Keymod going away?

[jesuvuah]

I consider falling out of a tree to be a pretty significant event. Had you gone down also, would you have likely gotten up and resumed the hunt?

I have fallen out twice. Once removing a tree stand out of a rooten tree. The screw in foot peg ripped out. Worst part was another peg caught my belly on the way down. It almost ripped my nuts off. I was 17 so I walked it off and continued scouting.

2nd time, when I was 21. I went up in a homemade wooden platform in the y of a tree. It was rotting and the floor fell out from under me as I was hooking up my harness. I climbed back up the tree, got my bow, and walked a half mile back to my truck. Then I drove to the hospital to find out I fractured my spine. After laying down for the MRI, I could barely move.

Both fallls from about 12 to 15 feet.

Sorry for the thread drift.

Sent from my moto e5 (XT1920DL) using Tapatalk

[Randall]

I've spent a fair bit of time climbing into and out of tree stands. I almost fell once, and it would have been a bad experience for sure.
I agree about picatinny rails being the strongest option. I've still got 2 of them, and I've thought about getting another. I'm curious how they've improved in the last 10 years. Mine are the original DD (not so) Lite.

Ive got an original Lite Rail, and a couple of the Lite Rail III/M4 rails. They are different lengths so its not an apples to apples comparison but I don’t see all that much difference between them, other than additional QD sockets on the newer ones.

I just played around with a BCM QRF and the second I picked it up I could feel it was much wider than a Lite Rail III. I personally prefer the skinnier DD style, but that’s probably just because I’m used to it.

Looks like a KMR. FYI - I had a similar issue with one of mine and BCM replaced the rail.

It is indeed a KMR. That’s interesting to hear. I didn’t even contact them about it. I had thought about it just to give them a failure point for reference, but I never did. I figured it definitely wasn’t designed for falls from that height, plus it was all on me, so I just swapped the light from the 10:30 to 1:30 and covered the ding with rail covers. Doesn’t surprise me with your experience though. I’ve had a couple dealings with BCM customer service over the years, and every time they’ve been top notch.

I have fallen out twice.

Damn dude… your screen name should be 9Lives. Peg catching your belly… makes me shiver thinking about it. I watched my brother fall out of a stand when we were young. He was almost to the platform when he slipped and fell 15 fifteen feet straight onto his back. His leg hooked around a peg on the way down, which was the worst part, but he didn’t suffer any damage other than some deep bruising. Thank god for the resiliency of young bodies.

[Valhalla]

From an engineering standpoint, Keymod is the superior design in terms of ease-of-use and return-to-zero (due to chamfered undercut in the keyholes). However, those exact chamfers made the rail weaker than M-Lok's straight wall design. Which is why M-Lok rails will always take more abuse before the accessory rip off the rail. Now, I was somewhat surprised when the military (Crane?) found that M-Lok returns to zero better; my only explanation is that Keymod slots require much higher tolerance to "work right" and we've seen some rails having key holes completely out-of-spec. Cheap Keymod nuts from China are even worse; you could have gotten some nuts that doesn't even mate correctly with the slots. This may be the case during their test, but without access to their test samples we will never know.

Also, I may be persecuted by saying this... M-Lok slots are waaaay easier to machine compare to Keymod. Because of it, M-Lok rails WILL be cheaper to made than their Keymod counterpart. HOWEVER, a manufacturer can likely sell them at the same price. Naturally, the more profitable product gets the bigger push. Capitalism at work.

Now, being a manufacturer ourselves, we are not exempt from this; but here is one interesting observation I can share with you: people will install the M-Lok nuts BACKWARDS. When someone said they have to use a 2nd tool to "keep the nut from spinning", that's the first question we asked / first instruction photo we sent, and 8 out of 10 times it instantly fixes their problem. This is one problem with M-Lok - it's actually not a new design; we've been using those exact nuts in aluminum extrusions YEARS before Magpul "invented" M-Lok. But for people who are not familiar with how they works, many might think it really doesn't matter which way is up. And that's more common than you would think.

[1168]

I dropped my rifle out of the tree stand a year or two ago and it ripped my light/mount right off the keymod rail. The BCM light mount was roughed up and bent a little, but it still mounts up fine. The slots themselves were a different story. Also took a direct hit to my optic on the way down, right on the elevation turret cap, without damage or a change in zero luckily.

The rifle was built for the weight savings of keymod over the durability of picatinny, since its primary purpose is hunting and not HD, so i wasnt disillusioned about its strength.

I dont plan to replace the rail (even with two useless slots), but even before this I had decided I wont be buying anything keymod again. All picatinny all day.

Attachment 59528Attachment 59529Attachment 59530

There’s some decent endorsements in there for Elzetta and whichever optic.

[Valhalla]

It ain't rocket surgery...

NOOOOO, NO NO NO NO NOOOOO.....

DO NOT, I repeat, DO NOT use that method. That's #1 cause of M-Lok rails getting damaged from underside. (They did get the video title right though; I bet Magpul HATES this trick because it breaks rails.)

The problem with this so called "trick" is that once the nut is able to free-spin, as you tighten it you run the risk of the nut "biting" just before the top half recess into the slot. If that happens and you keep tightening, the corner of the nut will literally broach into the edge of your slot, taking a chunk of aluminum with it. However, unless the hand guard is removed like the video (which we never do), you rarely get any visual feedback that you are damaging your rail until it's too late. In fact, many people don't even know they've damaged their rail until they have to remove that accessory.

The better method is what I call "two step forward one step back". Start with the nut almost completely tighten against whatever accessory you have, push and hold the accessory onto the rail (with proper alignment to the slot, of course), and then start rotating the hex key counterclockwise (CCW) 1 full turn at a time. At each full turn, you would then try to "tighten" the nut by rotating the hex key clockwise (CW) about a quarter turn. During this CW action, feel the friction and compare it to the loosening/CCW action. If it feels about the same, the "wing" of the nut hasn't clear the slot yet, then you go back to turning CCW one full-turn at a time, and repeat the CW test. At some point, when you try the CW routine, you would suddenly feel the hex key being able to rotate full 90 degrees with nearly zero friction/resistant, and then the friction comes back. That is when the "wing" of the nut has just completely cleared the back side of the slot, and was able to rotating to the 90 degrees "locking" position. From there, just keep tightening to spec. Obviously this method will ONLY work if loctite has been applied (and allowed to dry) on the screws, so you can feel the friction caused by the thread lockers. But you should always loctite your screws anyway, and this method is much safer to your rail than the one shown in the video. I Hope that make sense and will hopefully save someone's rail!



Valhalla Tactical

[RMiller]

I only have MLOK right now.

I haven't had a problem with it.

Some have. The Black Geissele MK8 Rail I have has some damage where a light mount took an impact.

Then again, I typically just use an X300 at the 12 o'clock and only have a KAG and panels on the mlok.

I wouldn't actively seek a keymod rail now. I think the mlok is more aesthetically pleasing and it gets the job done.

[Randall]

There’s some decent endorsements in there for Elzetta and whichever optic.

For real. It was a Trijicon TR24G for reference

[3ACR_Scout]

That being said if BCM decided to come out with an M-Lok version of the PKMRs I would probably eventually switch to those.

The subject came up over in ARFCOM's industry forum. Someone posted a photo of the BCM M-LOK handguard (PMCMR?) on one of the Saint models that was featured in The Firearm Blog:



A BCM rep on the forum responded that they will be selling it separately in 2020. I like the PKMR a lot - I find it to be very comfortable and solid. I'll definitely try the M-LOK version as an affordable way to learn that attachment system.

[Circle_10]

The subject came up over in ARFCOM's industry forum. Someone posted a photo of the BCM M-LOK handguard (PMCMR?) on one of the Saint models that was featured in The Firearm Blog:



A BCM rep on the forum responded that they will be selling it separately in 2020. I like the PKMR a lot - I find it to be very comfortable and solid. I'll definitely try the M-LOK version as an affordable way to learn that attachment system.

Nice!
Well as a "bitter clinger" to FSBs on ARs, I'm looking forward to that.

[titsonritz]

Nice!
Well as a "bitter clinger" to FSBs on ARs, I'm looking forward to that.

Same here, I've got a BCM 14.5" w/ an FSB & pin/welded MD that wears an ond original MOE handguard I'd like to thrown one on.