Daniel Defense M4 patrol rifle

[commando552]

Originally Posted by MT2008

JC,

Nice rifle; glad you were able to get one. Interesting observation RE light placement.



Don’t pretty much all AR makers nowadays offer both Keynod and MLOK forearms (not to mention M1913 quad rails) as options? I’ve been debating what new upper I’m going to buy, and I’m kinda overwhelmed by options. (Though I’ll probably go with an MLOK forearm of some kind.)

I would personally steer clear of KeyMod. I could point to that study that NSWC Crane did but instead I'll just point to the fact that personally I kept getting my gloves caught in KeyMod slots. I had less of a problem with bare hands, but with gloves the material had just enough give that it would poke up into the wide part of the slot and then when I slid my hand along it would jam in the narrow part in a way that would be impossible with MLOK.

I have also seen someone totally wreck a KeyMod rail by installing something incorrectly with the recoil lug just up on the surface of the handguard rather than properly in the slot. This is due to how KeyMod works with you having to hook in the bolt heads and slide the accessory forwards before tightening, and if you do not slide it forward enough (or do not keep it held forward whilst tightening which I believe was the case here) the recoil lug could be out of the slot and cause damage. This having to hook in and slide forward thing is not a concern with MLOK, but you can still fuck that up in a different way. In my experience I have found the KeyMod slightly trickier (or at least less intuitive) to install than MLOK, but with MLOK you do need to be more aware of the thickness of the handguard so it is a six of one, half a dozen of the other kind of thing in that regard.

MLOK also has the pro that it is far easier to have accessories and rails that can mount in either direction.

[Jcordell]

Originally Posted by commando552

I would personally steer clear of KeyMod. I could point to that study that NSWC Crane did but instead I'll just point to the fact that personally I kept getting my gloves caught in KeyMod slots. I had less of a problem with bare hands, but with gloves the material had just enough give that it would poke up into the wide part of the slot and then when I slid my hand along it would jam in the narrow part in a way that would be impossible with MLOK.

I have also seen someone totally wreck a KeyMod rail by installing something incorrectly with the recoil lug just up on the surface of the handguard rather than properly in the slot. This is due to how KeyMod works with you having to hook in the bolt heads and slide the accessory forwards before tightening, and if you do not slide it forward enough (or do not keep it held forward whilst tightening which I believe was the case here) the recoil lug could be out of the slot and cause damage. This having to hook in and slide forward thing is not a concern with MLOK, but you can still fuck that up in a different way. In my experience I have found the KeyMod slightly trickier (or at least less intuitive) to install than MLOK, but with MLOK you do need to be more aware of the thickness of the handguard so it is a six of one, half a dozen of the other kind of thing in that regard.

MLOK also has the pro that it is far easier to have accessories and rails that can mount in either direction.

You make some good points, but the rifles are issued to us so we use what we get. The eternal dilemma of government employees.

[commando552]

Originally Posted by Jcordell

You make some good points, but the rifles are issued to us so we use what we get. The eternal dilemma of government employees.

I totally get that, I recently switched to being issued an MCX with a KeyMod handguard which is how I know I personally don't really like it (the whole weapon is miles ahead of the G36C I previously used though). Granted, I only have a passing familiarity with MLOK so if i used something with that I might hate it even more, but on a surface level it seems like the better choice to me. The way the mounting actually works is kind of a non-issue as we are officially forbade from ever fiddling with the accessories personally, but the texture of the slots does still annoy me a bit.

A couple of weeks ago I did play around with one of the new L85A3s which use the HKey system which (according to an HK rep so I imagine total bollocks) is apparently stronger than either option. I can sort of believe this as it mounts onto a curved handguard rather than a flat surface which provides an additional way of indexing the accessory repeatably as well as giving it more support from "twisting" forces. HKey has the rather big downside though that there are basically zero accessories made for it, all that the British military are using are a sling loop and a short rail section for mounting an LLM.

[Spartan198]

Originally Posted by Jcordell

You make some good points, but the rifles are issued to us so we use what we get. The eternal dilemma of government employees.

Tell them you demand the same leeway as tier one operators.