The Gunsmith Thread

Okay everyone. Here is a fun no-money wager. Who can guess how much torque I encountered when removing an AR-15 barrel nut today?

The industry standard is around 40.0 lb-ft. of torque on a barrel nut.
100 worthless points to whomever can guess the closest, without going over.
Give your answer in foot-pounds or pound-feet of torque (however you like to state it).
 
Factory-assembled Bravo Company upper.
I did apply heat first, in case they put Loctite or Rocksett on it (they did not).
 
Last edited:
Nope. I took off the A2 front sight/gas block, the delta ring, the spring, and the front handguard cap and had a good look at the barrel and upper receiver. All looked okay. I reused the barrel nut (sans delta ring and spring) put the new handguard on, and reinstalled the A2 front sight.
Test-fired and it shot fine.
 
After 125 foot-pounds, I started adjusting my torque wrench by 2 ft-lb increments to see what the winning number was...
 
136 foot pounds. It's a record, I think. ;)
 
Another customer brought in a pistol with a missing grip screw which had a rubber band around it to keep the grip on the gun.
I thought it was going to be a slam dunk. Just get a grip screw and clean it while I was at it, right?

Not so.

In his infinite wisdom, he globbed a heap of glue on the grip panel and stuck it onto the gun. I'm talking a whole lot of glue here. Of course, said glue migrated all throughout every square inch of the frame, magazine, and even up into the slide. I had to put it in the ultrasonic bath with the heat turned up, just to get the slide to move enough to disassemble it. After getting it apart, I had to scrape the glue off every single part in the frame. It was the consistency of rubber cement, which made it easier than say, epoxy.
 
1605638911299.png

The only thing that I do different is use a high-temp grease on the Bolt Carrier Rails, Bolt Exterior, Pivot Pin, Takedown Pin, and the face of the buffer (in lieu of oil)
 
Mobil 1 synthetic motor oil makes a darned fine gun oil, by the way. Slip-2000 also makes a great gun-specific oil marketed as "EWL"
There are a lot of gun grease manufacturer's out there, but I prefer Slide-Glide (Lite and Standard).
 
Back
Top