Barrel nut question

[Mr. Nobody]

Please forgive me if I placed this in the wrong area of the forum.

I have a question about this barrel nut:


I currently have a free float tube, but want to change it out for a free float quad rail. My question is are these nuts universal for all free float rails ?

[farnorcal]

Some rails utilize the mil-spec nut, some don't but will usually come with what you need to install.

[kdruff2]

YouTube your particular rail and see if there are any existing "install" videos. If so, see if any if the barrel nuts used in the video(s) matches the one you have.

Certain brands of rails will only work with certain types of barrel nut, but generally, most rails will work with most nuts.

[stryper]

Can't open the attachment but if it's the mil-spec one, only certain quad rails will use them. The Fortis REV uses the mil-spec barrel nut. Most companies make their own proprietary ones. Some manufacturers require a special tool to mount theirs too so I'd look out for that also.

[Mr. Nobody]

Can't open the attachment but if it's the mil-spec one, only certain quad rails will use them. The Fortis REV uses the mil-spec barrel nut. Most companies make their own proprietary ones. Some manufacturers require a special tool to mount theirs too so I'd look out for that also.

OK let me reattach the photo from the web. I am thinking of getting a YHM free float rail.

The nut I have looks like this:


My buddy torqued down the nut on the barrel cause I don't have a vise. I hope I can leave the nut that's on and just bolt on the new rail :thumbup:

[Chaos47]

No they are not universal between different brands (or even models in some cases).
Whatever freefloat rail you will get will probably come with its own barrel nut and if it doesn't it will come with an adapter to work with the basic barrel nut.

What handguard do you have and what rail do you want to get?
I think most YHM use the same nut but I think one or 2 use a different one off the top of my head.

[gunwest]

Can't open the attachment but if it's the mil-spec one, only certain quad rails will use them. The Fortis REV uses the mil-spec barrel nut. Most companies make their own proprietary ones. Some manufacturers require a special tool to mount theirs too so I'd look out for that also.

This^. I ran into this issue. I wanted to run with the stock BN.

[Taco66]

I have YHM and Midwest rails and the nuts are almost the same. I think it was the YHM that was actually just a little longer(more threads). So the YHM fit on the MI nut fine, but the MI screwed on the YHM but bottomed out before it reached the receiver because the YHM is deeper.So take your rail off and compare the new YHM nut. If it's the same or a little shorter than the new one it might work. Worst case, you will just have to have the old one taken off and the new one torqued on.

[Mr. Nobody]

Nope not the same, not even close for me.
Rifle works great and I am glad I went with the freefloat rail