added a red dot to the sub2k

Jayne

Jayne

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At the last steel challenge there didn't appear to be a distinction between optics and irons, all PCCs are glumped together. The irons (and my eyes) on the sub2k are not optimal so I wanted to mount up a dot. I had my old 4MOA vortex, but the rail on top of the sub2k is not actually flat. There is a 'peak' to it which prevents things from locking on solidly. Tighten all you want, but optics mounts will flop around.

I read on the internet (so it must be true!) that you can sand down the rail peaks and things will mount correctly. Using a Keltec precision rail squaring tool:

IMG_2589.jpg

I sanded down the first rail section and now in fact I can mount an optic and it won't wiggle around:

IMG_2588.jpg

Obviously it won't fold, and I'm aware of all the options for mounting stuff up to let it do that, but reusing the optic I had and being able to try a dot out on here at essentially no cost was the goal.

I'll try it today and see if it holds zero. The irons do, I know the sub2k shoots right so I've at least got that going for me.
 
Took it to the range... and was banging plates at 100 yards! Got it zeroed in, did a few mag dumps to see if it would rattle loose, then went back to hitting the swingers at 100 again. Got lucky on a hit at 200 and everyone told me to stop because I couldn't do it again... and they were right. But, no issues at 100.

I kinda wonder if the section of m-lock rail I added to the side of the foreend to hold that light switch actually stiffened the hand guard up a little?

Anyway, it's ready for the next PCC match.
 
Looks great. The thing about Keltec stuff is that it's designed like a Yugo (Car, not firearm!) but the darn things just work.
 
Ok so, about that red dot.

Shot the steel challenge with @Slacker today. I've never run a red dot so I wasn't sure what to expect. Took me a few stages to get into it but then I was really really digging the dot. Had minimal trouble on a double star:

upload_2018-6-17_21-13-41.png

On the start of the 4th stage though, my first 4 shots were all misses on plates just not that far away. Like really bad misses. So I switched back to the irons and knocked 'em down. Then the next set I went back to the dot and was hitting a barrel about 1' out of the line of fire. The dot was WAY off to the left. I went back to the irons and finished the stage. Not sure what happened, the mount seemed solid but the dot was clearly not pointing at where the bullets were going.

I borrowed a tool and pulled the optic off and finished the last 2 stages with the irons. No issues with them at all, still zeroed where I put them months ago.

So the rifle isn't inherently inaccurate or anything, but getting a dot to survive seems to be a problem. I've used this vortex dot on other rifles and with a magnifier and had no issues with it, so I'm not suspecting the dot/mount yet. Not sure what my next step is, try to remount it, go all in and get the Red Lion forend, or go get one of those rugers that use glock mags...

No issues with the rifle itself from a feed/extract perspective of course; ran just fine with 17 and 33 round glock mags and a mix of wolf and tula ammos.
 
Maybe need a better dot and mounting system. But probably need more testing and data first. I really enjoy shooting my redt dot AR. So far it's been pretty much static shooting, but it is accurate out to 200 yards. The shooter tried it at 300+ a few weeks ago, but their was some user error. But my guess is with a new zero the 300 range wouldn't be that tough.
 
looking over everything now, nothing seems broken/loose/bent. My working theory is that the heat of firing, plus being stuck back in the case between stages and the overall 95+ temps of the day caused the handguard to start to expand. because there is a section of m-lock rail on one side, the guard expanded at different rates and 'pushed' the mount a little.

I could remove that section of rail now that I've moved the light switch to the top, but I do think the rail section stiffens up the guard in general (magpul's plastic seems tougher than keltec's). I'll add a rail onto the other side just to keep things symmetrical and then go test again by firing a lot and keeping it in the case instead of letting it cool down.
 
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I think more testing (mag dumps of steel cased wolf) is in order.
Good excuse to buy a grock pattern beta mag!! (Kryloned yellow, of course.)

We will need a non contact laser thermo-meter and a binary trigger.
I'll supply the steel and the low-cal... since all things cool are banned at your range.
 
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I've had two 1st gen Sub2Ks and a bunch of other PCCs including JRC, CX-4, HP995, ASR, Ruger PC-4, and a AR-9. One of the Sub2Ks I outfitted with the Kel-Tec rail forend and ran a TRS-25. It was solid, had no issues with it. I didn't see the use in the heavier rotating Red Lion rail, I just had the optic on a QR mount and moved it to the bottom rail when I wanted to fold it. It held zero well enough.

The reason I noted all the PCCs I've had was to give this statement a little more weight: In the end I decided the Sub2K was best left as what it is and intended to be, a super lightweight super concealable super simple/reliable long arm that can be available when needed when others can't. IMHO shooting matches would be much better done and more enjoyable with a JRC, CX-4, or similar.
 
NKD said:
Yes. Do as @Sas quatch has done.
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Yep, I was pretty happy to have the cheapest PCC out there and still do well- that and the TRS-25 was nice way back against my face. The wife shot her first PCC match with it and did respectably. Ruger nailed it with the PCC- the rail is machined into the receiver so it is really low and helps with sight-over-bore issues that others had.
 
Flashpoint said:
The reason I noted all the PCCs I've had was to give this statement a little more weight: In the end I decided the Sub2K was best left as what it is and intended to be, a super lightweight super concealable .
Click to expand...

I had a sub2k Gen 1, couldn't come up with a good way to run it in PCC matches other than iron sights and sold it when I got the Ruga. But, were I to get another it would be just that- a truck gun, backpack gun, etc.
 
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Where can I find more info about these PCC matches? I've been wanting to try out some competitions, this seems like it might be a fun one.
 
So here's an interesting bit I noticed while taking things apart today. Not only are the rails not flat on top, they're also not square down inside the slots (someone will correct my terminology I'm sure).

Kinda hard to see in the photo, but you can see that with them sanded down to be flat on top they're still round on the sides. With the optic trying to stay perpendicular to a rounded surface I bet it's not so solid when things heat up. Another theory anyway.

I'll attempt to file them square after I mount the rail on the other side, but before I remount the optic. Rail section will be here tomorrow so I should have this back together for a test this weekend.

IMG_2645.jpg
 
CLShifter said:
Where can I find more info about these PCC matches? I've been wanting to try out some competitions, this seems like it might be a fun one.
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It was up at True North. I found out about it when Slacker said something, but I see they're on their calendar too. One of the more difficult matches I've ever shot, but well, well worth the effort to attend.
 
In the competition section Debbie posts about the PCC match. It's a lot of fun- come on out!
 
This is also interesting. The m-lock screws actually push into the barrel when you tighten things down. With only one side on it just flexes the hard guard to the side. When you try to put the second side on, it can't flex back and the mlock rides "up" and gets pushed away from the guard. You can see where the screws are digging into the barrel inside the hand guard.

Option 1 is to put some washers in the top of the mount to effectively shorten the screws inside.

Option 1A is to shorten the screws.

Option 2 is to just leave both rail sections off and let the guard rest in it's 'natural' position and hope that the bracing effect from the one piece is not helping keep the optic zeroed in any way.

IMG_2648.jpg
 
An M5 washer fit the screw, but was too large to go into the depression in the handguard. An M5 lock washer though, that did the trick. Took 1mm or so off the total screw length and now the rail sections lock on nice and tight with no evidence of pressing on the barrel.

This time I mounted them as far back as possible to give rigidity to the handguard from where it attaches to the barrel/receiver in back up past the optic. Seems really solid, but I think another match is in order to really know if it's all good.

If this doesn't work, I pull the optic off my other rifle and see if that's the issue. If something went wrong inside I'm sure Vortex will take care of it.

IMG_2652.jpg IMG_2653.jpg
 
molonlabe said:
There are iron upgrades available also...in case u aren't totally confident in the red dot.

M carbo has several upgrade options including flat triggers and such.
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The irons work very well as does the trigger setup, I've got no complaints there.

I think I'm ready for the next match now.
 
molonlabe said:
I had a gen 1 and I could see where a metal trigger would be a nice upgrade. Does gen 2 have plastic trigger?
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I want to say yes (but don't have access to it right now to go check). You can feel it kinda wiggling around when you're running it so if it's metal it's pretty flimsy.

My precision rifles wear good triggers, everything else stays stock.
 
molonlabe said:
I had a gen 1 and I could see where a metal trigger would be a nice upgrade. Does gen 2 have plastic trigger?
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Yes its plastic, but the McCarbo metal trigger upgrade works very well. As do all the upgrades they have for the S2K. My Gen 2 has a trigger pull of about 3lbs now and much smoother.

W9xarF7.jpg
 
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Jayne said:
An M5 washer fit the screw, but was too large to go into the depression in the handguard. An M5 lock washer though, that did the trick. Took 1mm or so off the total screw length and now the rail sections lock on nice and tight with no evidence of pressing on the barrel.

This time I mounted them as far back as possible to give rigidity to the handguard from where it attaches to the barrel/receiver in back up past the optic. Seems really solid, but I think another match is in order to really know if it's all good.

If this doesn't work, I pull the optic off my other rifle and see if that's the issue. If something went wrong inside I'm sure Vortex will take care of it.

View attachment 61751 View attachment 61752
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I ran a PA Micro Dot on mine for a while and it worked fine and stayed solid. The type of mount on the Vortex does not likely engage enough of the rail sections to stay solidly mounted, particularly on the wonky S2K plastic rails. The Micro dot type base engages more rail surfaces and spreads the load.
 
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Problem solved. I took the smaller PA red dot that I originally had mounted up that didn't work, remounted it and now I'm shooting the middles out of stuff at 25 yards in a repeatable fashion. Now let's see if I can make it through the next match without incident.

BTW, here is the new mount:

ruger_pc9_1.jpg
 
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