Tiny Mag Build

[Magageddon]

Have always wanted to build a tiny mag with a back cap/in-line regulator. Unfortunately no one is really making back caps anymore and building one takes a lot of custom work. I had gotten a milling machine a few years ago and since moving started playing with it a lot more and have gotten to a point where I can use it to make/modify parts for my build ideas.

The parts I chose weren't in the best shape when I got them and the prices I paid reflect that. The goal was to not sink another 1000 dollars into another custom mag build lol

So my inspiration for this build was Sk8ermogs tiny mag build on youtube almost a decade ago. I didn't want to make mine railless, but also wanted to cut down a ule body as much as I could.

[Magageddon]

I started with these parts that I had gotten off ebay last year, the key parts I was after were the back cap for the valve and a ule body. The down side was that someone had done a pretty bad paintjob on the body and had cut the front down a lot with what was probably a hacksaw given how uneven the front of the body was. I stripped the paint and sanded the body by hand with 800 to 1000 grit sandpaper to get some of the marks out. The body was drilled for eyes. The eye milling was done rather well, but not something I was gonna do for this build. Also the cost on ebay was pretty low considering the condition of the parts and I knew I was gonna mill up a ule body, so this one just worked out.

[Cal440]

Will be following!

[Magageddon]

I didn't want to use the rt length rail for the build, the previous owner really uled the interior of the rail, so cutting it down wasn't an option. I ended up just going with a classic rail. At the time, my envision for the build was to make a tiny pump mag build. I was gonna use a meteor aluminum frame and an angel mini reg to really make it low profile, but decided against that. Mainly because I had already built a few pump mags and hadn't really built another custom semi auto mag and ended up going in that direction. I had cut down the rail significantly in the front at this point to match the cut down body, but still needed to cut down the rear of the rail so I could make it flush with the back cap of the valve.

[Magageddon]

So after cutting down the front of the rail, I didn't like how the corners of the rail would dig into my fingers when I mocking the parts up. So I needed to figure out a way to round the front of the rail. I ended up buying a cheap rotary lathe chuck that mounts to the table on my milling machine. It rotates 360 degrees with a little knob. I mounted the rail to a normal vasa, clamped the vasa into the chuck, and just positioned the rail by eye to the center of the rail and slowly worked back and forth in a half circle motion on the rotary chuck until I had a nice rounded edge for the front of the rail.

I also wanted to slot the rail for a rt pro style vasa that I had on hand and wanted to use. I milled it pretty much as close to edge on either side that I could and luckily it lined up great with rpg angled vasa I wanted to use.

[Magageddon]

The next step was to cutdown the rail in the rear to make it flush with the back cap of the valve. I could've just made it flat, but its my custom build, so I wanted to do something different. I clamped the rail in a angled vise and cut it at around a 45 degree angle and that rough cut got it to the point where the inner curve of the rail would hug the back cap at the high points of the rail. After roughing it up on the mill, I used a few hand files and sand paper to make the high points on the rail even and more rounded.

To give the rial more of a rounded shape on the rear, I mounted some 600-1000 grit sandpaper to a block of wood and slowly worked the rail in a J shape against the varying grits of sandpaper to give me the shape I wanted on the rail.

[Magageddon]

The next challenge I had was the frame fitment. Since I had cut the rail down so much, the vasa that I wanted to use protruded a little too much back to the point where the Y grip I wanted to use wouldn't mount to the rail anymore, hitting the back of the vasa. At this point in the build, I thought at first to just mill a little off the vasa in the back, but the vasa didn't have any blems, so decided against that.

The Y grip I got from someone who had tried to make it a pneframe, so it already had a few set screw holes/marks on it that a few more weren't gonna bastardize it lol. I ended up cutting away the thin material that was in front of the twistlock detent hole and contouring the open space so it would pretty much hug the back of the vasa. That solved that problem and by doing so didn't cut up the frame sides, so you wouldn't even know I modified it without me pointing it out.

[Magageddon]

After doing that custom work, the next step was part choice and getting a custom ano done.

I spent the next few months looking for parts. The barrel was a nice find, got it in a lot off ebay, its a cut down wgp bull barrel that was freak bored and threaded for a agd crown point tip, the freak insert pretty much stops a 1/16th of an inch behind the threads for the crown point tip.

I went with an autococker parts.com straight asa, I tried different on/off asas, but nothing I tried would give me that low profile I was looking for. This asa really grew on me, definitely an underrated asa.

The inception reg I stole off another build. Originally was gonna use a CP reg, but thought the inception looked a lot cleaner.

Went with ccm fitting because I just like you can ano match them and they are super low profile.

The feedneck is an RPG sub zero, I just like the look of these.

Docs detents for the body, would've gone with numech if he was still making detents, but docs are nice in the polished silver ano.

The valve I just polished a spare classic valve front and supped it up with a lvl10 bolt and RT on/off

Ano I decided a busy ano would be best, wanted an oldschool blue splash from what I seen on old smart parts shoebox shockers. The body was damaged with surface corrosion from the old paintjob it had had. So the splash hides that pretty well.

The grips are old SPD stinger acrylic grips, I have a bunch of them in my grip drawer I got in a lot years ago and just save them for builds every now and then. The fact that they match so well was completely by chance. I didn't know how what the pigment of the blue was gonna look like until I got the parts back from ano.

All in I'm about 550-600 dollars into this build with the ano work included in that price point. I'm not counting the machine time/sanding time into that number, just the money I spent on the parts to build it. Pretty happy with how it turned out.

[capedcrayola]

Every time I see this, I spit my tequila, it's just that beautiful.

[river031403]

Well done

[automeister]

Nice work!! I am wanting a railless mag like Sk8ermog's. You did a great job!! Thanks for sharing the info

[Alexndl]

Great build!
who did the ano?

[Magageddon]

got it done by Breaking Beard's One Stop Shop, worked out a trade for the ano work

[Swedgin!!]

That’s a sweet build 🤘🏽

[Dusty Bottoms]

That's very cool, dude!

[Riot]

Awesome build, Nick. Seriously!

[Ecapnation]

Great work!

[FredMnkyDad10]

Magageddon what did you use to strip the paint on the body and rail without damaging them? Any time and process you can share? Thanks

[Magageddon]

I just used citristrip from home depot, i used a paint brush to apply the paint remover and let the parts sit over night, then used warm water to flake the loose paint off. I've also just soaked parts in warm water overnight, but that really only works for old flaky paint.