I stopped counting but 7000, 8000, or 9000 rounds later and my set screw gas-block has not moved or come loose at all. The barrel is dimpled. Red Lock-tite was used and I staked the screws in place. One and done.
I stopped counting but 7000, 8000, or 9000 rounds later and my set screw gas-block has not moved or come loose at all. The barrel is dimpled. Red Lock-tite was used and I staked the screws in place. One and done.
Run KAC LPGB's on 6 rifles with nary a prob.
Form 1'ing two rifles next week and both have KAC LPGB's.
The two screws per block work well.
I recommend pinning the gas block. I have seen screws come loose after a barrel has been dimpled and after red locktite was applied.
To answer this question for myself I once installed a set screw gas block into a properly dimpled but inexpensive barrel. I found that no amount of abuse up to and including beating the gas block with a hammer would cause it to budge at all.
If a staked screw is good enough for your bolt carrier group then it's more than good enough for your gas block. It takes a lot of force to extract the screw from a lightly staked gas block and I actually broke the hex trying to back the screw out of a heavily staked gas block. Either way that screw is never going to wiggle out of there on its own.
I did have a lock tited screw come loose on an upper before I started staking the screws. The gas block was still fused to the barrel by carbon and I had to beat it with a rubber mallet to get it loose. The only way it would have rotated is if the rail had been crushed.
The bottom line is that if you have a properly dimpled barrel with a properly installed and staked screw I am supremely confident that it is not going anywhere under any circumstances short of those that would otherwise render the firearm inoperable.
Ok. After 6000 to 8000 rounds and 3 years of use I have not knocked the gas block out of alignment. Riding loose in a trunk of a car, riding in a rack with a helmet slung off it, training with barricades, busting my butt falling in to holes in the frozen woods of Alaska at night and its never moved or twisted.
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