After reading Jim Crews'-Some Of The Answer:Urban Carbine, I noticed he mentions and shows in various pictures that a piece of bicycle tire tube is probably your best friend on your AR. After some thought,and some tests of my own, I completely agree that it is a very welcome addition to mine, and came up with a few of my own uses. Some of these ideas are demonstrated in his book.** Some of these ideas are my personal observations. Also a note, all of these were made with a free popped tire tube obtained from the local bicycle shop(they throw out about 20 a day*Edited*). One tire tube will make about 30 or so rubber loops.
 **First.
 
 A couple of pieces around your handguard can hold an extra mag up front, not to mention a much better mount than hook and pile for pressure switches for lights and lasers.**

 Second.
 
 It can be slipped over a pistol grip for better grip adhesion. A true waterproof no slip grip, and feels pretty cool too. A great quick fix for too sharp checkering, or a too slick grip with no permanent alterations.

 Third.

 Try  feeding a piece between the bottom of your floorplate and mag body for a poor mans mag pull. Takes a little work but the rewards are great. Install them edge up for a quick grip. Super easy removal from the mag pouch and much better than 550 cord. The Tabs pop up when you open the pouch and fold down when closed. They're not as super heavy duty as the real thing, but they work none the less and hold up very well.

 Fourth.
  This one is dual use. They can be slipped over mag bodies to make them silent in the mag pouch by preventing the mag bodies from directly touching each other. The rig will become REAL quiet now. A big plus doing this is a new rubber grip area on the bottom 1/3 of the mag for mag changes. No slip no fumble mag changes! This one is cool. Try it, You'll like it.

 Fifth.
 My most recent discovery. The Reflex Fix, A.K.A. The Poor Mans Tripower . Reticle washout at night has been a big problem for me(and many others) with this sight. So here's my answer for it.
 
 Take a small piece of tire tube, a mini(1 1/2in) Cyalume light stick(GREEN please, other colors dont illuminate as well), a Trigicon Reflex II, and you now have a sight system ready for any lighting condition.  Just pull the tubing over the front of the sight, crack the lightstick to activate and stuff it in between the tubing and the fiber optics under the polarizing filter on the front sight. As long as this setup is used with the polarizing filter attached, there is NO light signature from any angle, and your aiming dot is about %300 brighter for approximately 8 hours. In daylight just pull the tube foreward and expose the fiber optics again, . Then at dusk insert another Cyalume charge. Pretty cool huh? A Poor Mans Tripower.

 I made a prototype of a light stick holder for the front of this sight, but the tire tube worked right off the bat and was the right price(free) and the mini Cyalume light sticks run about a buck a piece. I've since abandoned the lengthy R&D and went right to using this setup. High speed low drag, and low cost! I love my Reflex again!
 
 I've come to a realization, that the KISS principle is a good one, and I now keep a few extra pieces of tubing in my shooting kit. These are great ideas and they're so simple they work. Thats the thing that gets most people. Friends at the range kind of look at me weird at first, handle my AR with all these pieces of tire tube on it, then proceed to do the same thing I did. Just go WOW it feels and works so much better. Then they're asking me for a few pieces of tubing to try themselves.
 
 Well guys, I hope you enjoyed the post and try some of these ideas out. Post back and let me know what you think. Just dont cut up your kids bike tires in the process. I dont think I can handle the mad mail from all the significant others out there."He read this post on AR15.com, and proceeded to cut up our four childrens bike tires, he's crazy I tell you, CRAZY!"

Quoted: free popped tire tube obtained from the local bicycle shop(they throw out about 20 a week).

Try more like 20 a day.

I have a SIG P225, love that pistol, very accurate, but found the grip panels to be a bit slick. I hung on to a punctured innertube from my son, figuring I could always use the material somewhere. Well I cut a piece and slipped it over the grip of my SIG, very comfortable, good gripping properties and has even helped improve my groups. And as long as my son keeps riding out in the field behind the house, I'll always have a supply!

btt

Very good post, Synweap223.

Mag covers will be in place this weekend!

I'd love to see pics of the Calyume stick thing....

Also,  what size tube are you using for handguard stuff?  Skinny-tire 10-speed stuff or BMX/Mountain Bike ones?

If I can find someone local with a digital camera to help take the pics, I'd gladly post them. I'm still debating proceeding with the prototype light stick holder, but I need to come up to speed on injection molding. I made two of them by hand, but it takes a lot of time and fitting with a dremel(on the holder, not the Reflex) I'm raiding the library quite often on this subject. So if anybody in the S. FL area would like to help me out, it would be greatly appreciated.

  I used the BMX size tire tubes for all of these projects. I have a knockoff of a Surefire that has a pigtail pressure switch,  so I stretched the tubing right over the actuator on the handguard and it doesnt activate it inadvertently. Plus it gives you the option of moving the pressure pad around to whatever position you like, without a permanent attatchment. Glad you liked the post and I'll try to post some pics.

Some good ideas there (I particularly like the one about the strip of rubber on the bottom of the magazines).

Do you mind if I clean this up and permanently archive it over at www.md-ar15.com?

BTW I too would like to see pictures of the Reflex setup and where do you get your mini cylume sticks from?

Quoted: If I can find someone local with a digital camera to help take the pics,

You don't need a digital camera.  Take the pictures with your regular 35mm (even a disposable will do).  Then when you have them processed check the box indicating you want a copy on floppy (or CD) - costs an extra $5.  Then you now have digital photos.

Forrest, Its no problem, please feel free to post this at MD-AR15. I'm a member there as well, just havent had too much time to CC you this post. I thought you might like it. Thanks for the photo idea, and I'll get to work this evening on the pics.

As far as sources of cyalume lightsticks, There's a million on the net, and you can sometimes find them even at convenience stores, but Major Surplus and Survival has them. Just do a google search for cyalume and you'll get a bunch of hits. They make a 5/8 length lightstick, but its output is small and it doesnt illuminate the reticle enough, but the 1 and 1/2 in. lightsticks are bright and work really well. I've tried all the different colors(believe me, ALL of them) and the best is green. I keep about 5 of them in my buttstock with the cleaning kit now.

My fellow shooter buddy at work is really busting my chops about building him a lightstick holder like my prototype. Because of his nagging, I'll be pursuing this further. He says he'd pay for it, and others would too, but I find the easy way works just as well, for a whole lot less. I'll post pics as soon as I can.

Now that's a handy dandy useful bit of info.  Great post!

Quoted: Forrest, Its no problem, please feel free to post this at MD-AR15. I'm a member there as well, just havent had too much time to CC you this post. I thought you might like it. Thanks for the photo idea, and I'll get to work this evening on the pics.

Great it will be online in a few minutes.

Please contact me offline.

Took some pics late last night of the ReflexII and the other tubing projects. I'll be developing them tomorrow so I'll be posting shortly. I tried to get some pics of the reticle before the cyalume charge and after. I hope they came out good. I attempted to align the lens of the camera with the reflex lens. We'll see what they came out like soon.

Let's hope some over zealous photo-developer does not see your weapon pix and call the cops,  like what happened to someone up here in Bellevue WA.

Got the pics developed, and sent them to Forest for posting on MDar15(http://groups.msn.com/TheMarylandAR15ShootersSite/_homepage.msnw?pgmarket=en-us)  and for AR15.com. If you'd like to see a few go to his site and check them out. Its under the title Ranger bands. Thanks Forest! Couldnt have posted them without ya!

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