New to building with lots of questions.

[Klem]

Thanks for the info Klem. I think I am going with a Midwest Industries GenII SS series. It is a clamp type handguard that comes with a barrel wrench that will probably involve locking the torque bar in the vise in a vertical position with the barrel pointing up, torque wrench on the supplied barrel wrench. At least thats the way I'm envisioning it. If that does not work I'm thinking I could machine a block to go in the vise to stabilize the supplied wrench, barrel pointing down, and torque with the torque bar from above.

Yes, nice choice. I am familiar with these. Good value for money with enough clearance inside for free-floating a clamping version of the Sentry 7 gas block.

The MW SS Gen2 comes with a barrel nut wrench (with 1/2' extension hole) but you don't need it if you have an AR Armourers wrench.

The barrel nut needs timing as it has the same teeth as the MILSPEC clamping barrel nut. So you need to line-up the teeth with the gas tube hole.

This is the configuration with the Brownells torque rod that worked for me. Clamp the armourers wrench in the vise. Do the barrel nut up hand-tight and lower the receiver/barrel barrel-down into the clamped armourers wrench. The Brownells rod comes in from the top as normal.


The rod looks a little worn and shiny. This is because it's a pretty tight fit in most receivers. You may need to wet-and-dry it a little. Receivers that have been anodised should be OK but if they have been Ceracoated it will be a tight fit.