I’ve got a little pet project going and I need a barrel nut with an outside diameter of 1.31” give or take a hundredth. My spare SLR are almost there but touch too thick. Any info would be great. Thanks!

Will a USGI not work?

No. It needs to allow a handguard to slide on. A very particular handguard that needs a 1.31” diameter barrel nut. The barrel nut that came with the handguard doesn’t allow the barrel I want to use to fit

What handguard?

Foxtrot Mike front charger

Is the barrel nut I.D. too small?


Some information/specifics would help.

Find someone who owns a lathe?

Definitely.

Yeah my buddy runs a machine shop but unfortunately the way the FM barrel nut is designed you can’t remove the amount of material needed before the nut would fall apart at the two grooves where their cross bolts interface. Hence why I’m looking for other options. They designed everything around pencil profile. The handguard itself is a simple friction clamp and the anti rotation tab is built into the top rail so all I really need is a barrel nut that will fit inside the handguard. I can fab the rest from there. Like I said, this is just a pet project. It’s not to replace my regular ARs, just tinkering with an alternate platform range toy. It may end up being more trouble than it’s worth but I like the challenge.

Yes they run a barrel nut that has a taper that interfaces with the taper of the chamber area of the barrel rather than the flange of the barrel extension. Their barrels are pencil profile, and they use a really long nut with two grooves on the muzzle end of the nut for the cross bolts that mount the handguard. You can’t remove enough material from the inside diameter of the barrel nut before you would cut through the wall of the two crossbolt grooves, thus separating the wrench flats from the rest of the nut. If you Google foxtrot mike front chargers or go to their spare parts page and look at pics it is easy to see.

Sounds like a custom nut is in order, fire up the lathe.