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Benelli M4 - Building a H2O


StrangerDanger

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Got a few more of these H2O builds going on. With all the covid bullshit and run on guns this past year, it's taking a long time to first get all the parts wanted, then shuffle the parts thru plating. This one is still waiting on its plastics to be painted in OD green cerakote.

I'm doing another one where everything had been NP3 plated, and now we're cerakoting the exterior in FDE. About the only things that will be black will be the rubber grip, rubber part of the buttpad, and the control buttons on the Trijicon RMR.

Several more are in various states of waiting at Wright for plating.

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6 hours ago, StrangerDanger said:

Got a few more of these H2O builds going on. With all the covid bullshit and run on guns this past year, it's taking a long time to first get all the parts wanted, then shuffle the parts thru plating. This one is still waiting on its plastics to be painted in OD green cerakote.

Where do you get your plastic parts cerakoted and whats the turn around time?

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Thanks. I agree they’re significantly nicer than the painted models. Those don’t have any of the performance enhancements of the NP3 finish. 
 

I use Jax Tactical which does a lot of industry paint work for firearm companies. Lately turn around time is pretty slow. Some day I’ll get the equipment to do it myself to reduce dwell time, but I’m not there yet.
 

They’ll be air cure Cerakoting plastics. Like I have a set of FFT OD green grips that are going to be painted to get a better color match. The owner does a lot of trick specialized painting. Fancy masking and clay blocking for multi colors. Like on the FDE build, just the visible portion of the bolt carrier will be painted in FDE. That way the performance enhancements of the NP3 will be on all the areas that matter. Even the bolt link will be painted on the ejection port side. 
 

So it’ll have the hand guards, cheek piece for the collapsible stock, pistol grip plastic frame, magazine tube nut, hard plastic base of the Limbsaver 10403 buttpad and the Trijicon RMR 1 moa in OD green. You can see the RMR is already in OD green since it came that way from Trijicon. 
 

I’m doing the same overall color scheme for the same guy for an AR15. 

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  • 1 month later...

Finally got the bulk of my parts back from paint, a few minor mistakes to correct, but overall got me enough stuff to keep me busy for a few days. Finalized a H2O that has been taking forever due to Covid and Biden times. Just need to test and sight it in before it makes its way home. A second standard H2O should be finalized this week and taken for testing.

The OD green M4 should get finalized soon for testing. 
 

The FDE/NP3 H2O has a few minor paint issues to correct, but I can assemble most of it in the mean time.

The AR15 is absolutely beautiful. Wish it was mine! The AR10 parts pile in 6.5 Creedmoor should start taking shape too.

 

I assembled a lot of weapon lights last night. I’ve begun having the lock ring that holds the rubber button in place Np3 plated. I thought they were plastic for the longest time. Turns out they’re aluminum. 

 

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Edited by StrangerDanger
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On 8/8/2019 at 11:04 PM, StrangerDanger said:

The front sight and rear sight from Meprolights will remain black since you can't plate the sights with their tritium lamps installed. There is a work around for this, but it is costly. You'd have to NP3 plate the OEM sights, then send those out to Tooltech to have Trijicon lamps installed. I think they charge a ridiculous amount, like 250 dollars. The hood of the front sight and the rear sight housing are going to be plated on this one.

 

It will end up looking like this one I did a while back, but the Trijicon RMR's that are nickel boron plated aren't readily available anymore.

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Love the silver benelli's. They have one at my local bass pro. Thought about grabbing her!

 

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Some building has been going on these past few nights!

jKMjSJq.jpg?1

 

That FDE/H2O has been a nightmare. Extensive taping was required to blast off the NP3 from the exterior for paint adhesion. Some pieces are going back since they weren't done exactly right. I recently expanded my work bench to 15' x 5', and the entire work surface was covered in parts waiting for fitting and assembly.

 

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The OD Green/NP3 M4. This one started out as a Cerakoted H2O.

 

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Lots of work to get to here. With COVID and Biden donkey punching us, this project has been going on for a year. Weapon light is a Surefire M600DF lamp head on a Modlite 18650 body. I machined the tailcap to remove the shroud from the Surefire Z68. Even the hardware that holds the light to the IWC mount and the IWC mount screws were all NP3 plated, then the exterior visible head of the screws were painted. The handguard assemblies were stippled by Tango Industries, then painted FDE. Originally the FFT handguards were their tan version. Magazine tube is a carriercomp titanium tube.

w69UWRG.jpg?1

So much work went into this assembly. Only the visible portions of the bolt carrier were painted in FDE. The rest is all NP3. The stem of the bolt handle is still in NP3. The screws under the Sync rail were left in NP3, where as the two visible ones had their tops painted. The trigger pin was NP3 plated, then just the tips were painted FDE. The bolt isn't locked forward or rearward because the link isn't installed. The link is being partially painted in FDE so the visible portion thru the ejection port area won't be shiny silver.

5ZFR7nC.jpg?1

Rubber parts can't be properly painted, so they were left black. Note the shell release lever below the shotgun. Just the visible portion of the lever was painted in FDE. The rest was left in NP3.

FtMSndc.jpg

Other fun stuff being built. AR10 in 6.5 Creedmoor. It's a mix of NP3 and FDE Cerakote.

6dCjzrj.jpg

By far the nicest AR15 I've ever built. Wish it was mine! Still waiting on a few items to finish it up. It's a blend of OD green and NP3. Lithium aluminum receiver set. Andros carbon fiber receiver extension. Proof Research 14.5" carbon fiber wrapped barrel. SLR Rifleworks titanium adjustable gas block. Modlite OKW in OD green cerakote. Railscales KOS panels with integrated sling mounts and hand stop. G10 panels were painted with OD green Cerakote. JP Enterprises LMOS bolt carrier group. JP Enterprises silent buffer. Geissele SD3G trigger. Trijicon RMR RM09 Type II on a Scalarworks mount. NP3 plated B.E. Meyers 249 flash suppressor pinned and welded in place to make barrel length. V Seven lightened parts thrown in wherever possible.

 

Edited by StrangerDanger
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2 hours ago, StrangerDanger said:

Some building has been going on these past few nights!

jKMjSJq.jpg?1

 

That FDE/H2O has been a nightmare. Extensive taping was required to blast off the NP3 from the exterior for paint adhesion. Some pieces are going back since they weren't done exactly right. I recently expanded my work bench to 15' x 5', and the entire work surface was covered in parts waiting for fitting and assembly.

 

ccrSFYP.jpg?1

KUTrGlH.jpg?1

The OD Green/NP3 M4. This one started out as a Cerakoted H2O.

 

A1KeCSC.jpg

KmigTdl.jpg?1

Lots of work to get to here. With COVID and Biden donkey punching us, this project has been going on for a year. Weapon light is a Surefire M600DF lamp head on a Modlite 18650 body. I machined the tailcap to remove the shroud from the Surefire Z68. Even the hardware that holds the light to the IWC mount and the IWC mount screws were all NP3 plated, then the exterior visible head of the screws were painted. The handguard assemblies were stippled by Tango Industries, then painted FDE. Originally the FFT handguards were their tan version. Magazine tube is a carriercomp titanium tube.

w69UWRG.jpg?1

So much work went into this assembly. Only the visible portions of the bolt carrier were painted in FDE. The rest is all NP3. The stem of the bolt handle is still in NP3. The screws under the Sync rail were left in NP3, where as the two visible ones had their tops painted. The trigger pin was NP3 plated, then just the tips were painted FDE. The bolt isn't locked forward or rearward because the link isn't installed. The link is being partially painted in FDE so the visible portion thru the ejection port area won't be shiny silver.

5ZFR7nC.jpg?1

Rubber parts can't be properly painted, so they were left black. Note the shell release lever below the shotgun. Just the visible portion of the lever was painted in FDE. The rest was left in NP3.

FtMSndc.jpg

Other fun stuff being built. AR10 in 6.5 Creedmoor. It's a mix of NP3 and FDE Cerakote.

6dCjzrj.jpg

By far the nicest AR15 I've ever built. Wish it was mine! Still waiting on a few items to finish it up. It's a blend of OD green and NP3. Lithium aluminum receiver set. Andros carbon fiber receiver extension. Proof Research 14.5" carbon fiber wrapped barrel. SLR Rifleworks titanium adjustable gas block. Modlite OKW in OD green cerakote. Railscales KOS panels with integrated sling mounts and hand stop. G10 panels were painted with OD green Cerakote. JP Enterprises LMOS bolt carrier group. JP Enterprises silent buffer. Geissele SD3G trigger. Trijicon RMR RM09 Type II on a Scalarworks mount. NP3 plated B.E. Meyers 249 flash suppressor pinned and welded in place to make barrel length. V Seven lightened parts thrown in wherever possible.

 

Haha, when someone with an Anderson upper and lower lower with training smokes that dude he's gonna have a heck of a loot box upgrade

 

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?

Definitely have to throw as much money into the training side as the equipment side if you don't want to suck. Even then, someone might get lucky. They're fun builds to be involved with. The AR15 and AR10 had an insane amount of work done to them to make everything work right. I'm expecting the accuracy of that AR10 to be as good as it looks with that 24" Bartlein spiral fluted barrel.

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Finally got a break in the rain and was able to hit my BLM range to test three of the M4 H2O's and get them sighted in.

 

toBCdob.jpg?1

The three up for testing riding in the Pelican 1750. What's interesting here is there are three different magazine tube configurations. More on this in a bit.

The overall goal was to sight them in with slugs at 50 yards. I use a laser range finder to get the distance right on my B27 target stand. I then have a lead sled that I sit on a folding table with a chair behind it to take as much of the shooter out of the equation. Once they were sighted in, I ran about 25 rounds of buckshot and 50 rounds of birdshot to test out how each is performing.

First up for testing was the center M4 with a Trijicon SRO 2.5 moa dot optic and a titanium magazine tube. Function was flawless and I had it doing head shots on the B27 within 6 rounds.

jF4XrU4.jpg

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Ouch.

Up next was the OD green M4 with the Trijicon RMR 1.0 moa optic. My personal favorite. This one has the lightweight carbon fiber magazine tube. Iron sights removed to cut weight. Sighting in was just as easy. However the groups were slightly larger than I was seeing with the titanium tubed model, which I didn't photograph. Function was flawless for the remainder of the tests. Blew up a lot of random crap in the desert with it.

QgDjN5W.jpg

Third up was the H2O with the SRO 5.0 moa dot optic and the steel OEM magazine tube. 5.0 moa is massive. At 50 yards, the dot filled almost the entire head of the B27. Problems emerged immediately. The firearm was having issues loading the last round from the magazine tube onto the carrier properly. The round ejects onto the carrier partially, but then the elevator cannot lift it to load it since the front of the round hangs up on the receiver. Diagnosis for this is a shitty magazine spring. It'll be swapped out with a carriercomp spring. I continued testing anyway since the malfunction only appeared every third time or so. Even with the monster 5.0 moa dot, the steel magazine tube was much more rigid of a base and permitted me to make some incredible groups. This was the first time I've shot one of those Benelli compensator breeching chokes. I didn't notice any real benefit in recoil reduction. I did notice the extra 7 ounces of weight on the end of the barrel.

N410BnD.jpg

HDy149I.jpg

 

After cleanup of the site, 90% of the shells were mine. I went thru quite a bit of 12 gauge!

M3Q5YJa.jpg?1

 

So the shotgun is probably more accurate with the steel magazine tube. Not enough to really matter at shotgun distances. I'll still stick with the carbon fiber magazine tubes on mine since they are much lighter up front. I would not use the breecher choke unless I absolutely had to for some outlined mission objective role.

The SRO is much more forgiving for your cheek placement than the RMR. Smaller the dot the better. The smallest dot isn't any harder to find than the largest one. So it comes down to how much of the target you can tolerate being obstructed.

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7 hours ago, StrangerDanger said:

Finally got a break in the rain and was able to hit my BLM range to test three of the M4 H2O's and get them sighted in.

 

toBCdob.jpg?1

The three up for testing riding in the Pelican 1750. What's interesting here is there are three different magazine tube configurations. More on this in a bit.

The overall goal was to sight them in with slugs at 50 yards. I use a laser range finder to get the distance right on my B27 target stand. I then have a lead sled that I sit on a folding table with a chair behind it to take as much of the shooter out of the equation. Once they were sighted in, I ran about 25 rounds of buckshot and 50 rounds of birdshot to test out how each is performing.

First up for testing was the center M4 with a Trijicon SRO 2.5 moa dot optic and a titanium magazine tube. Function was flawless and I had it doing head shots on the B27 within 6 rounds.

jF4XrU4.jpg

FJXPeOO.jpg

Ouch.

Up next was the OD green M4 with the Trijicon RMR 1.0 moa optic. My personal favorite. This one has the lightweight carbon fiber magazine tube. Iron sights removed to cut weight. Sighting in was just as easy. However the groups were slightly larger than I was seeing with the titanium tubed model, which I didn't photograph. Function was flawless for the remainder of the tests. Blew up a lot of random crap in the desert with it.

QgDjN5W.jpg

Third up was the H2O with the SRO 5.0 moa dot optic and the steel OEM magazine tube. 5.0 moa is massive. At 50 yards, the dot filled almost the entire head of the B27. Problems emerged immediately. The firearm was having issues loading the last round from the magazine tube onto the carrier properly. The round ejects onto the carrier partially, but then the elevator cannot lift it to load it since the front of the round hangs up on the receiver. Diagnosis for this is a shitty magazine spring. It'll be swapped out with a carriercomp spring. I continued testing anyway since the malfunction only appeared every third time or so. Even with the monster 5.0 moa dot, the steel magazine tube was much more rigid of a base and permitted me to make some incredible groups. This was the first time I've shot one of those Benelli compensator breeching chokes. I didn't notice any real benefit in recoil reduction. I did notice the extra 7 ounces of weight on the end of the barrel.

N410BnD.jpg

HDy149I.jpg

 

After cleanup of the site, 90% of the shells were mine. I went thru quite a bit of 12 gauge!

M3Q5YJa.jpg?1

 

So the shotgun is probably more accurate with the steel magazine tube. Not enough to really matter at shotgun distances. I'll still stick with the carbon fiber magazine tubes on mine since they are much lighter up front. I would not use the breecher choke unless I absolutely had to for some outlined mission objective role.

The SRO is much more forgiving for your cheek placement than the RMR. Smaller the dot the better. The smallest dot isn't any harder to find than the largest one. So it comes down to how much of the target you can tolerate being obstructed.

If you had a YouTube channel with this type content I imagine it would be pretty successful 

You're already doing the photography staging, and you wrote a script here for this post. 

Just pointing out an opportunity for an additional income stream

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3 hours ago, Dkay67 said:

If you had a YouTube channel with this type content I imagine it would be pretty successful 

You're already doing the photography staging, and you wrote a script here for this post. 

Just pointing out an opportunity for an additional income stream

I don't think you can monetize firearm content thru youtube's Google Adsense. That's why people like GrandThumb have sponsors and Patreon. My 12 year old daughter is the youtube master. She has an animation channel with like 12k subscribers and makes like 750 a month.

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