Todd308

It's interesting, it's way too open for my tastes. The flashlight switch position is interesting, but not surprising the guy is not from the states, and probably doesn't have a great grasp of tacti-cool the average American does. For those not familiar Spuhr is very highly respected in the high power tactical rifle world for making some of the highest tolerance, most durable scope mounts available anywhere, and he's willing to do small runs of niche products/custom versions etc. upon request. That comes at a price, most of the scope mounts are in the $450-600 range.

The 4 port barrels do cycle light loads better. However as benelli said over thousands of heavy max loads it beats up the receiver/bolt. Since the gun is designed for heavy loads they switched to a 2 port design which lets less gas through, slowing the bolt reducing receiver/bolt impact with super heavy loads but not impacting reliability with those loads. The result however with super light loads is it does not cycle them as well. Best bet is as others have said, polish all the surfaces you can, clean it very well, and use a light oil on it.

Like all ATF issues it's very hard to say. The bottom line is you can read 1000 of these posts, those that know aren't saying and those that don't know are just 100% guessing. Personally I get the feeling that the M4 isn't that big of a concern to the ATF. They are MUCH more concerned with some of the higher firepower, magazine setups that are either already being imported (saiga) or may be soon (MKA 1919, and others etc.). I also personally think that whatever they decide, companies will find a way to still import guns, they did it in 94' and they did it with the M4 and Saiga it's the reason they are imported in the form they are. I really think they are going to try and go after the detachable magazines and drum magazine shotguns and accessories. The M4 is no more destructive (in fact less so) than a 28" benelli with a 12 shot mag extension. However a saiga with a few 20 round drums is a force to behold. These mall ninja idiots posting videos on you tube of their saigas and 20 round mags destroying things on the internet isn't helping either. The 5 round thing is a joke, if they do that, almost EVERY imported semi-pump shotgun currently available would be banned, never going to happen. They could play the destructive device avenue but if they do that, most likely you'll still be able to buy an M4 in it's current imported state, you'd just have to register it if you wanted to modify it, most likely current owners would have to do the same, so if they go that way it still would not keep you from purchasing one down the road nor is it any advantage to purchase it now. It's all conjecture, if you want to be safe, buy now, waiting is always a risk. When 2008 happened people went into massive paranoia and ammo, mags etc. were impossible to get for almost 18 months.....what gun control came of that MASSIVE hysteria.....nothing. All it does was screw gun owners into paying huge prices and not being able to enjoy shooting because you couldn't find or afford ammo. We are our own worst enemy with this crap. Of course in 1994 no one really thought that the AWB would be passed either, and it was, so if there's any moral to the story it's that you just never know, and if you can, buying while you can is always better than waiting. That said a vehicle is much more important than a shotgun to your everyday life. If it's the choice between having a truck and a shotgun I'll take the truck.

Typically its not compressing the spring that wears it out, it's cycling the spring and these days any high quality magazine spring should be able to take thousands of cycles if not more. Leaving mags loaded be it shotgun, rifle, or handgun should not damage the spring if it's of good quality. I can say that both the wolf and carriercomp springs are nicer than the factory benelli ones. One way to "judge" spring quality is if you take a mag spring and bend it over it (this happens frequently when people are trying to get them compressed into the gun/mag but they slip out). The spring should go back to strait, but lower quality springs will show a bend in them. That said I've seen even poor quality factory springs last of years of being fully loaded and cycled. It's cheap insurance though to replace it with a better quality version IMO.

I can say I didn't like the Nordic components follower, it might be a great follower (design is nice) but it's about 1/4" longer than the stock version and some aftermarket versions and that was enough that I lost 1 round of capacity in my application compared to the stock follower. I run the freedom fighter version and it seems to work fine and comes in several colors. Honestly I'd be more concerned about the follower length (so you don't loose capacity) and also the mag spring, that's way more important than the follower itself.

I'd say that about sums it up, I had to grind a bit off the length of mine to get the barrel to seat fully, even with a lot of pressure. Mine squeaked as well, though in "normal" use I don't think it's a huge deal and functionally it would have been fine. I bedded the tongue and grooving using devcon plastic steel epoxy and it's so far been solid and quiet now, but only time will tell how it holds up over hard long term use. Honestly I really appreciate FFT's effort on this product to get us some US made parts, because very few if any companies are interested in doing so. That said, I think with some other options for US made parts coming down the road from carriercomp it's popular days might be limited. As my M4 is setup currently I don't need to run the forearm to be 922r compliant so unless you NEED the part to be 922r compliant I'd rather run the OEM forearm. For those that need it $50 is CHEAP to be compliant and right now there's just not many US parts options. It's also their first attempt at this, so I have no problem cutting them some slack, molding things just right is never easy and especially when you are dealing with parts that fit in this way. It's not like it's an 870 forearm where a little extra length or size here and there is no big deal, if this one isn't exactly right it shows up. When you jump on a new product bandwagon you have to expect that there may be some issues, which is why if you don't want to deal with it, you wait until the product has been out for 6-12 months.

If you watch ebay, gunbroker etc. the non-pistol grip M1 stocks come up from time to time but you usually have to pay a premium for them.

Most of it is fluff, or useful for very particular situations that most people are never going to run into and it's just tacticool. You have to define what you are going to use the gun for. You also have to decide what kind of home defense you are going to do. Having done hundreds of house clearing drills, the best thing to do is get your family in a room and defend that room, if it comes through the door, you shoot it. If you want to go play mall ninja and clear your own house, you are asking to die, a armed burglar laying in wait for you even in a house he does not know will kill you 99 times out of 100, we've done it dozens of times in dozens of locations and it's always the same, whoever lays in wait wins. You will not sneak up on a burglar who is already wide awake and alert listening for you. Now if you have family in different parts/floors of the house that's a different story and honestly the best bet is to rearrange things so at least everyone is on the same floor. Now if you have to go clear out buildings etc. on a ranch or such then your needs are slightly different, shots may be longer, etc. Light: this is a must have for a defensive shotgun, besides being able to ID targets in the dark you gain the ability to stun/blind while you ID them. You want the smallest unit you can get, it's less weight and less likely to get caught on stuff. I personally like the surefire X300 style lights, compact and light. You also want a pressure switch somewhere you don't have to mess with it. It doesn't have to be super bright, anything over 100 lumens will do the job, too bright especially in closed areas with white walls and all you do is blind yourself. Side carriers....I personally don't think there is any need in a home defense situation. If you can't handle the task in 9 rounds of 12ga you have much bigger problems. Multiple assailants maybe....but unless you are in a gang war or the zombies come I guarantee that if you put 2-3 of them down their buddies are going to leave. They add a lot of weight, and bulk to the gun. People say they don't mind the weight, but it slows their reaction time, and that's ONE thing that you definitely WILL need in such an encounter. I've yet to see a home shooting that 9 rounds of 12ga didn't get the job done. Is it better to have 20 rounds of 12ga than 9.....I suppose unless that extra 11 rounds adds a ton of bulk and weight to the gun. Having it on the gun is an advantage because when you wake up and crap is going wrong you do not want to have to find an ammo belt etc. you need to be able to grab and go. If high capacity was the only need in a shotgun we'd all own saigas with 20rd drums. Now if you need to have lethal/nonlethal ammo options or slugs/buckshot options then sure it's nice to have a few rounds on the gun. I don't consider this an issue for home defense because either slugs or buckshot are going to get the job done, and there's no place for non-lethal ammo in defense. Aimpoints etc.....I've put hundreds of thousands of rounds through a shotgun so for me, it's a pointing instrument, a dot sight on it for me would just slow me down and annoy my field of view. Now if I was shooting slugs at ranges over 50-75 yards sure, but if I need to do that I'm not going to bring a 12ga to the party. Honestly in most home defense ranges you don't even need sights, with a properly mounted light, the right choke and ammo if the main beam of your light is on it, it dies when you pull the trigger. This is true of shotguns, rifles and handguns.

The bond should be good, I've used this stuff in much higher stress areas without issue. there are way to make it better if it wouldn't hold, I roughed up the channel with coarse sand paper, but you could also drill small holes in the channel to give it more purchase if it needs it. I could have used release agent on the tube, I just didn't want to mess with it and there was no downside to not having the mag tube in there. If I did it again I wouldn't bother with removing it, I'd just put some release agent on it. There's really no way to know how well it will hold up over time without testing it long term, that's the bottom line. Yes the M4 can be MODIFIED to hold over five rounds etc. but I don't think the ATF is worried about what you can add to the gun, but more how it's imported out of the box from the manufacturer. If they were going to go the route of what you can add onto the gun aftermarket every beretta, benelli, FN, etc. shotgun would end up being restricted because you can buy mag extensions, rails, lights, tac stocks for all of them, military weapon or not. Like I said I think the ATF is more worried about things coming down the pipe that have not hit the general public's view yet that are a lot more extreme than the saiga or m4 in any configuration. However, I will say that if I wanted an M4 or saiga and didn't have one, I'd be buying one and all the toys to go with it now, especially MD20 mags and any conversion parts, better safe than sorry, and if you have to register it later with a tax stamp that's the price to have the toys, just like a suppressor, or SBR sadly.

So for giggles I did bed the tongue/groove, worked like a charm, though I did remove the mag tube just to ensure that no epoxy got on the tube since the forearm actually has very little clearance to the mag tube. In the end I wouldn't have needed to as I got the amount in the groove right so none really spread outside of it. It worked all right, the forearm is locked rock solid now. Having used similar epoxy bedding rifles for years that are taken in and out of their stocks dozens of times a year, and fired thousands of rounds, just removing and installing the forearm pieces in my opinion will never wear on the bedding under normal use, perhaps if the forearm pieces flex a lot under recoil it could wear the groove larger, but recoil moves in the same plane as the forearm grooves so it shouldn't induce a lot of "towards" the barrel stress causing the issue. With as thin as this bedding area is I doubt it would "wear" it would probably just chip out of the groove. Another thing I wonder is my OEM forearm pieces have some give too, much less, but I can still make them shift a tiny bit with enough pressure, but they are silent. I wonder if the material benelli uses just doesn't make noise when shifting, it does seem to be a smoother more "slippery" material. Logistically I don't think the ATF will do it. First of all no tax stamp is ever going to be free. Second how will the ATF verify that your shotgun is 922r compliant, there's no way they have the manpower or desire to send ATF agents to everyone that has a modified M4, Saiga, M1/M2, FN, etc. etc. shotgun. Local police departments aren't going to want to do it, and neither are dealers. That would also mean ANY part that could be used to improperly modify an imported shotgun would be illegal to sell unless the forms and tax stamp were approved before purchase. So now if you wanted to buy a surefire light, side saddle, stock, picatiny rail, etc. etc. you'd have to fill out a ATF form and get a tax stamp for it just as with suppressors, before you could put it on your M4. Manufacturers would have to serial number those parts and they would have to be tracked. Logistically I just don't think that's something the ATF wants to deal with. Much more likely is they will just increase the restrictions on imported shotguns to cover those guidelines (and possible more) in the study. Which is nothing new, that's why the M4 and saiga have to be imported nurtured as it is. I think they are concerned with a new breed of shotguns on the horizon coming down the pipe in the next couple years that fit more of their study "features" listed as non-sporting. Remember as the M4 and Saiga are imported right now, they don't have ANY features the study lists as non-sporting. If they ATF was setting up the study to ban the import of the M4 and Saiga specifically they could have easily tailored it to them both. For example any shotgun with a detachable magazine would have made the Saiga illegal to import. Any shotgun with a picatinny rail, ghost sights, or pistol grip stock would have taken care of the M4. Benelli then would just put a non-pistol grip stock on it and remove the rail and ghost sights and import it anyway.

Here's an even more simple fix that at least on mine for now has stopped any noise. Walmart sells 1/8" thick adhesive backed foam 8x10 sheets, you can get them at most arts crafts stores as well for under $1 a sheet. Cut a long 1/16" wide strip and lay it into the groove on the one side of the forearm. On mine it was not enough to create any gap on the two halves when installed but enough that it no longer moves or creaks when you compress the halves toward the barrel. Over time it's possible the foam may compress and it will go back to having more give, but for now that seems like a pretty quick easy fix.

I think that's a huge *IF* even if they did pass some new importing laws my guess is they would not be retroactive, it's just too hard to deal with saying every M4, M1/M2 tactical, FN, saiga, etc. that's ever come into the country as a 12ga now needs to be regulated. If you read the recent ATF study on shotguns they do list features that they feel make some imported shotguns non-sporting, however neither the M4 or Saiga as currently imported fit any of those guidelines. More than likely what they'd do is what they did in the past and that's only change the laws for newly imported guns, and then manufacturers would just find new ways around it, just like many did back in 94', and just like the saiga and M4 are imported currently under. That aside, it's obviously best to have your M4 conforming to 922r, the forearm may not be a perfect OEM replacement but it's another US made part and it appears to function fine and it makes a lot of M4's 922r compliant until more US parts come out down the road. That aside if the creaking/movement really bothers someone another fix could be to effectively "bed" the two halves of the forearm together, essentially using a small "strip" of putty style epoxy where the forearm tongue and groove is to take up any play there and mate the two sides from rubbing past each other. The forearm would still install and remove as before just that the epoxy would take up the "give" in the tongue and groove so the two halves would not move around. I'm tempted to try it just for giggles because frankly in an M4 a $50 part is cheap.

Topic pretty well covers it looking for a M1 21" or 24" vent rib barrel with tubes. Thanks

Another thing to watch with these as I had to modify mine is that the forearm areas that are grooved to fit into the slots at the front/rear of the pieces were too long, so it was not allowing the barrel to fully seat into the receiver even if you put a good amount of pressure onto the barrel while turning the mag cap. In comparing my factory version to the FFT the FFT was overall about 1/16" longer than factory. A little dremel work fixed the issue but it's something to watch and make sure the barrel is fully seating. To me it wasn't a big deal to take a little material off them. FWIW on mine I also can get it to squeak/creak when squeezing the grip panels toward the top of the barrel, but I can't get it to do the same thing in "normal" manipulation of the forearm. On that note is there any reason the two halves could not be manufactured produced as a single piece?

Currently I'm running a TLR-1 with their "rail" pressure switch sticky taped to my M4 forend. Happy with the switch but not the light. I'd like to switch to a surefire unit, but from the pictures it appears their switch may not tape on as well (it kind of looks like it's just sealed in shrink wrap from the pics). Just curious how others have mounted a similar switch to the factory style forend. I know there are some switch "holders" set up for rails perhaps one of those could be modified and either bolted/taped to the forend. I won't put a railed forend on, and I won't use a vertical grip setup.