Recently, one of my sons has expressed his interest in the Gearhead works Tailhook mod 1 brace.
In researching it more, I think I would like how they look and perform too.
With the exception that I prefer a longer buffer tube because of my long forearms. They just do not look comfortable up nearer the wrist as I see them in many pictures. Since I have no first hand experience with them, maybe I'm over thinking it, but I still think it would be more comfortable farther back on my arm.
The longest tube that I can find (that wont' accept a stock--remember, this has to be compliant) still looks short to me.
So, I remember that I had an old bushmaster awb compliant pinned stock that's been taking up dust; despised and neglected for more than a decade. And for giggles, I dig it out and look it over.
This is important for a few reasons.
1. The tail hook is meant for tubes that are 1.19-1.21" in diameter. Normal rifle stocks are 1.14 or 1.17".
A shoulder stock would also not fit on this tube either because it's too large of a diameter. (1.20" actually-meaning a stock wouldn't slide over the tube because it is too fat)
History lesson, ATF approved these for use during the ban because they wouldn't accept a normal AR15 shoulder stocks and made things as hard as they could for mere civilians.
2. The bottom lip of the tube is a solid forging (where the collapsible position holes are in a carbine stock) are not drilled in the ban tube as you can see in the photo above.
Also, the lip on the bottom is square and not chamfered. More proof that a shoulder stock couldn't be used on it.
OK. So, all of the above worked out to my favor for a tube of my liking for this project.
But now for the kickers that I had to work through.
The ban tube was longer than the tubes I am currently seeing on the market. So, I checked online, and sure enough-atf said length of pull for braces shouldn't be 13.5" or more.
Well great !?! More crap to have to deal with.
So, I measured everything and saw that in its' current condition, was a little longer than ATF liked. But it would be possible to shorten the tube (a little on both ends) and be within the pre-determined atf reg's.
So I went about doing just that. Now it is well under their length of pull limit.
It will actually be shorter than the kak shockwave stabilizing brace that is currently on the firearm. So now that I have all my T's crossed and ducks in a row and figured out how I'm going to do this, it's time to get serious and make it happen.
Since the tail hook needs a round tube, I milled most of the lip off where the tailhook will clamp on, and later while I had it chucked up in my lathe shortening and facing both ends, I removed the slight excess from the useless bottom reinforcing lip so I would have somewhere to slide the brace onto the buffer tube.
After shortening and cleaning the lip up on the lathe
And to show the depth of the lip that I removed to accommodate the tailhook.
The final thing that I remembered was that ban tube wasn't made for a carbine/pistol buffer like what was in my 9mm. It was made for a rifle buffer which would've allowed the bolt to go too far rearward, likely damaging something in a bad way if I had ignored that fact and hadn't shortened it.
So, I measure the operating depth of a regular pistol buffer tube like is being sold for these things, and I measured the difference of the post ban tube and made a wooden dowel as a blocker to take up the extra distance, much like how Mossberg uses a dowel as a magazine limiting plug.
The wooden dowel is actually a little longer than it needed to be due to the fact that 9mm AR's don't need as long of a recoil movement to eject the shorter cartridges as the 223 and other rifle cartridges, so the extra added length of the buffer plug will act in the same manner as an extended 9mm buffer like the spikes tactical ST-9X.
To reduce more "buffer spring" and action noise, I super glued a 20 gauge felt wad to the rear of the wooden buffer to eliminate some of the sound on the contact surface, which should help make it a little more quiet in the ear when it's cycling. I also drilled a hole through it as a vent so the tube doesn't vapor lock when it's being used
And now that I think it's finally done and should be functional, safe, and in compliance, here's a quick pic after refinishing.
At the end of the day, I guess I could've used one of those super short tubes, but where's the fun and challenge in that? It's going on a firearm that there's not another like it in the world anyway. Why not mod out the buffer tube too.
In researching it more, I think I would like how they look and perform too.
With the exception that I prefer a longer buffer tube because of my long forearms. They just do not look comfortable up nearer the wrist as I see them in many pictures. Since I have no first hand experience with them, maybe I'm over thinking it, but I still think it would be more comfortable farther back on my arm.
The longest tube that I can find (that wont' accept a stock--remember, this has to be compliant) still looks short to me.
So, I remember that I had an old bushmaster awb compliant pinned stock that's been taking up dust; despised and neglected for more than a decade. And for giggles, I dig it out and look it over.
This is important for a few reasons.
1. The tail hook is meant for tubes that are 1.19-1.21" in diameter. Normal rifle stocks are 1.14 or 1.17".
A shoulder stock would also not fit on this tube either because it's too large of a diameter. (1.20" actually-meaning a stock wouldn't slide over the tube because it is too fat)
History lesson, ATF approved these for use during the ban because they wouldn't accept a normal AR15 shoulder stocks and made things as hard as they could for mere civilians.
2. The bottom lip of the tube is a solid forging (where the collapsible position holes are in a carbine stock) are not drilled in the ban tube as you can see in the photo above.
Also, the lip on the bottom is square and not chamfered. More proof that a shoulder stock couldn't be used on it.
OK. So, all of the above worked out to my favor for a tube of my liking for this project.
But now for the kickers that I had to work through.
The ban tube was longer than the tubes I am currently seeing on the market. So, I checked online, and sure enough-atf said length of pull for braces shouldn't be 13.5" or more.
Well great !?! More crap to have to deal with.
So, I measured everything and saw that in its' current condition, was a little longer than ATF liked. But it would be possible to shorten the tube (a little on both ends) and be within the pre-determined atf reg's.
So I went about doing just that. Now it is well under their length of pull limit.
It will actually be shorter than the kak shockwave stabilizing brace that is currently on the firearm. So now that I have all my T's crossed and ducks in a row and figured out how I'm going to do this, it's time to get serious and make it happen.
Since the tail hook needs a round tube, I milled most of the lip off where the tailhook will clamp on, and later while I had it chucked up in my lathe shortening and facing both ends, I removed the slight excess from the useless bottom reinforcing lip so I would have somewhere to slide the brace onto the buffer tube.
After shortening and cleaning the lip up on the lathe
And to show the depth of the lip that I removed to accommodate the tailhook.
The final thing that I remembered was that ban tube wasn't made for a carbine/pistol buffer like what was in my 9mm. It was made for a rifle buffer which would've allowed the bolt to go too far rearward, likely damaging something in a bad way if I had ignored that fact and hadn't shortened it.
So, I measure the operating depth of a regular pistol buffer tube like is being sold for these things, and I measured the difference of the post ban tube and made a wooden dowel as a blocker to take up the extra distance, much like how Mossberg uses a dowel as a magazine limiting plug.
The wooden dowel is actually a little longer than it needed to be due to the fact that 9mm AR's don't need as long of a recoil movement to eject the shorter cartridges as the 223 and other rifle cartridges, so the extra added length of the buffer plug will act in the same manner as an extended 9mm buffer like the spikes tactical ST-9X.
To reduce more "buffer spring" and action noise, I super glued a 20 gauge felt wad to the rear of the wooden buffer to eliminate some of the sound on the contact surface, which should help make it a little more quiet in the ear when it's cycling. I also drilled a hole through it as a vent so the tube doesn't vapor lock when it's being used
And now that I think it's finally done and should be functional, safe, and in compliance, here's a quick pic after refinishing.
At the end of the day, I guess I could've used one of those super short tubes, but where's the fun and challenge in that? It's going on a firearm that there's not another like it in the world anyway. Why not mod out the buffer tube too.
