This is how its done, I done it like this, too and its easier then sticking the barrel in the vise


Quote Originally Posted by T2C View Post
With two people it is easier, but I have done roughly 20 by myself.

With the receiver mounted in a vise block, I position the upper with the barrel on the bench side of my vise. I place the dowel in the front sight base and pivot the vise until the bottom of the dowel rod makes contact with the side of the bench, then rotate the vise/upper toward the bench until there is a bow in the dowel rod. This frees up both hands to engage the teeth of the barrel nut with the barrel nut wrench/torque wrench.

One thing I have noticed over the years is that after I get about 8 ft.lbs of torque on the barrel nut, tension on the dowel rod is no longer necessary.

I want my rifle windage at mechanical zero after zeroing the rifle on the range on a no wind day. In almost all cases I have been able to do this using the technique I decribed. If I had to do this day in and day out for a living, I would rig a fixture to hold the wood dowel. There are other ways to hold the front sight base, but I don't want to see any new tool marks when I am finished with the job.

I have been told countless times that 13 clicks from mechanical windage zero is acceptable, to which I vehemently disagree. I have had to use this technique to zero windage on all but 3 of the AR carbines/rifles I have purchased since 1985 and have performed this task for several people I know in the shooting community.