[SAPPNASTY]

Good morning,

I am asking this question because it is the only thing I can think of that has dramatically affected my Socom II's accuracy. Just 1 month ago, I was tearing up a steel plate at 300 yards with my irons. Then in between that range trip and my last range trip, I noticed that my gas cyliner lock (front sight, lock and muzzle brake on the Socoms) wasn't tightening correctly and appeared that it needed to be shimmed.

Well, I started playing around with it and noticed that it did still have a little room to screw on tighter....so I tightened it down (extremely tight) and made sure it was straight and aligned correctly thinking a good tight gas cylinder would improve my accuracy. However, on my very next range trip I brought the ol' Socom II along and fired several shots (Federal Sierra Match King 168gr BTHP) at a standard target at 100 yards. I couldn't believe what I was seeing....my rifle that was just recently shooting accurately at 300 yards was shooting 10-12 inch groups! WTF!?

The only modification that I made before this range trip was screwing on the gas cylinder lock alot tighter. Can too tight of a cylinder lock decrease your accuracy? I know there is a simple way to check....by untightening it and shooting again....problem is that I wont be hitting the range again for a while. Any other suggestion of what I can do?

 

[Phinehas]

I believe you only need to torque the gas plug to about 15lbs.


The lock it's self should start to snug up at about 5:00 for best results.


But I am no expert.

 

[Tommo]

Yes, I have found over tightening of the lock distorts the gas cylinder and can hinder movement of the piston.

 

[davecampperry]

I'm confused

I'm not familiar with the socom. If you meant the plug, over tightening it will cause excess strain and can lead to warping. If you meant the lock itself, one turn too much will set the gas cylinder back far enough to misalign the holes. This will cause malfunctions, but should not affect the accuracy that much. Pics needed, please...

 

[Phinehas]

Dave I threw in the part about the gas plug for good measure, the confusion was my fault, sorry. ICONREDFAC

 

[tonyben]

Gas plug torque is from 10 foot pounds up to 23 foot pounds with the popular ranges being between 10 to 12.5 foot pounds. The gas lock should snug between 5 to 5:30 with moderate effort to snug to 6:00. If it tightens before this point, it can degrade accuracy. I don't know the physics of it all, I just know that it is not recommended and in some cases, can degrade accuracy. In other cases, it may not.

 

[SAPPNASTY]

Thanks for the responses.....it's not the gas plug, but the gas cylinder lock. On the Socom, the gas cylinder lock, the front sight and muzzle brake are all one peice....proprietary muzzle break (pictured below).

Before it would screw just a little past the the point of where it needed to be....so basically when I tightened it this time, I turned it almost one full rotation and it was VERY TIGHT. I am at work right now and I'm unable to take any pictures for upload. I will post some when I get home. Thanks again.

 

[Gus Fisher]

Here is something else folks don't think about. When you flip the gas cylinder lock around, it probably will be looser or tighter than the first side.

With NM rifles, we always used shims on the LOOSE side so when enough rounds were fired and the shims beat down a bit, we could flip the lock and be right back to being tight.

 

[NoExpert]

Holy bat crap! You cranked it like 270 degrees then?! Seriously bad juju, back it off and shim it. A standard lock cranked from 3 o'clock can warp a cylinder and cause problems. I think the SOCOM's thread pitch is half the standard thread pitch, so anything before about 2 o'clock is no go. Hopefully nothing got damaged...

Here is something else folks don't think about. When you flip the gas cylinder lock around, it probably will be looser or tighter than the first side.

With NM rifles, we always used shims on the LOOSE side so when enough rounds were fired and the shims beat down a bit, we could flip the lock and be right back to being tight.

Very good info Gus. Sadly it's N/A to the SOCOM or rifles with GLFS setups since they're a single sided setup.

 

[Gus Fisher]

Holy bat crap! You cranked it like 270 degrees then?! Seriously bad juju, back it off and shim it. A standard lock cranked from 3 o'clock can warp a cylinder and cause problems. I think the SOCOM's thread pitch is half the standard thread pitch, so anything before about 2 o'clock is no go. Hopefully nothing got damaged....

Good Lord, I hope the barrel threads were not ruined. I agree he warped the hell out of the cylinder and that's why it shot so poorly. Hopefully it will spring back when the pressure is taken off it.

Very good info Gus. Sadly it's N/A to the SOCOM or rifles with GLFS setups since they're a single sided setup.

Great point.

 

[AR 50 BMG]

you probably f.u.b. your barrel thread and possibly warped your gas cylinder as well

noexpert is correct pull it off add shims and hope you didn't permanently warp your gas cylinder and reinstall it to just snug up at 60 deg or less from alignment
anything more than 65 degree of turn you'll have to pull it back apart and adjust shims till you can lock it down correctly

 

[hondo]

new pull-off

Hey SAPP, if it's buggered up to much let me know, I should still have a new, unfired SOCOM rig laying around here somewhere.

 

[SAPPNASTY]

Thanks fellas, Im going to go home during my lunch break and try to fix it. I feel like an idiot now. I just thought tighter is better.

 

[SAPPNASTY]

Hondo,

Thank you. Only question is, how do I tell if I royally F****D it up!? I'm guessing by releasing the pressure on the cylinder and shooting it? I guess if it still shoots like crap I screwed it up?

 

[AR 50 BMG]

tilt test will tell you if you warped it if it doesn't move free most likly you warped it
removing it and check your threads and barrel facing as well as inside your lock / muzzle brake

 

[Dave P]

Sappy - take this as a lesson to learn with these rifles: if it is working fine, DON'T F--- WITH IT!

Don't dismantle it. Don't try a new piston. Dont swap trigger groups, etc etc. Just shoot it until you think it needs improvement - then you have my permission to INTELLIGENTLY work on it!

/rant off

Dave

 

[Seventh Fleet]

Here you go two sources for M14 shims...

Barrel shims... http://www.topnotchtactical.com/con.../sei_m14_gas_cylinder_precision_shim_kit.html

http://www.fulton-armory.com/gascylindershimsetstainlessoneea005010and015.aspx

How to shim your M14 rifle video...

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k5BMTGVXEHQ[/ame]

7th

 

[SAPPNASTY]

Thanks everyone.....Dave, your absolutely right. Still being rather new, I was trying to take an already accurate rifle and make it more accurate. Lesson learned! Unfortunately that's how I learn most things I know....by f'ing stuff up an never doing it again! lol

 

[37489]

How he do dat?

I'm kinda wondering what kind of vice and wrench he used to put a 270 on the plug. If he did it with his hands and a GI combo tool he has nothing to worry about. He can win enough arm wrestling to replace the rifle!

 

[SAPPNASTY]

Okay, the results are in. Got home and field stripped my Socom II. The first test I did was the tilt test. Now I couldn't remember how to do the test, so I did it with and without the trigger assembly installed. Here is the video:
[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YWgX-YZYUo[/ame]

At first I do it with the trigger assembly installed (which if I rember correctly, it has to be out completely...so I figured what the hell...do it both ways just in case).

Next, I checked the threads on the barrel and the threads on the inside of the proprietary muzzle brake. They looked fine and did not appear to be damaged in any way. A little dirty, but okay:

Then I began to play around with the tightness of the muzzle brake. It was on very tight but a couple of strange things I noticed. After I removed the gas cylinder (which appeared to look undamaged) and inspected it, I put it back on and made sure it was tight against the front band. I then put the piston (which also appeared to be okay) back in and began screwing back on the muzzle brake.

But here is where it got a little weird. I spun it by hand and continued doing so until it stopped itself (if that makes sense) and this is where it stopped:

So then I began to hand tighten it and although it was getting more snug, it did not stop until this point:

Now I was under the impression that this is where you want it to stop. But here is the thing....This was not the spot that it tightened to from the factory. The factory actually had it loosened back almost one entire rotation, leaving a small gap between the muzzle brake and gas cylinder as seen below:

This is the reason I tightened it so tight when I most recently adjusted it. But I am 100% sure that when I received it from Springfield that the muzzle brake was not really tight and had a small gap. HOWEVER, once you tighten the gas plug in, the gap closes and appears as normal. This is how my rifle was when it was shooting well:

After noticing this a while back, I turned it past the point it needed to be to be aligned correctly just to see how far it would go to get to it's tightest point. So when I began to turn it (hand tight) it went all the way to this point and stopped completely:

At this point it took everything I had to tighten it and get it aligned correctly. So after I began reading some of your posts in response to this thread, I began to inspect the rifle and look for anything odd. Then I noticed this on the barrel:

And it appeared that my op rod was hitting the bottom of my barrel when in motion:

This only caught my attention because I never noticed this before...as well as some odd metal marks on the bottom of my op rod:

I'm sorry if I confused anyone with my findings, as I tried to explain this as best as I could. Any suggestion or does anyone see anything major that I am missing? What in the hell suddenly killed my accuracy????