Took my Portugese built FMP out and somewhere along the line the spot welds for the handguard retainer on the cocking tube have let go, so the retainer is loose and the handguard flops everywhere.  This is a parkerized rifle, not painted, built in the 80’s.

Was considering just drilling out the welds and plug welding it to the tube with a MIG (which I have) or a TIG (would need to pay someone else).  

Looks like some of the clones just used solder instead of the spot welding?  Not sure if I could do this as the retainer is loose, but I can’t easily remove it to clean up the surfaces.  Basically need to somehow fix it in place without disassembling the whole thing.

Any thoughts or suggestions?

What ever route you chose, tig welding would induce less heat

You could likely mig it and make it work

Just wont look the best

Either way the weld area needs to be cleaned for best results