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I’m a fan of the Modlite 18650 body with a Modlite PLHv2 lamp head. I machined the shroud off of a Surefire Z68 tailcap so it doesn’t jam my thumb as much under recoil.

Here's mine my salvo pretty much stays on there all the time now.

I'll start off with a cool and forgotten M1 Super 90 entry: picture from arfcom These are NON-NFA shotguns with the swiss cheese muzzle permanently fixed on to meet the 18" requirements. You will see 14" M4s dime a dozen, but these are exceedingly rare now especially since the M1 Super 90 has been discontinued for a while. They always had rifle sights.

I have a new FFT 1/2" charging handle that I decided not to use. Installed on the gun it has clearance of about the thickness of a piece of paper between the receiver and barrel of the handle. If I push lightly on the barrel, I can make it trap the paper. The FFT handle is a quality made item judging it simply by appearance, but I didn't feel comfortable with with the minimum clearance of the FFT and went with the TTI instead.

Yeah, he’s not right. That finish is microns thick. I’ve filed thru it a bunch doing loading port jobs. That handle has much more clearance than that in its normal position. When watching the receiver in slow-mo, you can see the receiver flex during recoil. If it was that tight, it would be making contact. If you try, you can force the handle past the detent and end up rubbing the receiver. This is the issue TTI had with their original bolt knobs. They were being over-inserted by the end user or being pushed in during transport. It caused a lot of damage too. I’m not a fan of the 3/4” size, but that’s just my personal preference. I don’t care for knurling on it either. Didn’t care for it on the Carriercomp one either. I’ve settled in on the new TTI model. Pro Tip:If you’re shipping guns or transporting in a case you should remove the bolt knobs.

Pamat, once the M4 is registered as an SBS, you are free to swap parts and barrels on it as you wish. It becomes a verified NFA registered weapon that is exempt from the 922r restrictions of X number of US parts on the weapon, and also allows you to put any length of barrel you desire on it - be it 2.5 inches or 32.5. People often say it severely limits your resellability, this is complete nonsense and is typically stated by people who have never actually gone through with the SBS or SBR process. If you leave it as an SBS and try to sell it, the only drawback is that the buyer must pay $200 to transfer it to their name. The 30-90 day wait will also apply. However, if you should decide to sell the M4 and don't want to sell it as an SBS, then simply draft a letter to the ATF NFA branch stating you wish the weapon to be removed from the NFA registry as it is being returned to its original factory configuration. Enclose a copy of the Form 1 you submitted to make the weapon and within a month or so you'll have your serial number wiped from the registry and your M4 will once again simply be a civvy standard M4. Before you send the letter you will need to restore your weapon to its original status (eg.- 18.5" barrel, regular non collapsible stock, etc.). With this done, you now have your M4 back to a regular Joe shotgun and you can sell it accordingly. Take those cool components you used for the SBS version and sell them on Gunbroker.com or another site to reclaim your investment. This way, you have to eat the $200 initial registration fee to make the thing an SBS, but it may be very worthwhile to allow faster and easier selling in case you have to *GASP!!!* sell your shotgun. In my opinion the $200 is a wash, you can blow that at the range in ammo in a weekend. Big deal. In Missouri, the CEO of a Limited Liability Corporation can approve their own Form 1 requests. Fill out the entire front side of the form and down in Block 9 the head of the LLC (which is me when I set it up with the state) signs their name, then in Block 10 the LLC head prints their name and title. Lastly, date the form in Block 11. By filling this part out, the LLC head approves the form and this completely skips the need for any Block 13 CLEO certification. If you don't go the LLC route, then you'll have to get your town or county sheriff to sign the form, and they will also have to take your fingerprints on a specific card. I've not done this before but if you have an understanding, level headed, non-Kool Aid sipping CLEO, then good for you. Consider yourself lucky. The reason I tout the LLC route as well is because since the LLC "owns" the weapon, then any officer of the company can be in possession of the weapon at any time. This way you can put your wife, dad, brother, whoever you trust down as an officer of your company when you file. I did this so in case I leave for a year deployment and my wife wants to go out and shoot one of my Class 3 weapons or transport them, she's completely legit and doesn't have to worry about running into a gray area of possessing or transporting some weapon owned by a specifically named individual. She's an officer of the LLC and has full rights to the weapon just like me. Period. You can access a Form 1 from the ATF website here: www.atf.gov/forms/pdfs/f53201.pdf One thing I haven't mentioned yet and something that caused my brother's Form 1 to be denied was that in MO, an LLC must possess either a FFL or a Curios & Relics license in order to have a Form 1 approved. There was no way he or I was going to get an FFL since we had no intention of getting into the business of selling guns and maintaining a storefront. The C&R is a very watered down FFL that costs about $30 for a 3 year period. In a nutshell, the process looks like this for what I went through in MO to get my first SBR: 1. Form a Limited Liability Corporation (LLC) with the state. Make sure you are listed as one of the officers/heads of the company when filing. 2. Apply for a C&R license USING THE LLC AS THE APPLICANT. The form is a ATF Form 7CR I believe. 3. Once the C&R license is approved, fill out your Form 1. If you don't use a Form 1 sent to you by the ATF and instead print one off the net, make sure you print the form using both sides of a single sheet or the ATF will kick it back! Send 2 copies of this form, 2 Certification of Compliance forms (www.titleii.com/pdf/5330-20.pdf), 2 articles of incorporation and your $200 check to the ATF. Once the ATF has all this, typical turn around time for a first Form 1 is about 2 months. Subsequent Form 1's can be as little as three weeks. I think it is a very misunderstood process that once a list of steps is created, suddenly makes the process like any other bureaucratic government process - easily capable of being accomplished by 99% of citizens if they only had the steps to follow! I strongly suggest the www.HkPro.com website. On there are tons of people discussing this exact same issue (SBR and SBS process). It serves as a great resource because whether you are making an SBR or an SBS it is all the same steps. Once you get your first Class 3 Short barrelled weapon, there is no stopping you! Just as a bit of a tease, here is a picture of the USC to UMP conversion that popped my Form 1 SBR cherry! http://www.survivingtwilight.com/firearms.html I hope this answered most of your questions, I'm happy to provide any help I can to demistify the NFA short barrelling process. Let me know if you need any further info if you can't locate it on HkPro.com! Sincerely, Shane Bernskoetter Author of: Surviving Twilight: A Soldier's Chronicle of Daily Life in Iraq http://www.survivingtwilight.com

MrMP, you may not realize that there have been multiple versions of the M4/M1014 offered by Benelli. In fact the only civilian model recently offered has been the 11707, which comes from the factory with the pistol grip stock over the fully milled spring tube. It does not have an 'adjustable stock', merely a milled tube which can accept a skeleton stock and would allow said to collapse if used. The newest offering with the desert camo is the 11717, though Benelli's site does not indicate if there are any additional changes. The civilian shotgun generally referred to as the "M1014" was a limited edition commemorative model (i.e. 1 of 2500) first offered to the civilian market as model 11701. This had a a U.S. flag engraved on the receiver and featured the two port, non-screw-in choke barrel (modified). It had an unmilled spring tube and the skeleton stock, which due to the lack of milling, would not collapse. The stock would rotate and move slightly forward (about an inch) during the installation/removal process, which was the reason CA DOJ sent a letter 'recommending' that sales stop in this state. It was not actively prohibited from sales in most other states however, and was still available on the used market here in CA (as how I acquired mine last year). Concurrent with and then following the 11701, Benelli offered the 11703 model which again featured the unmilled spring tube but now came with a pistol grip stock. The bigger changes with this model came with the barrel, which now had screw-in choke tubes and came with 4 larger gas ports and modified gas plugs for use with 'low recoil rounds'. Per Benelli, this change to the gas system was done to ensure the guns would still function when the public at large began shooting birdshot through their mil-spec guns. After some failures with bolt carriers when using full power loads and an ongoing denial by Benelli that there was a problem, they finally began quietly replacing customer's barrels with two port, screw-in choke barrels when requested. Catalog listings at this time also show a 11702 (same as 11703 but with standard stock) and a 11705 (same as 11703 but with non-collapsing skeleton stock - think M1014 without the US flag), but I do not know how prevalent these were compared to the 11703. Other sources also show the 14" entry barreled versions as 11722-24. With all the confusion over barrel and stock combinations, it seems Benelli thinned the herd and did some product consolidation into the one version now seen as the 11707. As stated, this utilizes the standard two port barrel, doing away with the low recoil barrel fiasco of the 11703. It features the milled spring tube (allowing collapse of the skelton stock where available) yet comes with the pistol grip stock making it legal from the box in states such as CA. With this model also came some changes to the barrel extension, with an added collar that butts against the receiver and an added 'wing' to the rear which matches the inner profile of the ejection port. Despite proclamations that the limited edition M1014 had a "heavy" military barrel while latter civilian models had lightweight barrels, measuring all three types in my possession have shown identical dimensions from the receiver to the muzzle. The gross changes seem to be the gas ports/plugs, screw-in chokes and now barrel extensions. Combining the civilian, military, entry and prototypes examples in print, that brings the total to at least six barrels styles offered over the years that I can determine. I guess make it seven now with Desert Camo ! The Benelli M4 is everchanging.