StrangerDanger

Disassemble the magazine tube and clean out all the debris and lubricants from the tube, followed and spring. Everything should be dry with no lubricant. The lubricant attracts fowling and buffer media which robs the spring of energy as its trying to do its job. If it can’t get that shell onto the elevator fast, you will experience failures. Pull your trigger pack out and cycle the bolt with the gun upside down so you can see inside the bottom of the action. Without the trigger pack allows the action to move much more freely without the hammer and breech latch making contact with the bolt. This will allow you to get a feel for how the action is performing. If it is hanging up anywhere. If it binds during the stroke. How much tension your spring is providing. How the inertia spring as the bolt head unlocks from the barrel. You mentioned disassembling and cleaning out the receiver extension. That was a good move. Be sure to use a light lubricant that is rated for cold weather in there. Regular lubricants thicken in cold weather and can make the action sluggish.

This will sound like sacrilege; but I like the new TTI bolt handle better than the Carriercomp one I had. It’s cheap and doesn’t have knurling that can chew up you hand if you’re moving fast. It’s easy to get. I like how the TTI one now locks into place and doesn’t rotate, it’s actually difficult to remove from the bolt. The serrations are biased on certain sides to only provide traction where it’s beneficial. Since the handle is fixed in orientation, it always remains the same.

The hue can be different but you really have to look for it and you may just be imagining a difference, or perspective based on the surface prep. I’ve had AR upper and lowers done at separate times and I can’t really see a difference. The titanium probably came down to who was doing the bead blasting and at what pressure/media size.

It fits pretty tight to overcome spring tension. Technically you could have the magazine tube loaded and remove the cap without worrying about it going flying. I wouldn’t recommend doing this just on safety point of view. That RMR is going to be a big upgrade.

That’s kind of weird. That tube is a lot darker than this one I just did up. Real deal NP3 M4. Indirect sunlight:

You can reassemble immediately. The Loctite won’t be disturbed. It is up to you on if you want to use the spring retainer clip or not. The M4 is much easier to put together with the spring retainer in place. You don’t have a can of snakes every time you remove the magazine cap.

Benelliwerks runs his M4’s fully collapsed and has a regular height optic like the Leap. It never felt comfortable to me, but it may work for you. A Leap would be much too high for me in middle or fully extended position.

To be honest, the oem aluminum cast frames weren’t very good either. They had poor quality control and had a lot of impurities and bubbles in the cast molds. When I’d send them for Np3 plating, many would look like Swiss cheese with hundreds of pits. The A&S frames have been a huge step up in terms of functional quality and appearance. I got my first M4 for 1300 bucks in 2004. They go for a lot more now. I’d say the newer production units are better than the old ones. I had so many issues with my first one that it went back to Benelli twice. I broke pistons, I beat the bolt carrier to the point that it was mushroomed around where the pistons hit. It came with that lame neutered receiver extension even though it had a fixed stock. About the only thing left from the original is the receiver.

It appears your stock came from the original M1014 1-2500 run. Those old stocks had Phillips head screws that held the cheek riser in place. The newer production use allen head screws. Be careful not to loose the lock washers that hold the cheek riser in place.

That spring looks mangled too.

Numrich Arms has one: https://www.gunpartscorp.com/products/1439710 Button spring: https://www.gunpartscorp.com/products/1439720

Can you post pictures of the receiver extension? Are the steel pins present in the collapsible stock? If you have another M4, try installing the stock on it to see if it functions correctly. Photo for reference. Note the steel pin just to the left of the unlock button.

Hold the unlock button in while doing the install. The stock should install onto the receiver extension at about 45 degrees rotated to the left. The stock should slide on, then stop. Rotate the stock 90 degrees to the right until the stock stops. Now you should be able to slide the stock up and down the receiver extension assuming you have a 3 position receiver extension. If you only have a one position extension, the stock will only pull out a short ways, then rotate 45 degrees to the left. Think of the adjustment notches as gears in a manual transmission.

It’s pretty easy and safe to do. It isn’t as critical of a sear contact. As the trigger/hammer sear which influences the trigger pull feel. All this sear does is capture the hammer until the trigger is released. Having a vice is almost a must. You’ll find when the hammer is stuck on the disconnector, you’ll have to get creative to release the hammer. You can push on the disconnector with a tool to rock the disconnector to the rear while taking the tension off of the hammer to get the hammer to release. Keep control of the hammer so it doesn’t fall uncontrolled. You end up testing a few dozen times where you cock the hammer and see if it hangs up on the disconnector. If so, release the hammer and file bit. Retest over and over. It’ll go from being outright stuck to momentarily hanging on the disconnector to freely passing it by unless the trigger is being pressed.

If it’s a newer production 11707, it’ll likely have the plastic trigger pack. A lot of people replace them with the aluminum A&S frame. Most of the other parts will fit together. The only real compatibility issue is the handguards need tweaked if they were for the original M1014. There is a slight relief where the barrel seat ring is.

Carriercomp's muted finish is a bead blasted finish that is silver. It isn't an exact match for the H2O Cerakote model, but it is pretty close. It's close to the original NP3 models as well. There is no source available anymore to plate the titanium magazine tubes in NP3 anymore. That died with Robar. The current plating companies won't touch it even though it works just fine. Socomguy's are excellent steel tubes. I prefer them over the OEM Benelli ones.

A few years back Benelli did the M1014 series again. These aren't limited to 2500 like the original run. They still have the neutered receiver extension so the collapsible stock doesn't function on it. The extension can be swapped out to return function. The M1014 has a barrel that doesn't have a removable choke. The newer production has the seat ring at the base of the barrel that butts up against the receiver unlike the original run. There is some geometry differences on the barrel extension that inserts into the receiver. The wing at the very end is enlarged. Several parts have been refinished differently such as the ARGO plugs now have a chrome like finish instead of the phosphate. The new production models also have the crappy polymer trigger frame.

lol Hacking up = taking one stock off and installing on the other.

You can call Benelli and they’ll give you a pretty accurate time frame. Also you an pull the buttpad and on the inside of it will be one of those molding date stamp circles that will give you an approximate date. The best thing going for getting a collapsible stock is to get on benellipart’s preorder. I’m not sure if they’re taking more orders right now or not. You can buy one on gunbroker, but you aren’t going to like the price. They’re like a grand there. You’d be better off buying another complete M1014 edition and taking the stock from it. Put your fixed stock onto the M1014 and resell it to recoup your cash.

I’ve used the Carriercomp titanium tubes for about 12 years. Zero issues with them. I used their supplied spring and never replaced it. I think my burnt bronze M4 is now around 17,500 rounds. Last year I swapped it out for a carbon fiber magazine tube since I was chasing lighter weight. No issues so far. I don’t know how they compare strength wise, but it doesn’t appear the carbon fiber tube is weak. The threaded areas are stainless steel.

Pretty normal and nothing to worry about. We’re seeing a lot with a bluish tint lately. The anodizing varies from black to OD green to this bluish color. As long as we stay away from Bushmaster purple Barney, I think most will be happy with it.

Does it appear the twist is the elevator itself or is it the trigger frame? You could try replacing the elevator with the compatible aftermarket FFT one. https://freedomfightertactical.com/collections/benelli-sbe-i-ii-iii/products/the-freedom-fighter-tactical-worry-free-extended-carrier-for-the-benelli-m4-tactical-shotgun You could also try to straighten the elevator with a vice for free. I’d opt for the FFT elevator though.

Correct. The angle would be more like a 45 degree angle with the safe edge held against the hammer neck to help keep your filing straight.

Here is a photo of a trigger pack I put together. Everything was NP3 plated. Anyway, you can see the hammer sear in contact with the trigger sear. When you press the trigger, the sear releases and drops the hammer. Now you see the disconnector just behind the hammer hook. The way it works is when you press and hold the trigger to the rear, the trigger assembly rocks forward slightly. The hammer hook when pressed past the disconnector will be captured by the disconnector's sear. When the trigger is released, the hammer hook slips off the disconnector and is captured by the trigger sear. This is the click noise you hear when releasing the trigger. What I'm seeing with the FFT kits lately is the hammer is getting stuck on the disconnector sear even when the trigger is released. To fix this, you have to use a metal file to remove material from the hammer hook that is getting stuck on the disconnector. I like to use a file with a safe edge, which means the sides of the file do not have serrations so it doesn't dig into the hammer. I take about 20 licks with the file and test the engagement. You'll start to feel where it goes from being stuck to just catching on the sear. You want to try to keep the filing even across the face of the sear. I certainly would not use any kind of power tools to remove material. You want to only remove enough material where it cleanly slips past the disconnector. If you remove too much material, you'll make the action unsafe since the hammer may slip thru both sears and drop hammer unintentionally. Naturally if you don't want to deal with this, I can assist if you need. NocturnalNature - Sent you an email. I forgot to reply the other day. Sorry!

My least favorite part is the disconnector pin. Sometimes they don’t fit very well. I installed a customers last night that absolutely refused to go into the FFT disconnector. Swapping the pin for a new one I had fixed it. I’ve been seeing a lot of FFT kits needing fitting on the disconnector hook side lately. Doesn’t matter if it is the polymer frame or the A&S Engineering frame. The hammer ends up hanging on the disconnector hook. Fitting takes some care with a good hand file to gain clearance.