RIA USA VRF14 12 gauge firearm

[Majer]

Some JB weld in the slot would take the slop out of it, then use a Dremel to clean up any that goes where you don't need it.

[Big Frank]

If I had a Dremel I would have used it instead of doing things the way I did. I'm not going to buy one to fix this up either. But JB Weld can be used for a lot of repairs on things most people wouldn't think of using it on. If I put some in the slot I could try again to drill the hole where I want it. I couldn't do that very well when there was already a narrow slot there. I'd have to do more drilling and filing to take the slack out, and it's only the first hole that's like that. If the stock is back 1/4" before I pull it into my shoulder and take the slack out, I think it would be good enough. I hope to find out some day. I recently spent $2,000 on a laptop I can't afford, and will be struggling to come up with money for things like tax stamps.

[Big Frank]

Some JB weld in the slot would take the slop out of it, then use a Dremel to clean up any that goes where you don't need it.

I still don't have a Dremel, but I'm fixing this up. I rolled up a piece of cardboard and stuck it in the hole marked with a white circle, and taped around the back of the tube with masking tape. I filled the areas marked in gray with J B KwikWeld that I happened to have half a syringe full of. I ate breakfast then pulled the piece of cardboard out. The epoxy is still like taffy but with any luck will be solid tomorrow so I can file it flat. Then I just need to re-drill the front hole, and another hole halfway between it and the hole the cardboard was in. Even with syringes that should dispense equal amounts of resin and hardener, I always get epoxy mixed wrong. It squirts some out of one tube then some out of the other tube every time, and never in equal amounts. I think I can get it closer by eyeballing it, using regular tubes, but maybe not. I remember several times using epoxy that never did harden completely. Or maybe it did, after I threw away whatever I was using it on.

The L.O.P. looks like it would be right for me with the stock fully collapsed or in the next hole. So I thought about just putting a bunch of Goop on the tube and gluing the stock in the fully closed position. But I think I can do better than that. If I can't, it not for lack of trying, and giving up. I don't know the meaning of the word quit. Or when to quit.

https://www.jbweld.com/product/kwikweld-syringe

After looking at the picture, I realized I should have put a piece of cardboard in the last hole and filled in the area between it and the screw I put in the very last hole. Not that I ever plan on using the last hole or the area around it, but it just seems like the right thing to do. When I'm done fixing up the part I'm already working on, maybe I'll see if I have enough JB Weld to fill that part in. If I do, I may even slap on a bit of paint over the JB Weld and make the job look complete.

[Big Frank]

That epoxy STILL wasn't hard, but it was hard enough to file and sand. So I filed it down and sanded it flat with a piece of 120 grit sandpaper. Then I slid the stock onto the tube and gave the end of the locking pin on the adjuster a couple of taps with my plastic mallet. It made a small dent so know I know where to drill it tomorrow when hopefully it's fully hardened. And I only need to drill one hole, about halfway between the the square base of the tube and the first hole. Right about where I marked the pic with a blue circle. What's left of the 6-position tube will be 4 positions, but that's more than enough.

[Big Frank]

The 6 minute JB KwikWeld still wasn't hard, but I drilled the hole out around 6 am. I was thinking that the steel insert with holes in it went all the way up there but it didn't. I was going to drill until I hit it, but since it wasn't there, and the epoxy wasn't hard, I drilled all the way through the bottom of the tube. That may actually be a good thing because it will break the suction when I move the stock in and out. It fits tighter than it needs to but it's still okay. I think it will be easier to move the stock in and out when I'm all done. I removed a little too much of the soft epoxy when I dug out the top part between the new hole and the next one. So I mixed up the rest of the JB KwikWeld and put a little back in there and then filled the space between the bolt I put in and the back of the stock. I scraped up the last drops of epoxy and put it on another project I've been working on. Pics in December if all goes according to plan. To remove that bit of epoxy at the top between those 2 holes, I was using a hacksaw blade and other tools, which cut down at an angle toward the front of the tube. I'm trying to do with simple hand tools what I need an end mill to do properly. Since I can't mill a slot with the top and bottom parallel to each other, I have to decide when it's good enough and to stop digging at it. Also, when I drilled the hole it made a small amount of slack when the stock is fully collapsed. Maybe 1/8" instead of the 1/2" or 3/4", or whatever it was before. After I get some sleep I'll see if the new epoxy set or not.

[Sponsor]

[Big Frank]

And the quick-setting epoxy STILL isn't hard. I just got done whittling it down with a utility knife, and scraping out the trough between the 1st and 2nd holes with a 3/4" wood chisel. I got the bottom of the track flat and level now instead of being all gouged out at an angle. It was very tough going, because the epoxy is almost hard but not quite. I'll wait until later to sand it down again. I just checked the fit, and it feels great when it stops at the last hole instead of shooting past the hole then stopping. The fore and aft play it had when fully collapsed is virtually gone. MUCH better than all that slop that was in it before. Ill post a pic when I get done monkeying around with it.

[Big Frank]

I finished working on the stock and hit it with a couple coats of spray paint before I went to bed this morning. You could say it's night and day difference from where I quit before. Even though it's not perfect, I'm happy with it now and that's what really counts. Like I said, I rolled up pieces of cardboard and stuck them in the 2nd and 4th holes in the stock. Then I filled the front (blue arrow) and back (red arrow) with JB Kwick. And I also put a little more where behind the 2nd hole (white arrow) so I could level it off better with a chisel, utility knife, and and sandpaper. I squared up the back end of the rib better too. The locking pin rocks front to back a little bit f I push and pull on the stock, but there's less movement in the first hole, the one I drilled through the epoxy, than there is when it's in the steel insert made into the stock. That part of it locks up tight, even better than a factory fit! So I'm not kidding when I say I'm happy with how it turned out. If I would have filled the front part with epoxy and drilled the hole first, before trying to cut the channel out, maybe I could have avoided that ugly part on the sides, between the first and second hole. That's the problem with redneck engineering. When you're doing something that has probably never been done before, you learn as you go and figure out what you should have done differently. It already had a narrow slot there for no apparent reason, other than to lighten it a tiny bit or use less material , maybe.

What do you guys think?

[Big Frank]

I forgot to mention that since it's a CAR15 stock, the tube now has the correct number of holes. Unless you're talking about the very first 2 position stocks that only locked fully open or fully closed. The 6-position tube didn't come along until the M4 stock AFAIK. I'm not sure if the M4 stock came before the 6-hole receiver extension, after it, or at the same time. But they started with 2 holes, then had 4, then 6 with the M4, and Strike Industries or someone has a 7-position enhanced buffer tube for finer adjustments.

[Big Frank]

I never got around to cleaning this thing after the 255 round buckshot break-in. I field stripped it today and it's FILTHY. Not black powder dirty, but close. I'll clean it while I watch TV or something later. I'm not putting the compensator back on it. I don't like having to use an Allen wrench to back off all 6 screws a tiny bit at a time to get it off. Without the comp, it's tool-less disassembly and reassembly. What looks like a magazine cap only holds the forend on, not the barrel. There a separate barrel nut under the forend, and you can't get to it with the comp on the barrel. Other than having 2 separate nuts, it's a lot like taking apart my Remington 12 gauge, with the addition of flipping a lever to get the feed ramp out of the way to remove the bolt. It tilts down into the mag well, then back up when the gun is reassembled.

[Big Frank]

I don't know why none of the other pictures shows the gun with the RRA quad rail bottle opener on it because it's been on there awhile. This is what it looks like after painting over it with a flat black Birchwood Casey paint pen a couple of times. I have a gloss black pen too and they really come in handy for quick touch-ups. Like the kind I used to do with a permanent marker but it would rub off. Where the black arrow is in the second pic, there's an undercut area. The tapered lip works for popping crown caps off bottles, whether they're twist-off or not. On my gun it's oriented so the edge of the opener is facing down when the muzzle is pointing up. If there's a better tool for unscrewing twist-off caps I haven't seen it. It works amazingly well. It's hard to believe bottle caps have been using the same 21-tooth design for 133 years. When something works, it works, and there wasn't much need for improvement. The company, Crown Holdings, Inc., formerly Crown Cork & Seal Company, founded in 1892, claims to manufacture one out of every five beverage cans used in the world, and one out of every three food cans used in North America and Europe. There's still a press at my mom's house for putting caps on bottles. I used it once when I made root beer.

https://www.rockriverarms.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=category.display&category_ID=1665

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crown_Holdings