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May 29th REVIEW – Custom Weapon Light Mount

ITEM:      Custom Weapon Light Mount 

Not sure if this will interest anyone. I’ll throw it up and see what you all think.

DESCRIPTION:
When I was serving as a recon scout, I was often tasked with clearing buildings, ambush killzones with dismounted and mounted enemies on Exercise.

After a lot of fumbling with the old L-shaped torch, and using our privately purchased AA Maglights, we had a requirement for some sort of weapon mounted light to allow us to do these searches.

Since in those days, there were no such things as accessory rails for the F88 family (Steyr AUG), and certainly no allowance for us since we were reservists.
My team mates and I sat down and worked out something that would work for us according to our requirements.
1. Had to a non-permanent accessory that could be removed easily. We didn’t want the RSM (Regimental Sergeant Major aka GOD) dropping onto our heads from orbit. This also allowed us to be able to remove the light when not needed during the day and stow it in our daypacks/webbing.
2. Had to be cheap. After all, most of us were broke uni students, and since this was only a part time gig for us, there was no real desire to spend too much money.

MATERIALS:
An old M7 (M16) bayonet was bought. Generally, the older and more beat up the more desirable to us, since we were going to chop the blade off and remove the handle scales. All we were worried about was the boss and latch mechanism was functional. New, these bayonets were about $85 from the local disposal. Older, in used condition, they were about $60.

A section of weaver optics rail. We found these in the local gun shop. They weren’t as useful as a dedicated section of NATO (Picatinny) rail, since the locking lugs were only located at each end of the rail for conventional optics rings intended for civvy hunting rifles. We just took / chose whatever caught our fancy.

A quick visit to the Regt workshop, or a mate who’s a fitter and turner resulted in what you see in the photo’s.
Cut the blade off, remove the handle scales, attach the optics rail in some fashion to the newly exposed tang. Quick tidy up and spray paint, and VOILA!! Instant custom light mount for the F88.

At first, we ran a Surefire 6P mounted with 30mm scope rings. But the design allows for any other dedicated weapon light on the market. In the photo’s, you can see a Streamlight M3X mounted.

PERSONAL ASSESSMENT:

 
CONS –
Um, can’t think of too many.
Ergonomics may not be the best, but that comes down to how well you measure up the parts. This after all, is effectively a rapid prototype.
Although this mount may be platform specific. It works very well on the F88 because of the short distance between foregrip and bayonet boss. It may not work so well on conventionally laid out weapons.

PROS –  
Cheap!! It cost me only 100 bucks for parts, and a carton of beer for labour from a mate in the workshop.

Very easy to remove from the weapon. This alone saved us a lot of curry from our chain of command who didn’t approve of weapon customisation.

And it worked!! Very well in fact.