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M4 Receiver Optic Rail - Why it sucks with Picatinny 1913 spec Optic Mounts (Pics)


Duggan

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Guest cleefurd
how's your hand cleefurd?

Bandages are off, wound is struggling to close. Fingers seem to work, but still painful in certain directions. Beginning to insulate entire shop and build small grinding room from the old paint booth. New paint booth has made its maiden run, nearly 70 tubes were waiting in line, finally finishing and shipping.

Apparently the picatinny extrusions had failed to drop ship a few weeks back, so they were re-initiated. Expect them any day. Also have 42 re-creations of the OEM Benelli choke mounted recoil reducers ready for anodizing...expect to catalog soon if the threads spec properly once coated.

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Hey Cleefurd, hope the hand is doin' ok. Is there anyone that sells a 8 shot shell carrier (similiar to Mesa's Sureshell) that I would be able to attach to your new rail and still have room for an Aimpoint or Eotech for my M4?

 

Don't think so. The Mesa carriers have a rail built into the top ... I don't think anyone makes a different "carrier only" ...

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Guest cleefurd
So does that mean if I wanted a shell carrier I would have to have a gunsmith mount it on to the side?

Do you have a link to one you had in mind (shell carrier with built in top rail).? Contact that manufacturer and send them a link to this post, suggesting they pay particular attention to the photos in the 1st few posts, and ask them if they can OMIT the center cut so that QD type mounts would not suffer. It would actually make their product easier to build, and optimize its over-all usefulness at the same time... win/win!

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Guest cleefurd

The material for our upgraded Picatinny rails has arrived, and when complete will be hard coat anodized with our batch of completed OEM reproduction choke mounted recoil reducers, of which we made 42. They (reducers) each come with a heat-treated stainless steel extended choke in "IC" bore for use with anything up to and including slugs. They are laser engraved and work in either Beretta or Benelli barrels with no modifications. They are the first repro reducers to have the faithful OEM forward angled 1st rows of holes angled forward, which creates an "out-draft" that enhances efficiency of the final 4 rows of holes just like Benelli's original version. Once the Picatinny rails are completed and return from anodizing, both new products will be listed in our web store.

 

Thank you for all the great product suggestions that lead to these developments. We'll post pics of the reducers soon (not yet anodized) if anyone is interested in seeing their progress and current status.

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Guest cleefurd
...

 

what would you think MSRP would run?

 

 

 

 

From our recently attained extrusions, with;

  • "T" designators engraved/milled into the correct grooves
  • Hard coat anodized (mil-spec type III),
  • Correct counter-bores to use original screws with self centering counter-sink and serated friction washers from original sight
  • Uninterupted top grooves (no axial center cut)

Our current estimate will fall between $69 and $84 MSRP depending on CNC and deburring prep time for anodizer.Most likely closer to the low end of the quote, best case scenario would be $69 + shipping.

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  • 3 weeks later...
The material for our upgraded Picatinny rails has arrived, and when complete will be hard coat anodized with our batch of completed OEM reproduction choke mounted recoil reducers, of which we made 42. They (reducers) each come with a heat-treated stainless steel extended choke in "IC" bore for use with anything up to and including slugs. They are laser engraved and work in either Beretta or Benelli barrels with no modifications. They are the first repro reducers to have the faithful OEM forward angled 1st rows of holes angled forward, which creates an "out-draft" that enhances efficiency of the final 4 rows of holes just like Benelli's original version. Once the Picatinny rails are completed and return from anodizing, both new products will be listed in our web store.

 

Thank you for all the great product suggestions that lead to these developments. We'll post pics of the reducers soon (not yet anodized) if anyone is interested in seeing their progress and current status.

 

Dangit! You are making me almost regret selling my M4 setup for an M4 setup!

 

Nice to see this!

 

ETA:

 

I have purchased another M4 in anticipation of said rail.

Edited by Unobtanium
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  • 2 weeks later...
Dangit! You are making me almost regret selling my M4 setup for an M4 setup!

 

Nice to see this!

 

ETA:

 

I have purchased another M4 in anticipation of said rail.

 

Once this rail comes out, I am buying an aimpoint t1 for sure ... but you know this already.

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Guest cleefurd
jesus_obamacopy.jpg

Yes but Stock Benelli rail/parts + LaRue = POOOO, so we perform genetic engineering to prevent organ rejection of foreign tissue (scope mounts). Now the Benelli (host organism) does not reject the graft (LaRue mount), and it was the reeeaaaal man upstairs that gave us the courage to "CHANGE THE THINGS WE COULD"... not the Obamination depicted in the photo.:confused:

Edited by cleefurd
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  • 3 weeks later...

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...

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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 do not get this statement at all. A "full" rail would not in any way, shape or form diminish the ghost ring sight picture.

 

The ghost rings are so far above the rail stubs that it is lunacy to suggest that you "need" the rail stubs cut down the middle in order to achieve a proper sight picture.

 

It's like a guy that works on the 37th floor saying that the 2 story building next to him needs to be leveled because it blocks his view of the sunset ... it just doesn't add up.

 

What cutting down the rail to "benelli spec" DOES do is seriously compromise the strength of the mounting platform, whether Ms. Costa wants to admit it or not. I have already shown what happens when some optics are mounted to this type of rail, and lots of other people have confirmed it.

 

ETA - I just did a simple test ... I put some duct tape, laid flat, on my m4 rail to simulate a "full" rail without stubs. By doing this, I made it so that I effectively lost the "cuts" in the rail that were intended to increase the sight picture ... I then compared the sight picture with this "ductmod" to the sight picture of the stock rail with no tape ... guess what? They are almost exactly the same ... If you try, you can just barely make out the duct tape covering the tiniest portion of the BASE of the front sight ... not the actual sight, or the protective wings, but the BASE of the sight where it is welded onto the barrel. The actual front sight is still perfectly visible.

 

In my reasonably humble opinion, "not wanting to occlude the ghost rings" is a very poor excuse as to why one would possibly want a rail made to the "cut down" specs.

 

ETA2 - Perhaps I will take pictures of the 2 sight pictures in the morning. :)

Edited by Duggan
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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.

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It is weird, because adding this cut would seem to cost more and add complexity.

 

Not the case at all. If the aluminum is extruded in that shape already (with the cut) it saves money because you're using less material. In addition, you have less machining to do when tapping the rail for screws.

 

It's cost-cutting at its best. They figure they'll save a few cents on each rail, and it'll still work in 90% of the situations. And then they fool themselves into believing it is mil-spec. I don't care how deep the rail cuts are, or whether they are spaced properly; if you have a channel "cut" down the middle of the rail, it is not M1913 mil-spec. The Picatinny spec sheets specifically shows a diagram illustrating the cross-section of the rail, and it doesn't have any channel running through the middle.

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Not the case at all. If the aluminum is extruded in that shape already (with the cut) it saves money because you're using less material. In addition, you have less machining to do when tapping the rail for screws.

 

It's cost-cutting at its best. They figure they'll save a few cents on each rail, and it'll still work in 90% of the situations. And then they fool themselves into believing it is mil-spec. I don't care how deep the rail cuts are, or whether they are spaced properly; if you have a channel "cut" down the middle of the rail, it is not M1913 mil-spec. The Picatinny spec sheets specifically shows a diagram illustrating the cross-section of the rail, and it doesn't have any channel running through the middle.

 

This seems to be a VERY hard concept for the manufacturers to grasp.

 

From the email ...

 

"We make all our rails to M1913 specifications." directly followed by "we make all our rails with a channel down the center"

 

It's pure contradiction ... it's one or the other, both is not possible.

Edited by Duggan
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I wrote back to her today the following. I really doubt the extrusion costs any less with that cut channel. I think it is a weight savings move. They probably cut an ounce or two off the assembly.

 

Hi Katherine,

Thank you for the reply. I added your response to the thread.

 

It seems the primary concern is with the center cut along the Picatinny rail. This cut is outside the specification of the Mil-Std-1913 tech data.

 

http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m254/duggan12/PicatinnySpec01.jpg

Reference Photo

 

I looked at my M4, and determined that the center cut isn't really needed to keep from blocking the ghost ring sights. I've been using ladder rails for years on this rail, and it has never blocked the sight picture.

 

I see that the side rails also have this cut. I would imagine it is because they're cut from the same extrusion as the top rails?

 

Is there any chance that the design could be updated?

 

Thanks,

xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

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Another possible explanation is that Sidearmor was unable to find a source for raw rail extrustions that did not have the center cut already milled into them.

 

I know Kip, the guy who is designing the new replacement rail, had a heck of a time finding someone to source him with proper 1913 rail extrusions ... all the companies he went to were peddling the center cut garbage.

 

I think Ms. Costa's email claims that they cut their own rails ... but I would be very doubtful that they cut 100% of the rail, I'd wager instead that they finish raw rail extrusions (with the center potentially already cut in) like most others in the industry ... at least from what I know.

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I changed my M4 rail to the Mesa rail. Is the Mesa's rail built to a more proper spec?

 

Other than the fact that they used to shred M4 recievers.

THen they flexed them after they fixed the screws

And they STILL have the axial cut.

 

And all Mesa says is "yeah...there have been complaints about flexed recievers, just loosen the bolts and use lock-tite".

 

Yeah, total fail in my book. I took mine off and luckily the guy I sold my M4 to bought it from me, even though I explained all my issues with it to him.

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