G2 MI Mini Red Dot Installed

[Anchor Zero Six]

Arrived yesterday but didnt have a chance to install it due to a ball game. Girl snagged my camera so sorry for the crappy phone pics.

Along with the replacement piece and spare screws there was a nifty MI logo hat included, Thanks Troy!

OK so here is a comparison of old and new parts the old one on the left the new one with second screw on the right and the optic specific mount in the center.


My optic mount is not as from the factory. I found the thin slot a bit difficult to use so I chased it from behind with a ball mill to open up a relief to make more of a "blade" profile. IMO it works but I find everybodys eyes are different so may not be needed for most.


Now ensure weapon is unloaded blah blah blah safety speil...remove rear sight and install MI piece into trunnion. Once the pins on the side of the mount are nested you slide the steel pin under it.


Now you want to level the mount using the rear screw. I screwed this up when I took the pick but you need to attach the optic mount and check the top cover clearance as it may need to be elevated a bit to allow install and removal. Also I ended up using the forward side bolt mounts not the rear so in this pic the plug srews are reversed from where I ended up placing them.

At this point you lock down the front screw against the cross pin. This alone secures the sight pretty damn tight and prevents it from tipping up. One thing to note is as you tighten the screw down the cross pin will walk out so you need to hold it in place while tightening.


Probably not needed but I went ahead and installed the side bolts (reversed from the pic). Plenty of engagement on the trunnion.


All thats left is to install the optic mount and optic. Due to an issue with being sent the wrong model and a crappy sell on Ebay I as of this time do not have an optic but hopefuly by next week.


Shake rattle and roll...not a very good pic but I'm holding the entire weight of the rifle with loaded 30 round mag by the mount. I shook, shaked and molestered it as much as possible within the confines of my garage. Stayed tight with no movement but wont have a final verdict untill it gets an optic and a few months of abuse.


Like I said time will tell how it holds up but I think with most products you can tell if they are complete crap or not. This is not judging from the machine work and I think the redesign is a KISS solution.

Havent posted pics of my upgrades in a while and I had the camera so I snapped a few items of interest.

First I tried out the Echo93 single point mount and found it to be a innovative idea but there were aspects of it that didnt work well with my particular sling set up. I ended up drilling a hole in my Pal Ak grip and ran a Kevlar SKT mount through the grip with the grip screw retaining it. Nothing original I copied the concept from guys doing the same with 550 cord but I think the Kevlar will hold up much better in the long run.


As for the sling set up my buddy and I have tried just about every known config out there and none did eveything we wanted them to do as well as we wanted. Slings that convert from two point to single point are not teribly uncommon but the shortfalls IMO is the hardware and ease of being able to go from 1pt to 2pt with one hand, moving or under stress.

Solution was some one off custom slings from SKT. The large metal "D" ring in comjunction with the trigger tab snap hook allow you to reach forward unhook from the front sling mount and snap into the "D" ring very easily and without needing to look down.

"D" ring was sewn in and I cut it out when I removed the rear mash hook to adapt it to work with the fastex buckle. One day I'll get around to having SKT sew it in.


Front trigger snap hook. Bottom pic you can see the Vltor Scout mounted to the Tri Rail.



I didnt need the other two rails so I milled them off the tri rail to lighten it up and make it a bit more sleek. I didnt account for the screw depth shich is whey theres a blemish lol. I removed the FSB chopped the barrel an inch and recrowned it. Reinstalled the FSB and pinned it in place Ratworx finaly got the Manticore nightshrouds back in stock. When it arrived it was significantly redesigned from the pics on the site. This was actually a good thing as the previous design was a FH and this is more of a FH/Comp combo as the bottom lacks ports. Pinned and welded FH in place to bring the OAL of the barrel to 16.5" from the bolt face(Non SBR State of WA). I cut it before I had the FH so all I had to go on were the thread measurements of the Russian Saiga brake and the info on Manticores sight, should have waited and taken actual measurements to hit 16.1" but either way its MUCH shorter than 16" with the long Russian brake so I'm happy.

[Mikey]

I like it. Everything has obviously been well researched, thought out, and wonderfully implemented.

Mike

[DWood]

Great write up, thanks. Mine should arrive this week, and the T-1 is waiting. Did yo use any blue locktite anywhere? I am cocerned about the two allen screws backing out.

I really like the widened sight notch. Since I have no idea how to use a ball mill, let alone own one, I will be filing the rear notch to make it a little wider. Yours turned out realy nice, but do you think it would allow faster acquisition if it were cut all the way through? I think MI would do well to offer the wider notch.

Looks real good.

[LHS]

What in particular didn't work with the echo 93 plate? I'm looking to mount a sling on my side folder, and I'd like to stay consistent with my AR by putting the rear attachment of my VCAS at the rear of the receiver rather than the stock.

[Anchor Zero Six]

Sorry Dwood I forgot a pic in the write up...I added it in the original post.

As for the opening up the entire sight notch, dont think that would be a good idea at least for what I intend to use my Iron sights for.

I think it would make for a decent quick aquisition sight in the same manner as a ghost ring or even the XS sights BUT I think it would make the irons all but useless for long range sighting. I dont need a sight thats quick on target as thats the whole reason for the RMR. My concern was that the 7MOA dual illuminated RMR would equate to 7"@100 and 14"@200 which I think is way too big but if I want to stay battery free thats as small as I am going to get. My desire to improve the iron sight was for the intended range of 100-200yds and I do plan to replace the front sight with a small ball KNS pin which I think would be preferable to opening up the rear notch (make front smaller instead).

As for MI modding the sights in a similar manner I donno if Troy is planning to do that or not and I'll leave it to him to chime in. I mearly looked at existing sights specificly Novak pistol sights and applied the basic shape to the MI mount. I wouldnt think it would be prudent to offer standard and wide opening notches from MI as that just means more product that needs to be produced they played it safe by sticking to the standard width notch and I would have done the same in their shoes.

Should probably explain this is my first shore duty in 17 years and I have about an hour commute each way to work. All that time time in a vehicle and a job thats significantly slower pace than I'm use to has the effect of making me overthink shit. Not claiming my train of thought works for everybody or even makes sense but there is a rational to behind every mod I do so take what I say with a grain of salt lol.

[96 SS]

What did you use to touch up the bare AL - it looks great.

I too have one of the tri-rails for up front and was going to do the same thing as you by removing most of the extra material except 1 rail. Would you do it again?

[Anchor Zero Six]

What in particular didn't work with the echo 93 plate? I'm looking to mount a sling on my side folder, and I'd like to stay consistent with my AR by putting the rear attachment of my VCAS at the rear of the receiver rather than the stock.

Just want to say I think the E93 sling plate is a great product and I will reccomend it no problem, I'm just finicky and there were some things I didnt like when used with my sling set up.

My sling originaly was attached via a Mash hook with a section of webbing and a fastex buckle, the D-ring was sewn into this section. When snapped into the D-ring as a single point sling the length from where the D-ring and snap hook were joined to the mash hook was quite long. This made the rifle hang lower than I would like and there was no way to shorten it.

Second when hanging on a single point sling the rifle didnt hang straight down but rather at an angle agin this is not a big deal just prefer the straight down hang that I get with my current sling mount. For me it makes a bit easier to get my hand back on the rifle rather than fishing around to find the grip.

Third I have an ACE internal block installed and the grip nut passes through this, then the receiver then the sling plate and into the Tango Down/Pal grip. Didnt feel like there was enough engagement of the t-nut within the grip to prevent rotating. Let me be clear it NEVER rotated not once and the guys at E93 said they have yet to have one rotate on them. It was sheerly a matter of my own piece of mind that I wanted more of the t-nut within the grip.

Choosing my words very carefully as I dont want to give the impression that the E93 mount isnt a great product because it is. I weighed the cost of the E93 against replacing a semi custom sling with another and concluded I could rig something up from stuff I had on hand vice spending another 70 bucks on a sling.

For simply running a V-Tac or BFG Vickers sling I think the same exact thing could be accomplished that I did by using the E93 and HK hooks as attachments. Just prefer the D-ring and trigger snap hook on my sling as I find it easiest to go from single to 2 point.

[Anchor Zero Six]

What did you use to touch up the bare AL - it looks great.

I too have one of the tri-rails for up front and was going to do the same thing as you by removing most of the extra material except 1 rail. Would you do it again?

Once I milled the rails off I threw it in the blast cabinet and stripped off the annodizing then dunked it in acetone hit it with durracoat and cooked it for 30 min at 350.

Yes I would do it again but I would have paid more attention to the depth of the threadded hole and not have milled as much off so that hole wouldnt be there.

Cool thing is that the rail is the exact length of the Vltor Scout mount so its looks really clean.

Dennis (DBMG) has 50 or so Tri Rails that have not been hard coat annodized yet last time I was down at the shop. Think there would be enough interest to mod a few and have them annodized? Also trying to get a shorter one made for use on Dracos.

[96 SS]

Mine was so rough out of the box I just about sent it right back. I mounted it once to check the weight balance and immediately took it back off. Maybe they would do an exchange for a slick sided model?

The concept of a trirail is nice, but in application it is WAY to much up front.

[DWood]

Sorry Dwood I forgot a pic in the write up...I added it in the original post.

As for the opening up the entire sight notch, dont think that would be a good idea at least for what I intend to use my Iron sights for...........

I thought the narrow notch was full length and then you milled the wide part. Mine arrived today and now I understand. I am going to widen the notch just a little. Thanks.