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I have had to solve a particular problem on a few of my carbines recently. I have not found and off-the-shelf solution so I had to sort out a custom made one for myself. Fortunately I found some parts that required a minimum of modification to make work and I wanted to share that info here in case anyone else was in need of a similar solution. But first the problem;
Most every carbine does not have provision for accessory mounting on the hand guard close to the ejection port/mag well. I get why, that is where the barrel mounts to the receiver and there needs to be a lot of metal there to keep things safe and secure. But it does make for a minor annoyance when you are trying to mount a light switch for a tight-in grip, as your hand naturally rests close to the mag well right where it lacks a mount. What I really needed was a long, flat cantilever style pic rail that mounted to the MLOK rails further up, but no one (that I can find) makes such a thing. But I did find a rail that requires a minimum of modification to accomplish the same thing.
These are Tacticon MLOK rail segments. I am not sure if you can get these from any other supplier (Tacticon is just a Chinese reseller, I have no idea how many of their parts are unique to them), but they are solid aluminum and don't seem to have any spec issues. The specific one I use is the 13 slot rail, which is the longest.
And this is why they work for my application. Most other company's long rail segments have many MLOK indexing points, but those get in the way of the flush mount cantilever setup I am gong for. The Tacticon rails, on the other hand, have minimal indexing, and that means minimal work to get it to sit flush to the hand-guard. You can see here I only had to file off one mount point worth of metal, and that only took a few minutes with a Leatherman file. This allowed me to mount the rail (with only two screws) nearly flush with the ejection port;
Once mounted the light switch is attached and away we go.
Even with only two of the mounting screws in place (and one of those with no indexing tab, which makes it extremely annoying to install) the rail is still very secure. Plus we are only mounting a switch to it, not any kind of sighting system, so perfect indexing is not really a requirement here. That switch is exactly where it needs to be and is not going anywhere.
And here is a shot of the ergos on it. Nice tight-in grip, switch right under the fingertips and everything else nice and out of the way. It even fits around my brass catcher, which mounts to the top rail on the adapter. I have done this with quite a few of my shorter rifles, even the not-AR style ones, all you need is a few MLOK mounts within reach of the grip area and it works fine. I am very happy with the setup and will be restocking my inventory of these specific rail segments just for this application. I hope this quick write up helps others who are looking for a solution to mount a light switch further back on the grip than normal mounts would allow.
Of course if anyone knows of a bespoke solution to this that does not require any kind of modification I would love to hear it, but so far as I can find no such solution exists.
Most every carbine does not have provision for accessory mounting on the hand guard close to the ejection port/mag well. I get why, that is where the barrel mounts to the receiver and there needs to be a lot of metal there to keep things safe and secure. But it does make for a minor annoyance when you are trying to mount a light switch for a tight-in grip, as your hand naturally rests close to the mag well right where it lacks a mount. What I really needed was a long, flat cantilever style pic rail that mounted to the MLOK rails further up, but no one (that I can find) makes such a thing. But I did find a rail that requires a minimum of modification to accomplish the same thing.
These are Tacticon MLOK rail segments. I am not sure if you can get these from any other supplier (Tacticon is just a Chinese reseller, I have no idea how many of their parts are unique to them), but they are solid aluminum and don't seem to have any spec issues. The specific one I use is the 13 slot rail, which is the longest.
And this is why they work for my application. Most other company's long rail segments have many MLOK indexing points, but those get in the way of the flush mount cantilever setup I am gong for. The Tacticon rails, on the other hand, have minimal indexing, and that means minimal work to get it to sit flush to the hand-guard. You can see here I only had to file off one mount point worth of metal, and that only took a few minutes with a Leatherman file. This allowed me to mount the rail (with only two screws) nearly flush with the ejection port;
Once mounted the light switch is attached and away we go.
Even with only two of the mounting screws in place (and one of those with no indexing tab, which makes it extremely annoying to install) the rail is still very secure. Plus we are only mounting a switch to it, not any kind of sighting system, so perfect indexing is not really a requirement here. That switch is exactly where it needs to be and is not going anywhere.
And here is a shot of the ergos on it. Nice tight-in grip, switch right under the fingertips and everything else nice and out of the way. It even fits around my brass catcher, which mounts to the top rail on the adapter. I have done this with quite a few of my shorter rifles, even the not-AR style ones, all you need is a few MLOK mounts within reach of the grip area and it works fine. I am very happy with the setup and will be restocking my inventory of these specific rail segments just for this application. I hope this quick write up helps others who are looking for a solution to mount a light switch further back on the grip than normal mounts would allow.
Of course if anyone knows of a bespoke solution to this that does not require any kind of modification I would love to hear it, but so far as I can find no such solution exists.
