AR15 Barrel extension loose?

[Scratch]

I have a customer with one of those PSA Sabre ?mixtape? pistols in 300BLK. He wanted to put his silencer on it so he tried to take off the muzzle brake.  He couldn?t get it so he brought it to me.  I put it in my BEV block on my vise and tried it but it didn?t want to move.  I figured it had some good Loctite  on it so I used some heat and got it nice and hot, then tried the wrench again.  I got the wrench to turn a bit then kept going and it finally came off.

Then I noticed the gas block wasn?t straight any more. It turns out the barrel spun loose on the barrel extension a few degrees. The gas block is still aligned with the hole, but you can see it?s not straight.

I?ve never had to re-torque a barrel into a barrel extension before, I don?t think I even have the tools to do that! I?m assuming the headspace needs to be checked too.

Did I F up, or did PSA not get the barrel torqued into the extension correctly? 
And now what??

[Onepoint]

Uh oh, the brake may have been rockset, have to soak it in water to get it loose. If you see white on the treads after it was off  they rockset it. I hate that and loctite on barrels for that reason.

But the extension is problematic too, yes, it takes that tool that engages the lugs to tighten it correctly, I have never used one, but from what I have seen they are usually tighter than Hillary's...heart. Once loose, it may not return to the headspace even if lined up, though it may, but  may not tighten back to original timing at spec torque, 120 to 140lbs for them from what I read. Just going to be something to try and see.  I have never seen one come loose, I have bent the barrel pin on one, but the extension stayed tight.  Its possible PSA didn't torque it to spec, and may be a return for service to them if you can't get it resolved.  Unless lucky, going to be so much unhappiness over it what ever way it works out unfortunately. 

[Danjal]

To do the install, you'll need a barrel vise, lathe, or something you can use to stop the barrel from turning and an extension tool. One main draw back using BEV or other upper receiver only holding tools is the extensions can be backed out on cheaper barrels under higher torques as they're not installed correctly.



That's if the barrel rotated. Usually they're torqued to 150-175 ft lbs. After that the extension is checked for headspace, drilled for an indexing pin, hydraulically pressed the pin, THEN they drill the gas port after all that. Some of these cheap barrel makers are just pushing short pin in and not going into the threads. It saves them time and money to push the pin into the extension only and drill the gas port at the same stage.

At this point I'd take the upper threads off and barrel out to make sure the extension pin didn't back out, check headspace, then go from there.

[Scratch]

PSA is taking care of it, it?s already on its way back to them.