You'll want to start by watching the short video I did for my latest project. It's only 1:49 and there's no talking or annoying music.
Overall, I'm pretty happy with the way it turned out. My goal was to fit an AR in a much smaller backpack (not shown) that is very mundane. While the ability to stow it in a non-descript book bag was prioritized over the sort of reliability and longevity you'd get from a factory-built colt 6920 or BCM carbine, I expect this collection of parts to be fairly trouble free; especially considering I can't afford to shoot tens of thousands of rounds of 300 blackout and don't plan on doing mag dumps til the barrel melts.
For this project I combined 3 unusual components:
- Shockwave blade pistol stabilizer
- LAW Tactical folder adapter
- Dolos barrel take down system
These parts have been out for a while, but I haven't seen anyone put them together yet.
To make the 8" pistol barrel practical, it is chambered in 300 Blk, and I'm using a Thunderbeast 30-PSS suppressor.
I'm using subsonic Harvester ammo from Silencerco. (not sure who actually makes it) It's been flawless so far, though is occasionally supersonic (or at least sounds that way).
Otherwise, the parts are fairly mundane, mostly nickel boron stuff I bought from righttobear.com for what I consider bargain prices.
So this is what it looks like when complete, and taken down as shown in the video, the entire thing fits in a 50 cal ammo can (which I guess technically is a 556 ammo can).
A brief review of the parts:
Shockwave brace:
Not much to say other than it's so much cleaner than the sig brace, and it's cheap and easy. The screw that holds it onto a pistol buffer tube detent is probably not going to stand up to significant torque though.
LAW tactical folder:
This is the second one of these I've installed. I think it's pretty dang handy, but has a major downside and a couple of minor ones. The major one is that you can't take the BCG out of the rifle quickly. Instead of popping the takedown pin, hinging the upper off the lower and pulling the charging handle... you have to open the folder, press the button, pull the BCG out enough where you can get a hand on it, pull the spacer out of it, then push the BCG back in and return the stock to closed. Then you can pop the takedown pin and proceed as normal.
It would have been much preferred if they could find a way to add the spacer to the buffer instead of the BCG.
Dolos system:
Honestly, it's pretty neat and reasonably well executed. It comes apart and goes back together remarkably quickly. But it was a total pain the butt to procure and assemble. The instructions were horrible. And it only works with YHM rails, which means there's no real anti-rotation feature and that jam nut sucks. (Using an actual YHM barrel nut, there are two holes that you screw bolts into that provide anti-rotation, but those holes don't exist in the Dolos nut, so there's nothing but the jam nut to keep you from twisting it loose.
I hope they figure out how to make this with a higher quality rail.
In the following pictures, the end of the yardstick was aligned with the left side of the part, despite the camera perspective making it look short of that. So assembled, the total length including suppressor is just under 30".
The YHM 9" rail I used, plus barrel nut, plus the barrel extension protruding (and the gas tube sticks out another half inch past the extension) is about 11". The receiver itself is about 10.5" collapsed. And the stock/receiver are about 4" wide when folded.
Overall, I'm pretty happy with the way it turned out. My goal was to fit an AR in a much smaller backpack (not shown) that is very mundane. While the ability to stow it in a non-descript book bag was prioritized over the sort of reliability and longevity you'd get from a factory-built colt 6920 or BCM carbine, I expect this collection of parts to be fairly trouble free; especially considering I can't afford to shoot tens of thousands of rounds of 300 blackout and don't plan on doing mag dumps til the barrel melts.
For this project I combined 3 unusual components:
- Shockwave blade pistol stabilizer
- LAW Tactical folder adapter
- Dolos barrel take down system
These parts have been out for a while, but I haven't seen anyone put them together yet.
To make the 8" pistol barrel practical, it is chambered in 300 Blk, and I'm using a Thunderbeast 30-PSS suppressor.
I'm using subsonic Harvester ammo from Silencerco. (not sure who actually makes it) It's been flawless so far, though is occasionally supersonic (or at least sounds that way).
Otherwise, the parts are fairly mundane, mostly nickel boron stuff I bought from righttobear.com for what I consider bargain prices.
So this is what it looks like when complete, and taken down as shown in the video, the entire thing fits in a 50 cal ammo can (which I guess technically is a 556 ammo can).
A brief review of the parts:
Shockwave brace:
Not much to say other than it's so much cleaner than the sig brace, and it's cheap and easy. The screw that holds it onto a pistol buffer tube detent is probably not going to stand up to significant torque though.
LAW tactical folder:
This is the second one of these I've installed. I think it's pretty dang handy, but has a major downside and a couple of minor ones. The major one is that you can't take the BCG out of the rifle quickly. Instead of popping the takedown pin, hinging the upper off the lower and pulling the charging handle... you have to open the folder, press the button, pull the BCG out enough where you can get a hand on it, pull the spacer out of it, then push the BCG back in and return the stock to closed. Then you can pop the takedown pin and proceed as normal.
It would have been much preferred if they could find a way to add the spacer to the buffer instead of the BCG.
Dolos system:
Honestly, it's pretty neat and reasonably well executed. It comes apart and goes back together remarkably quickly. But it was a total pain the butt to procure and assemble. The instructions were horrible. And it only works with YHM rails, which means there's no real anti-rotation feature and that jam nut sucks. (Using an actual YHM barrel nut, there are two holes that you screw bolts into that provide anti-rotation, but those holes don't exist in the Dolos nut, so there's nothing but the jam nut to keep you from twisting it loose.
I hope they figure out how to make this with a higher quality rail.
In the following pictures, the end of the yardstick was aligned with the left side of the part, despite the camera perspective making it look short of that. So assembled, the total length including suppressor is just under 30".
The YHM 9" rail I used, plus barrel nut, plus the barrel extension protruding (and the gas tube sticks out another half inch past the extension) is about 11". The receiver itself is about 10.5" collapsed. And the stock/receiver are about 4" wide when folded.
