Jogusto

Cleefurd, You are an amazing businessman. Not only did you give me personal service, but you also called me FOUR times to ensure that I was completely, thoroughly satisfied! That is "old world" craftsmanship, pride, and integrity at its best. May all your problems disappear like fog in the morning sun. Keep up the great work, and I'm looking forward to the new products when they become available. To anyone considering the purchase of a fine CarrierComp product: you will NOT be disappointed! It is worth every moment of waiting and every penny you spend. My tube is a work of art, a marvel of the gunsmith's craft. Give Kip every support and consideration you can muster.

Buying a US-made shotgun, then, would be a good choice. You can add magazine tubes and all kinds of other stuff, make them "non-sporting" and never have to worry about 922. And, yea, you are right, not worth it for two extra rounds. My conclusion exactly.

Yes, by people who have no legal training or information. I don't know where this stuff comes from, but people just throw it out there and other people believe it. And, by the way, getting a letter is good due diligence, but the reality is, you can't avoid getting arrested on this issue (modding an imported firearm in violation of 18USC922) if you have a piece of paper to waive in front of an "overzealous" ATF agent. They aren't firearms examiners. I fully suspect if they want your ass in their briefcase, they will arrest you, take your modded M4, and *later* you will be able to sort things out when the firearms expert "back at headquarters" looks at all your receipts and pieces of paper and hopefully realizes you are indeed legal. The real question is: what are the chances of running into such a fired up BATFE commando? or, perhaps equally, that you will use your modded M4 for "personal defense" only to find the DA not so sympathetic to your cause, and uses the 18USC922 violation ("oh, 13 parts? Sorry, it's 14 -- two gas pistons", or "... it's 15 parts, the pistol grip and buttsock are two parts; they detach from one another, don't they?") as a sentencing enhancement or plea bargain hammer-over-your-head. Stop kidding yourselves people. You mod your M4, you'd better be very, very sure you want to mess with this kind of potential hassle. For my part, I am very happy with 5+1+1 rounds; two more isn't worth a potential 5-year Federal bid given the wrong circumstances.

You are exactly correct. Each and every imported firearm is examined by the ATF (the design, that is) and the ATF in its sole discretion determines whether it is suitable as a sporting firearm in configuration "X". If "yes", it can be sold to the public. If "no", then it can only be sold to LE/Mil **AND** (this is VERY important) the configuration becomes a "prohibited" one that you cannot build with no more than 10 imported parts. Note that if your firearm is imported, and you want to mod it, and the mod is still a "sporting configuration" (eg, you are changing choke tubes, or getting a shorter LOP non-collapsible stock), then the 10 parts count rule *does* *not* *apply*.

You can make any kind of parts you want (with some notable exceptions), and sell them to unsuspecting users who don't have a complete picture of the legal implications of using them. For firearms covered by 18USC922®, the user is responsible for knowing how to use the parts within the law. Unfortunately for you and me, the sellers of parts don't tell us we could be falling into a very deep hole should we make use of their wares in our enthusiasm to improve our guns.

Might have some heavy grease in the recoil tube. Clean it off with Gun Scrubber, give it a light follow-up lube with BreakFree CLP or other very light oil. Try storing your gun for a week or so with the bolt locked back. Try a very careful, light polishing of the hammer bearing surface (that rubs on the bolt carrier) and the rail-bearing surfaces of the BCG. I did all of this to solve the exact problem you're having, and it worked. Stick with it, you will get it resolved. I advise against lightening the recoil spring. You'll end up with failures to feed the fresh shells on the rebound.

ER, Bignotti is on to something. But, you may be able to just get away with making sure your recoil tube is really clean and has a nice, light lube coat on it. Be careful about going with a lighter recoil spring. If you do, you may not have enough "oomph" to cycle the bolt forward again with a shell coming up on the shell carrier. I had some of the problems you cite, and I just sprayed a &^(^&-pile of Gun Scrubber down the recoil tube, then used some BreakFree CLP to lube it. I store the gun with the bolt drawn back. That seems to "soften" the recoil spring just a little. The other thing you might want to do is make sure your bolt carrier rails are really clean, and lightly lubed... you may even want to try some #5 or #6 metal polish very carefully on the bearing surface of the hammer, the BCG, etc., to make sure everything slides ultra-smoothly. I shoot Estate target loads with 7/8 ounce #7 or #8 shot and I don't have any further problems cycling.

I'm with you on the Glocks... great, reliable personal defense weapons. A well-worn-in G19 will get that "glass rod" trigger with zero creep and a very clean, crisp pull, in spite of the safeties. I'm also partial to the CZ 75 series. Very seriously accurate right out of the box. They also make many variations, including the SP-01 (plastic-body) in a competition model (the Shadow) and the duty-carry model (the Phantom). I have a Phantom, and it is a joy to shoot. Light, like the Glocks and other plastic body guns. The one thing I don't care for is the grip is rather slender, and so, while it is great for my wife, who can shoot the thing like a house on fire, I prefer the fat handled feel of the Glock. The CZ 75 B full-metal version has a nice ergo feel to it and is nice and sturdy. Very popular with military and police around the world. They have a new and improved model, the "P-01" that's NATO-accepted. The CZ 75 can hold an impressive number of rounds in the non-California version. What is it? 17? Something like that. (Can't remember, I hafta use the 10 round mags!) Great choice for a 9mm.

I use Shooters Friend... wierdly sticky, very squishy, works great! (try Cabela's)

The Botach Tactical page also notes, helpfully, that "no gun smiting is required". I hate it when I have to smite my gun.

Hey ER, Really nice work! My wife loves the M4 but she's only 5' 3" and the chimpanzee-styled LOP on this thing makes it a challenge for her. You have blazed a trail that I am bound to follow, and soon. Your photos nicely document the stock cut-down, and how you used the Marine Tex to fill the stock voids. I'm curious about the other part -- the butt plate/pad work you did. Did you use a stock Benelli M4 pad and sand it to shape, and tap some holes into the Marine Tex? I tried to imagine how this would work... cut off the part of the butt plate that "goes into" the stock... and then shape the outline to match the profile/cross section of the new stock-end. Is this roughly what you did? Can you kindly provide additional details on these aspects? Thanks in advance!

PS> I'll try to post some pictures of what I did if I can get some time this weekend.

Well, sorry, I've been preoccupied with other matters elsewhere, but as for my own feeding problems, here's how it worked out... First of all, there was nothing wrong with my particular M4 as far as I could see. I didn't measure the springs or anything like that, but it was well-lubed, kept clean, and had a few hundred rounds through it. Having discovered that the lip of the shotshells are being "grabbed" by the bolt carrier release lever on one side, and the receiver wall on the other, I started to look for ways to reduce friction that would impede forward bolt motion when the shell was on the carrier. There are two spring-loaded levers pressing on the BC group as it is trying to slide forward and lift a shell up: the hammer and the shell lifter "assist finger" (for want of a better term... I don't have my parts diagram handy). There is also the carrier release lever, which also serves as the magazine catch. For all three of these parts, I carefully used some #5 and #6 polishing compound on a 1/2-inch cotton wheel (Dremel) and **carefully** did a little polishing, to change the black finish on these parts to a shiny metal sheen. I was careful not to change dimensions or shapes as I did this. Upon reassembly and lubing, *voila*, problem solved. I have run 200 rounds through her at the range, including light target loads, heavy 00 buck magnums, LR slugs, full-house slugs, etc., all from widely varying manufacturers such as Estate, Remington, Federal, Winchester, and Fiocci. She also cycles manually without a hitch. I think there is a lot of "folklore" about "running a few hundred rounds thru it to break it in"... and perhaps the net effect of this is to accomplish polishing of the parts in just the manner I've described. The Benelli, while a fine piece of machinery, is still mass-produced, and hand-polishing these parts isn't an option for the factory. As an engineer with 20 years of experience, I can understand that a stack-up of component tolerances (such as spring constants and parts dimensions and finishes) can produce a product which isn't as reliable as its brother from the same production line. I'm happy to say that my M4 is working like a champ and I've had zero issues with it since my last posting. My wife loves to shoot it, which is my only problem: how to pry it out of her little hands, and where to hide the ammo so she doesn't shoot it all up!

You are quite correct. I am familiar with the ID system but I stand corrected. Even so, it's still true that the gas piston stroke length is insufficient to unlock the bolt. The piston has to slam it pretty hard to send it sailing back against the recoil spring, far enough to unlock the breech and release the chamber pressure, which should provide the remaining oomph required to fully rack the bolt. I'd love to see someone make a high speed movie of an M4 cycling, with one of those new Casio camcorders at 1000 fps so we can see what it looks like! Back to the issue at hand: failure to lift shells and hanging up the bolt. Careful examination will reveal that the shell being released onto the shell carrier also operates the carrier release/magazine catch, via its shell head lip, and that's what prevents more than one shell from exiting at a time. The lip of the shell actually presses the lever from the inside against spring tension. When the bolt moves forward, the shell lifter engagement finger (not the official name) enters a detent in the underside of the BC. This serves to transmit additional force thru the BC to the shell lifter, ostensibly lifting the shell up and into position for feeding. The problem seems to be the friction of the shell, being squeezed slightly by the carrier release lever, varying more or less, and when it is "more" -- as determined by the fit and finish of the ammo itself, especially the shell head lip -- the bolt is unable to overcome the resistance and hangs up. This delicate balance seems to be necessary for the usual reasons. Too strong a recoil spring, and the bolt will not travel back far enough during the eject part of the cycle. Too weak, and we have this situation, where the shell lifter seems to cause the bolt to hang up. I tried to prove my thesis with some experimentation. By hand polishing the lip on the offending samples, I can make my M4 cycle flawlessly. QED. (This may be why the inexplicable, transient FTFs occur -- ammo variations, but not in the DEQs or the weight of the shot load!) Yes, it's true, I am somewhat disappointed to have purchased the M4 based solely on reputation and raves, in this forum and elsewhere, only to discover the operating principles are relying on a somewhat tenuous balance of forces, moreso that I would ever have thought for the touted "reliability" of the weapon. Flying off the handle? no, not in the sense most people use that expression... Disappointed? Sure... I'll give her a few hundred more break-in rounds, then choose my ammo carefully to ensure I have the most reliably-cycling ammo. I still love the way she shoots, and my wife is just crazy about it too! I'll need to try ERdept's fix for shortening the Length of Pull (nice hack, ERdept!). In the meantime, if anyone has further insights into this shell lifter hangup issue, especially a robust fix for it, I'm all ears and TIA!

Hmm... this may be true with your weapon, but I can very repeatably pull the bolt all the way back, then release it (NOT slowly, but suddenly), and get a hangup *every time* with certain of my Fiocchi rounds, and *never* get a hangup with the aluminum snap-caps. This would tend to argue against the theory that the ammo has nothing to do with it. Field shooting results also argue that the ammo does matter. I appreciate that body motion after the recoil might help matters a bit, but the bolt still needs to stop and change direction even when firing. Releasing abruptly from a fully drawn-back position is much different? Hmmm... not sure. You could be on to something, but then it means inertial voodoo is required for completely reliable operation, including a shooter who not only jerks back (required for the Benelli inertial system to work), but also springs forward again to help the bolt overcome the "shelf". Rather that debate whether the issue is a problem or a non-problem, I'd like to understand how many others out there have experienced this problem, especially in a relatively new M4. Certainly, the OP seems to be one. SD seems to be another, albeit after a larger number of rounds through. Any others?