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Posted: 10/5/2008 12:12:12 PM EDT
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My HD rifle has a Tango Down VFG. I recently have become intrigued by the shorter versions available. I really don't have a preference one way or the other for VFG, if I had to carry a rifle all day I would really want one but I don't consider a rifle lacking for not having one. Since I don't want to pay for a new one and I really would not care a screwing up my old one I set out to try and shorten my VFG. Enjoy  Here is the rifle as is with the stock Tango Down VFG  I am going to use a simple hacksaw to remove almost two inches of material. I have a cut off tool but is air powered and I have no compressor  . Oh well I do nicer looking jobs by hand anyway. Here is where I made the cut. The rib makes a good guide for straight cuts.  I left the pressure pad insert in long enough to score a line across it. I will finish the cut with it removed. I found that by not securing the VFG in a vise I was able to get a very clean and straight cut. I simply held the VFG against the bench, made a small cut, rotated the VFG, and continued the cut.  Here is the finished cut after cleaning up a little with a file. For anybody that's curious these grips are roughly 1/4 inch thick.  To reattach the cap it must be filed down to fit.  Measure the ID  Measure the OD As it turns out the OD of the cap at the thread root is the same as the ID of the grip  I simply have to file down the threads. Luckily I had a large bolt that fit snugly inside the cap. I was able to secure the cap in the vise for filing quite easily. At this point I had to be very careful with the cap. When the threads have been filed down the material can get very thin. Get carried away with the file and you will go through, or crack the cap.  A few trial fits and the cap fits like a glove. The only problem is there is a small step where the body meets the cap.  A razor blade made short work of that! The polymer this VFG is made out off is awesome. It is tough but still very easy to work with.  A perfect fit  The VFG is not round through out its length. Therefore the cap will not cover the entire "new" bottom. I knew this before I started so it really does not bother me.  Now, let’s glue it back together!  The two part epoxy sets is 4 min, the piece can be handled in 12 min, and cures completely in 12 hours. The 'new' VFG has a little glue squeeze out but I am going to wait until it cures before I try and clean it with any solvents.  Here it is back where it belongs  A close up  Here is how it fits my hand  To summarize this thread let me say this was very easy to do and only required minimal had tools. The biggest disadvantage to this project was losing the storage compartment in the VFG. If I had to do this all over again I would have tried to cut threads in the VFG to reuse the cap. When I first started I was worried this material would be brittle and hard to cut, I was dead wrong. This stuff was a joy to work with and cutting threads would have been easy to do. Here are all the tools I used. Total cost of materials $2.19 for the epoxy.  I hope you all enjoyed reading this as much as I did creating it!  |
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