StrangerDanger

Jogusto, Check your carrier for wear and deformation as I described. You should not have such trouble feeding any rounds. When mine was at the end of the road, the carrier would get stuck when I would retract the bolt. I'd have to hit the charging handle to get the bolt handle to move forward. One thing I do not like on the M4 is how easy it is to unlock the bolt from the barrel. Tap the butt stock on the ground and the inertia will open the bolt. Hit it hard enough and I would bet it would eject a round. It's only locked in when the pressure to move rearward is coming from the bolt itself.

I don't order that often. Besides, I'd hate to pay their 10 dollar shipping for a single nut.

I agree. I put a rail cover on mine which fills in this gap anyway. I never notice the cover. It is weird, because adding this cut would seem to cost more and add complexity. In theory, it sounds like a good idea, but in reality it isn't really needed. I wonder if we could have this "feature" eliminated? The Surefire M80 has these same cuts on the side rails, but along the bottom is a full rail.

Whenever I made orders from Brownells, I try to throw an extra 100 dollars worth of quality tools in. One of my pet peeves is cheap plyers. Or junk punches. I've been eyeballing the Brownells screw driver sets. Generally, I don't care much for the removable bit sets, but theres is difficult to beat. Particularly with all the different length handles and so on.

I was doing some research concerning the rail issue. So, I wrote to SideArmor and gave them the link to this thread. This is what they had to say in response: Hi xxxxxxxxxxxxx, Thanks for the link to the thread. My husband designed the M4 rail. We make all our rails to M1913 specifications. We had the endmill on our machine ground to that specification and have based the rails on the picatinny arsenal specs. We did not copy the stock rail from Benelli--we make all our rails with a channel down the center--specifically so that it would not occlude the ghost rings on the M4. We've made a lot of rails for different militaries all over the world and haven't had any problems. You should not have any problems with damage to the rail or the Aimpoint. Of course, if there is am impact, the aluminum will deform--that's why we made the side rails detachable just in case! If there's anything else we can help you with, please let us know. Thanks, Katherine Costa Sidearmor I may get one to perform some experiments with. I like the shell carrier they have for it. When I used the Mesa unit, the shells were too damn hard to put in and remove. It says the unit weighs about 11 ounces with one of the long side rails installed. I have no use for the long rail. A short one would be of value. I do not know if that includes the weight savings by removing the factory rail. That's probably worth an ounce or two. This rail system can be had on Gunbroker for around 250...

Thanks guys. I ordered a set of them from Sears. Chances are I'll never need them again, but it's always nice to have proper tools.

Wrong side of the country unfortunately. Any idea where to buy some that small? I looked at Brownells and Harbor Freight. Couldn't find anything small enough.

I recently purchased a set of night sights for my M4. I ran into some trouble though. The front sight post uses an extremely small nut that is difficult to access. I looked online and local for a wrench small enough to tighten/loosen this nut with no luck. It is a smaller than 6mm nut. That's as small as I could find from the usual sources.

Wow, you guys are still feeding this troll?

Put me down for this rail and a comp.

Sounds like you have it squared away. The titanium tube replaces the entire magazine tube from the receiver forward to the magazine cap nut. Kip sells them on here at his online store and he also lists them on gunbroker. I've had mine on order for about a month. Hopefully it will be here soon. I've been using a factory extension for the past 5 years. The main benefit is weight reduction and strength. The only negative is it is a bit involved to replace. Nothing horrible, just more complicated than unscrewing the extension. It'll require a heat gun to break the locktite on the receiver. I got a good one at Lowes for 25 bucks.

You did well. You got yours for the price I did for my 11703 5 years ago. I would caution you to think about your upgrades carefully. This M4 is heavy to begin with. So don't be quick to add a lot of weight. I'd look into getting the titanium full length magazine tube to reduce the weight. Look into the telescopic stock. They're outlandishly priced, and they are mediocre at best. Your weapon will need the main spring housing milled or replaced to even accept the collapsible stock. Night sights are a worthy upgrade. I'd only consider bolt handles that weigh less than stock. I like the GGandG bolt release. It is a pain to install though and expensive. The last time I tried the Mesa shell carrier, they were way too hard to insert or remove the shells. It added a lot of un-needed weight too. Adding a light to this weapon isn't easy to properly do. My prefered method is a Surefire M80 rail covered in Magpul XTM rail covers. A Surefire X300 mounted via a Larue mount with a picatinny rail mounted switch. Mount the X300 at the front right side of the M80. Route the cable under the XTM panel. Modify the panel so you can route the cable between the picatinny rail gap, to the bottom picatinny rail, go between the rails again and route the cable to the left side rail. You'll need to modify the XTM to allow you to get the cable under the XTM's on the left side. The picatinny mounted switch will then mount towards the front of the M80 here. You'll have access to the switch with your support hand thumb and the amount of exposed wires will be minimal. Undortunately, only a 7 inch wire is available. So you must conserve wire where you can. An ideal length would be 14 or 16 inches, so you could route the wire under the XTM panel. The side rails are cut so there is a perfect wire channel. Then migrate over at the rear and route the wire back up under the XTM panels to the picatinny switch. I may cry to Surefire and see if they'll make a custom length wire. My postal scale says the whole M80 package weighs approximately 15 ounces. Subtract 6 ounces for what the factory handguards weigh, and 5 ounces for what the titanium magazine tube will save you, and you've barely added any weight. As for optics. I didn't like the EOTech on my M4. It felt too top heavy. I would like to try an Aimpoint T1 on a Larue Mount though.

Have you tried mounting it on the right side, with the tape switch routed to the left side to be activated via your thumb? It looks crowded along the bottom.

I'll look in my files when I have a chance. The last few thousand rounds I had an increased amount of failures as the face of the bolt carrier deformed. The deformation could be seen on the sides of the rail due to the rubbing taking place on the inside of the receiver. Most of the 10k was the Walmart cheapie loads. So they weren't tearing it up too badly. Within the first 50 rounds, I snapped one of the gas pistons. It functioned until the broken piston got jammed in the action. That took Benelli about 45 days to send a replacement after I mailed them the broken one. I tried to get Benelli to replace the entire receiver due to the wear along the carrier rail, but they declined. I've had the Shotgun since 2004, so it's worked over pretty well.

Yes. It was a 4 port until it went back to Benelli. They replaced it with a 2 port model.

My 11703 did the same thing after about 10,000 rounds. The cause was the bolt carrier had been deformed by the gas pistons. You could see the face of the carrier had been impinged. As the carrier would cycle to the rear, it would get stuck. This is easy to check. Simply inspect the face of the carrier. Look at the edges of the guide rails on the carrier itself to see how the finish is wearing. Cycle the weapon by hand to feel for any resistance towards the rear. If this is the problem, a trip to Benelli is in order. Mine went last year and they replaced the entire BCG, barrel, piston assembly and handguards with the newest model. It took about a month though.

I'm really glad I got my Design Concepts from Brownells back in December. I weighed the factory, GG&G and the Design Concepts on my Dillon electronic scale. Factory Charging Handle: 12 Grams roughly GG&G Charging Handle: 23 - 24 Grams Design Concepts Charging Handle: 8.5 Grams The GG&G is junk. It simply weighs too much and slows down the carrier to the point that you can cause jams. If you're firing low base rounds, it is easy to cause a failure where there is a live round in the chamber with the hammer down since the trigger disconnector is connected to the elevator. During the last 2 inches of carrier travel, the disconnector is disable, and the hammer will drop if you pull the trigger. With the Design Concepts, you're looking at a 50% weight reduction. Switching between the DC and the GG&G was like night and day. The slugish carrier disapeared and returned to being a blur. The DC is not as large as the GG&G knurled knob, but it is larger than the factory unit.

Ut oh, I better get out my full auto Thompson airsoft gun that I modified to shoot Midol. Some receivers are tougher than others. Depending how old the gun is, how many rounds have been shot. How liberal the application of loctite. The strap wrench is a good idea though. It allows you to handle the tube while it is hot.

The biggest issue there is when it comes to installed a weapon light on the Benelli M4 is the weight. Saying that, what light should we mount to minimize the weight penalty? Easy, get a Surefire X300 series weapon light. It weighs approximately 3.5 ounces with batteries. How we activate it and attach it is another issue. While there are deficiences with the Surefire M80 rail, it offers probably the best platform available for a minimum weight penalty. Furthermore, it offers you the ability to attach the Surefire Picatinny rail mounted remote switch to the address rail. I recommend mounting the X300 to the right hand side of the rifle at the front of the Surefire M80 rail. Then, route the remote switch around the bottom of the M80 rail and attach the remote switch to the left hand side of the picatinny rail system. Further forward, the better. This will allow you to activate the weapon light via your support hand thumb. If you're left handed, reverse the placement. It is important to keep the weapon light on the outside of your body. If you run it on the inside, you'll have trouble carrying it when slung. To mitigate the weight you've added, I recommend getting a Titanium full length magazine tube. Now, you could also get a Surefire X400 and have a laser also. But you'll have some parallax on two plains. I'm waiting the parts for most of this setup now. I've been waiting about a month for the Titanium magazine tube to ship.