If you never got to fondle the mpw you was after we can meet up and you can fondle mine........
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I officially hate AAC
- Thread starter JoKeR50
- Start date
Shot 220gr subsonic, 130 gr hog hammer, and 120 gr supersonic out if it without a hitch.
I empathize with your situation, I truly do. But that doesn't mean that we have to agree with you. The premise of your post is that your troubles are somehow the fault of AAC and KAC. That is simply not the case.
ASH556 do you have URX tools?
No the premise of the post is that I hate AAC, that is it, and that is only because it turned out to be a big pain in my ass. And for everyone saying I am using the wrong tools, in the first post I said I was reaching for my credit card (to buy their tool). I lot of people have been able to get their AAC flash hiders off using a standard wrench a lot of people were not. Maybe some got more rocksett than other maybe not I don't know. I tried to take the flash hider off with a wrench, it rounded the flats, I stopped and purchased to tool. I never once said that their products were crap. Once people started giving me grief about this I did say that I FELT that AAC could have chosen more standardized products or designs that would have would not need proprietary tools and been just as good. But again AAC can do whatever they want and I think they are doing just fine for themselves.
I do have the KA tool and if I can't sale this KA hand guard with the tool then I will have it around if anyone needs to borrow it.
I do not. Bullseye has older generation (URX II) tools, but that's it. It's big investment for something that's just not done that often unless you're an OEM using KAC or a shop that sells a ton of their stuff.
I think the biggest problem everyone has with the OP is that the thread is titled "I officially hate AAC" when the user's issue has nothing to do with AAC other than he purchased an upper that they sell without understanding what the mods he wanted to do would entail; and is now frustrated. That's the same kind of thinking as suing McDonalds because their coffee was hot and burned you when it spilled.
As far as "standard components" being used in assembling an upper (like a barrel nut, for instance) that doesn't exist in the marketplace anymore with only 3 exceptions that I can think of (Troy, Centurion, DD (Omega series, discontinued I believe)). Every rail maker uses a proprietary nut nowadays, so unless you're wanting 2pc, non-floating handguards, the marketplace just doesn't support your desire. Why? Because folks invented better (lighter, easier to install) mousetraps. The only difference here is that KAC charges an arm and a leg for their tool whereas pretty much everyone else includes their wrench with the rail when you buy it. Why did AAC choose to use the KAC rail? Because that upper was designed when Kevin still owned AAC and he and Trey Knight are buds. That, and KAC is the original innovator with modular and freefloating handguards and so it was a known-good entity to choose for a high-end OEM-build upper.
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Quite frankly, I think the reason KAC tools have always been so expensive was to discourage the hobby builder from using them. The URX rail requires a specific technique for install and removal. And it requires some technical expertise to do correctly. I've always suspected that their reasoning was because they didn't want to deal with the AR's are like Legos crowd.
When the URX was originally designed, it was very lightweight in comparison to other rails available at the time. This was primarily because it eliminated the USGI barrel nut. It was also designed for a military contract, where the only people servicing them would have been military armorers.
The URX 1 was highly sought after in the private sector simply because it could not be had through normal channels. In fact, the URX wasn't available to the public until well after the initial release of the SR15 as a commercial offering.
Bottom line, it's harder to work on because it was never designed for the consumer market. It was designed under the premise that it would be serviced by trained and certified military armorers. 10 years ago, it was cutting edge and was still ahead of the curve three years ago. Today, it's still a cool rail. But it's been surpassed by simpler, lighter modular rails in the last couple of years.
And to Ash's point, when the MPW uppers were designed, the URX was in extremely high demand and Kevin and Trey Knight were buddies. At the time, it was a good fit from a business perspective and allowed AAC to utilize a rail that was very highly regarded just a couple of years ago. But it was never designed to be user serviceable. It was designed as an OEM complete upper, using top shelf components.
I've always been a KAC fan, but they honestly lost me with the URX 4. All URX rails have been designed around the idea of integration of the upper receiver and rail system, in an attempt to make two separate parts act as a single unit. The URX 4 accomplished this by eliminating the barrel nut altogether. Unfortunately that created other issues, like incompatibility with pinned gas blocks. I've got two rifles sporting URX 3.1 rails that I'd love to swap out for URX 4's, in order to shave weight and add keymod compatibility. But they have pinned gas blocks, so it's a no go.
"I officially hate AAC" Was a tongue-in-cheek title. But of course most people did not seem to get that and it brought out all the bashers. I really don't care. Personally I would have left the upper the way it was but again it is for my wife and she wanted the AAC, but then wanted it lightened up so that meant the KA hand guard needed to go as it is a beast for an 8" hand guard. Since she is a big fan of BCM KMR's I replaced it with one for her.
End analysis is that I would probably not buy another AAC product in the future, if I ever had it in my wildest dreams of changing anything out, without first REALLY doing in depth research on issues with their products. But this is just good all around advice for any product you buy from ANY manufacture. I'm not saying they are bad products, but just expensive to work on if you do not already own the proprietary (and again obscenely expensive) tools.
I would also like to say that I left 2 messages to AAC's customer service but never heard back from them at all. You can take that for what it is worth.
End analysis is that I would probably not buy another AAC product in the future, if I ever had it in my wildest dreams of changing anything out, without first REALLY doing in depth research on issues with their products. But this is just good all around advice for any product you buy from ANY manufacture. I'm not saying they are bad products, but just expensive to work on if you do not already own the proprietary (and again obscenely expensive) tools.
I would also like to say that I left 2 messages to AAC's customer service but never heard back from them at all. You can take that for what it is worth.
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Which KAC barrel nut wrench did you buy?
The D. Wilson one for $75 to my door. It worked great.
http://www.dwilsonmfg.com/store/p5/URX_Wrench.html
Of course I am sure that if KA had charged $75 for their wrench then D. Wilson would have charged $35 for this wrench...
You could've easily called them and they'd have done it for you. That's your own fault.
