“Budget” Custom actions

[MakeSawdust]

can you heat it up after the barrel is toast to remove the barrel nut?

Yes. It is sort of a pain to get the nut cleaned up to do another install. Some just spend the money to avoid having to mess with it and buy another nut. I am cheap, so I clean them up and reuse them. It is my opinion that a heat gun gives better control of the temp than a torch to keep from getting something too hot and having the nut warp or something wonky. It's probably an illogical concern, but it makes me feel better.

Someone may have a better chemical brew to get the loctite off. I just use mechanical removal with a brush, knife, pick, whatever I have and some brake cleaner or alcohol to get it off. It's not fun, but it saves buying a new nut.

 

[MakeSawdust]

It would be nice to have a set screw on nut and red loctite.

This was my thought initially as well. I decided to give it a go without the set screw, and I have had zero problems. My concerns about the set screw where that I would either create tension on one side or that I would need to drill and tap into the tenon which would be difficult to line up correctly on a second barrel to get the headspace exactly where I wanted it without using a new nut and drilling everything at the same time.

 

[Steel head]

Yes. It is sort of a pain to get the nut cleaned up to do another install. Some just spend the money to avoid having to mess with it and buy another nut. I am cheap, so I clean them up and reuse them. It is my opinion that a heat gun gives better control of the temp than a torch to keep from getting something too hot and having the nut warp or something wonky. It's probably an illogical concern, but it makes me feel better.

Someone may have a better chemical brew to get the loctite off. I just use mechanical removal with a brush, knife, pick, whatever I have and some brake cleaner or alcohol to get it off. It's not fun, but it saves buying a new nut.

I could chuck up the nut and clean the threads out easy in the lathe.

 

[MakeSawdust]

I could chuck up the nut and clean the threads out easy in the lathe.

Yep, that would work well. I wish I had access to a lathe. It would make a lot of things a whole lot easier.