaining and non-existent hair, and crawling fruitlessly under the desk with a Surefire light that got too hot to hold, I started searching through the Wise Men of Internet for a Clue and the ball-diameter.

I came across an amazing and hyper-logical suggestion: Magnet+Vacuum. I went out to the garage and got the Craftsman magnetized parts-tray that I SHOULD HAVE BEEN USING IN THE FIRST PLACE, and from the bedroom retrieved the small Dyson bagless mini-vac and started combing the carpet. After a few turns over one area I emptied the canister into the tray. Nothing. So I began a sweep of the next vector and hammered at the carpet some more. EUREKA!

So, re-assembly began again with much more caution (and a magnetized backstop), and it would have been great the first f*ing time but I had the Tacticool Button facing the wrong direction – so just for good measure and practice I did it again. OK, phew, finally. QUIT WHILE YOU’RE AHEAD.