Which tool is more useful to install a barrel to the upper receiver. In reading other posts it looks like you can use either but does one have any advantages over the other?
Also, which one is useful for other purposes?
I'm trying to buy the minimum tools necessary to complete a build.
Thanks -riggo

Buy the upper vise block.  It reduces the chance of canting the front sight when installing the barrel (barrel spinning in the upper during tightening).

i have both.

i will never use the barrel vice. it just scratches it.

get the upper vice.

model 1
or
bushmaster

both are great, work on A2 or A4 uppers

I learned the hard way...go with the receiver blocks.

The barrel blocks do serve a purpose, but affixing the barrel to the upper isn't one of them.

If you are doing some work on the Front Sight Base, timing a flash hider, or other barrel work, the ability to hold the barrel rock solid is invaluable.

Both are appropriate tools.

Good point.

I use two pieces of 1 1/4"x4"x4" salvaged oak pallet that clamped together and drilled a channel through slightly narrower than the barrel diameter.  Cost: $0.  Stick them in the vise, buy some little rosin from the sporting goods store to line the block channel with and tape the barrel with electrical tape (most of the time I don't even do that).  I've done ten FAL barrelings with them and three ARs.  I also have a Bushmaster receiver block, which to date lies unused.

Drill the channel across the grain so that when you place the blocks in a vise, it does not split under pressure.


Jim

That's a good suggestion for making a barrel vice block, but if you are using only that for removing/installing a barrel, you are flirting with trouble. The barrel nut is threaded to the reciever; that is the part which needs to be held when you work with the barrel nut. The fact that you have done three doesn't lessen your chances of twisting the reciever at the locating pin slot on the next one. Think about it, the nut doesn't really attach to the barrel, it just draws the barrel into the reciever thru pressure on the extension flange. When you tighten/loosen the nut while holding the barrel, all the resulting torque is applied to the locating pin and the threaded portion of reciever it fits into. This is how most canted front sights occur, distortion of the slot in the reciever.

Regardless of which you use, some "canting" of the front sight can occur.  However, a little understood trick as to which way you want the canting to occur is determined by which method you use to restrain the receiver/barrel for assembly.

If you want to force the extension pin to the right of the index slot in the upper (right cant of the front sight), then use the barrel vise blocks to hold the assembly during tightening of the barrel nut.

If you want to induce a left cant, or favor the index pin to the left of the index slot, then use the upper receiver blocks to retain the assembly during tightening of the barrel nut.

Guess I don't understand why you would want/need to build in cant, instead of just aligning it properly?? Shouldn't the fit between the locating pin and reciever slot be tight enough to preclude cant? Unless, of course, the slot has been abused thru improper use of a barrel clamp to remove the nut.