Norinco M305 Shorty Castle Nut Removal tips?

skeetgunner

skeetgunner

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So I cave in and buy another M305 shorty, just because I want to be one of the cool kids. :cool:

With my genitalia still firmly attached, and new Shorty in hand, I call M14.ca and Armtac, to buy some cool-kid (tm) mods. Snagged a nice vortex red dot off the EE too. While eagerly awaiting Canada Post-mortem's delivery of the fun bits, I start the process of breaking the shorty down for clean up, tuning and prep.

Everything comes apart beautifully, except for the flash hider. Now I know to remove the front site and the captive screw. And I know the FH is probably soldered on, so I'll have to deal with that....but a BFM and a hardwood ash block will take care of that. BTDT before, shouldn't be a problem, right? Ha!

But first I have to loosen the castle nut. Out comes the penetrating oil and the trusty old castle-nut pliers. Which I break. With a cheater on, they fold like soft taffy. Ok, more oil and a brass punch this time. Which breaks. :bangHead:


Ok.....I count to 100 in binary, grab my other set of pliers and have at it again. SNAP! The second set of pliers and my sanity collapses....ovrec


So what's the trick? I've done this before without issues. Is the circa-2012 batch of nuts different in some way? Cross threaded? Staked? Solder leaked down into it? Short of a cut-off wheel, how the heck do I get the castle nut off?

I shoulda stuck with F-class.:evil:
 
I used heat.....little butane torch did the trick....and good castlenut pliers....see hungry, he has some
 
Hitzy said:
I used heat.....little butane torch did the trick....and good castlenut pliers....see hungry, he has some
Click to expand...

I'm always leery of using heat on a barrel....but its probably my next option. and I think one of my pairs of pliers was from Hungry. The others were from Brownells.
 
You don't have to worry about a little heat. The barrel gets plenty hot when firing a lot(I'm a poet and didn't even know it:redface:), a little propane flame won't harm it.
 
My castlenut pliers are made from the big jawed C shaped vice grips, super heavy duty LOL
After removing the castlenut set screw on my new 22" 2013 rifle's flash hider... I had to use a 3ft cheater bar to crack the castlenut loose. Tightest one I've seen yet.
Couple good wacks and the welds gave and off the unit came.
The cosmo/preserving oil trapped under the flash hider and throught the castlenut threads, was so full of grit I think it acts like loctite LOL
Didn't find the gritty oil anywhere else on the rifle though.
Next one I do (5 more to go) I'm blasting the muzzle area out with brake clean, compressed air, then soaking in deep creep overnight first :D
 
sunray said:
"...probably soldered on..." They not welded on?
Click to expand...

I don't know. If they were truly welded on, why would you need a threaded barrel and castle-nut with set screw? You could save a whole $0.10 per unit. Clearly they were meant to come off. I've always considered them to be soldered or brazed or tacked or generally futz with using whatever process was approved in slave labour or glorious peoples high school number 666 shop class that day.

45ACPKING said:
My castlenut pliers are made from the big jawed C shaped vice grips, super heavy duty LOL
Click to expand...

I must make one of these.
 
ok .. heres what i found
h ttp://m14forum.com/reference/74131-home-made-maitenance-tools-3.html

i don't know if you have to register to see the pic's ?
 
The first set of those made was on my bench back in 2006 :)

You get the big clamp type Vice grips tha don't have the pivot pads on the jaw tips.
Then with a dremel tool and cutt off wheels, cut the jaw tips back 1/8" on each jaw. Leave a square peg on each jaw as you cut the rest away. The pegs should be in same spot so they meet up evenly when you close the jaws fully.

I actually had the jaws closed when I layed out and cut mine so I could be precise.
Make the protrusions as square as possible and the same dimension as slots in castlenut. *** make. The protrusions on the outside edge of pad, not centered on pad. Otherwise pads will contact flash hider body.

The heat from cutting with the cuttoff wheels will nicely harden everything up. If the protrusions end up being to long once finished, trim them so when closed, the tips do not hit barrel inside castlenut.

Done like dinner. Somewhere I have the original picks of that set on photobucket. I'll dig for em.
I've seen quite a few guys make these since I posted the first how to a bunch of years ago.
 
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Update: "CTC Scientific" had a sale on c-clamp vise grips last weekend, leaving none to be found. Undaunted, I attempted the "heat and hit" approach with a butane torch and a punch. Results were less than successful, I manage to break the castles off the nut........and by that time the rum was gone too.

I ended up cutting the now thoroughly useless ex-castle nut off with a dremel. Which was interesting in itself. The nut was cross threaded and packed with what at first I thought was some time of peoples republic lock-tite. Black and very gritty. In retrospect, it might have been grit from when the parts were sandblasted prior to parkerising. Are these parts parked in place or parkerized firstand then assembled? One whack from my trusty BFM was all it took break the spot welds and remove the flash hider.

I'm thinking I might just have the barrel cut off and then re-threaded in a standard 5/8x24 pitch.
 
Interesting. I just read in another thread that somebody found the same kind of grit in the barrel threads, after they removed the barrel.
 
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