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Posted: 2/26/2012 8:19:23 AM EDT
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Already emailed the manufacturer, waiting for a response. How pissy would y'all be? I've had this sense August last year and Put about 2k rounds through it and noticed it yesterday while cleaning. has carbon obviously coming from the back side of the flashhider where it meets the barrel. The only thing keeping it on is the pins.
Edit: I know it's not smith enterprises fault, it's the builder not the hider Posted Via AR15.Com Mobile |
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Id be angry. But I would have waited to post a thread until after I received word back from the manufacturer. Until you have their side of it this thread doesn't do much other than take up space in the tech forum.
I hope they sort you out though and feel free to give us an update after they get back to you, let us know if they stood behind it or left you in the dust. |
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How is it loose, like side to side wobble? Is it a threaded barrel or a set screwed and pinned flash hider?
Are you running a suppressor? I think the path of least resistance for the gas would be out and away from the barrel, not back through the threads and out the rear of the flash hider... Pictures would be good here. |
| You say the pin(s)? is holding it on, so you are legal in terms of it being "pinned". Tighten it up and forget about it. You wont hurt anything by tightening it because its loose, there is room to tighten. Worse case scenario, you smash the pin in it a bit against the threads. |
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Its a threaded barrel. the vortex has two pree drilled holes, both are welded over, left unfinished (I assume to make it obvious that it was welded). I have to assume both holes have pins, I have no idea if they are set screws. For what it's worth the vortex just has holes so threading them would be on the manufacturer , so I doubt they are set screws. Its side to side wobble is more obvious then rotational wobble. It's not the barrel nut, I checked.
I did try and tighten it, and while I realize it's pinned and the idea is its not supposed to come off, I don't wanna mess up the threads is the pins are close to the limit. So I only tightened it "wrench snug" and I could still loosen it back if I really gorilla cranked it with my hand while still In the barrel vice. So to me that means the pins are keeping it from being tight. Another thing, I know the rules, I know I'm not supposed to post gripes and problems until resolved, and that's why I didn't post any names other then pertinent parts. I put this out because I feel it should be acknowledged this can happen. Also to talk about it if it's happened to anyone else, if it's common it might be nice to have on everyone's minds, google searching didn't find anything similar so who knows. I know it's a technical forum, but can't we talk too? Posted Via AR15.Com Mobile |
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If it was properly pinned, you should not be able to tighten it back up, and it never should have came loose. A proper pin should include a hole drilled into the barrel (but not prodtruding completely though), then the pin goes through the flash hider into that hole. The weld is to keep the pin in place. If this was done, you should not be able to turn the flash hider at all because the pin is preventing it from turning around the barrel.
What it sounds like the builder did, is use the pre-drilled hole in the Vortex to drop a pin in against the barrel, but he failed to drill the hole into the barrel for the pin to lock the two together. You basically have a set screw, only with a weld holding it in place instead of threads. This method is not going to be effective, as you have already seen. I would imagine the ATF would not be happy with it either, since you clearly would be able to unscrew the flash hider even though it's welded. If you can turn the flash hider, I would make the assumption that you could also break it loose and unscrew it with a bit of effort. Overall, I would be pretty upset, since that improper pin and weld could result in a felony if the ATF didn't like it. |
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Quoted:
If it was properly pinned, you should not be able to tighten it back up, and it never should have came loose. A proper pin should include a hole drilled into the barrel (but not prodtruding completely though), then the pin goes through the flash hider into that hole. The weld is to keep the pin in place. If this was done, you should not be able to turn the flash hider at all because the pin is preventing it from turning around the barrel. The OP said it will not unscrew, so there must be a hole in the barrel, otherwise it would be completely off. I wont use the pre-drilled Vortex because the holes in it are huge. When the hole is larger than the diameter of the pin, if the torque/friction to the shoulder of the barrel comes loose, the flash hider will wiggle around the play in the hole(s). The ATF doesnt require and torque spec for installation, so as long as the undersized pin is in the oversized hole(even if the vortex is loose), it is still legally pinned to the barrel. |
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