The KeyMod vs M-LOK debate isn’t actually a lot of a debate anymore. It’s clear that M-LOK — the rail interface system used for mounting equipment, and launched in 2014 — is the go-to choice of at present and tomorrow.
Even in the event you agree the argument is settled, it’s nonetheless an attention-grabbing little bit of gun historical past that, at this level, needs to be preserved for future generations who might discover a rusty previous handguard in a pile of unused components and surprise what these bizarre keyholes are for. Within the conflict of KeyMod vs. M-LOK, simply as within the conflict between VHS and Betamax, there was a winner and a loser.
It’s fairly protected to say that the KeyMod handguard system might be becoming a member of the Laserdisc, the HD DVD, and the MiniDisc on the pile of concepts that labored effectively for some time, however simply couldn’t minimize it in opposition to a barely higher competing know-how. Nonetheless, there are a good variety of KeyMod choices on the market, and VLTOR remains to be cranking out handguards, so it’s value figuring out the professionals and cons of every system.
However earlier than we may even get into the attachment slot conflict, the thought of a standardized firearm attachment system needed to be developed and take root — no simple process in an business with producers all around the world turning out numerous firearm fashions.
It began with the navy and its want to connect an rising quantity of stuff to M16s and M4s that had a whole lot of unused handguard actual property. And, in the long run, it was the navy that decided the winner of the M-LOK vs. KeyMod.
The Key Variations Between KeyMod and M-LOK
M-LOK Specs
- Slot Form: Rectangular with rounded corners
- Slot dimensions: 7 x 32 mm
- Nook Radius: 2.38mm
- Slot Interval: 8mm
KeyMod Specs
- Slot Form: keyhole with a circle and slot
- Gap Diameter: 0.380 inches
- Slot Width: 0.234
- Slot Interval: 0.788 inches between gap facilities
Relying on who you ask, some will say that M-LOK equipment are sure to suit because the rectangular slots are extra forgiving, whereas there might be some issues with KeyMod fitment if something is a bit out of spec.
Moreover, whereas firms can license using M-LOK freed from cost, it isn’t open supply. Meaning accent makers and gunmakers nonetheless have to accumulate a license from Magpul to make use of the M-LOK commonplace. One can assume this provides Magpul extra management in ensuring specs are constant.
And yeah, there’s actually no denying that the easy, minimalist M-LOK slots simply look higher on any firearm and getting an array of equipment to suit excellent is method simpler. However the actual distinction is energy.
By 2017, various firms had been producing M-LOK handguards and equipment, together with rail segments and merchandise like vertical foregrips, bipods, sling mounts, and tactical lights that connected on to M-LOK slots with out the necessity for a rail, lowering the variety of components, and conserving the accent nearer to the handguard, lowering profile.
That yr, U.S. Particular Operations Command (SOCOM) did some testing to see which system they wished to make use of. The M-LOK system reportedly outperformed KeyMod throughout the board by drop checks and failure load testing.
Since then, particular forces started utilizing M-LOK as the popular mounting methodology. Phrase unfold to each the firearm business and gun homeowners, and whereas KeyMod nonetheless has some followers due to its ease of use, it typically appears shooters have settled on M-LOK. You’ll discover these little rectangles on every thing from PRS rifles to tactical carbines to shotguns.
It’s sturdy and dependable sufficient to connect equipment like bipods and foregrips that may take in an excellent quantity of weight and torque whereas additionally being backward appropriate with generations of Picatinny rail equipment, as a result of whereas direct M-LOK equipment are the hotness, you’ll be able to at all times connect a rail section to an M-LOK slot.
Plus, these slots don’t get in the way in which once they’re not doing something, they usually look fairly cool. And KeyMod, whereas nonetheless a nice system, is effectively on its approach to turning into the BetaMax of gun accent attachment methods. In any case, you’ll be able to nonetheless get attachments which are M-LOK or made for Pic rails, however KeyMod is infrequently an choice.
Driving the Rails: Picatinny vs. Weaver
At first — the primordial days of gun ownerships — attaching equipment to a firearm nearly at all times meant drilling and tapping holes in your gun, clamping issues, and including customized holes with bolts and washers that had been spray-painted black. Or, on the very least, coping with dovetails even to easily connect a riflescope.
The benefit of this period was that gunsmiths had a bunch of small, common jobs to maintain them in enterprise when gun homeowners weren’t bubba-ing their very own options.
However, on the down facet, that barrier made most gun homeowners just a little hesitant to make modifications. To not point out customizing a gun in everlasting methods may kill its resale worth.
For a very long time, the world of AR-platform firearms was no totally different. The unique M16s and civilian ARs got here with a two-piece artificial triangular handguard that wasn’t constructed to carry equipment and sort of shook round irrespective of how tight that delta ring was on there. Then got here the spherical handguards, however they had been made the identical method. On prime of the receiver, there was a carry deal with with a gap in it that was used to mount optics of varied sorts, but it surely was fairly excessive and never ideally suited for the period’s optics.
Then, the recognition of rails modified every thing — they usually’re older than you in all probability assume.
The Weaver Rail system was launched within the Nineteen Thirties as a common mounting answer, principally for rifle scopes, however for different equipment as effectively. It was a rail with a collection of slots with a particular cross-slot setup. It did the job, and whereas it turned widespread within the civilian gun world, it wasn’t broadly adopted by the navy.
The Picatinny rail system, formally known as the MIL-STD-1913 rail was created within the Nineties to unravel the issue of attaching an rising variety of required equipment to navy M16 rifles, after which M4 Carbines, which entered service in 1994. Immediately, you’ll additionally see it known as the STANAG 4694 Nato Accent rail, a time period that was official adopted in 2011. The STANAG 4694 is backwards appropriate with the MIL-STD-1913 rail, however has tighter tolerances.
This new slotted rail, named for the Picatinny Arsenal in New Jersey the place it was developed, is pretty much like the Weaver rail, but it surely was standardized. The slots had been all precisely 0.206 inches aside, whereas weaver slots had been about 0.180 – however that “about” is an enormous deal if you’re making an attempt to get a multi-slot accent to lock in.
In consequence, the Picatinny was adopted by the navy for its notorious quad-rail handguards for its AR-platform firearms, and legislation enforcement quickly adopted go well with. Immediately, Pic rails are nonetheless in all places and on each gun from pistols to rifles to shotguns. You’ll see Weaver rails each from time to time, totally on rimfire lengthy weapons and older firearms, however the Pic rail has largely changed it.
Even nonetheless, you don’t see as many new weapons with lengthy, built-in rails anyplace besides atop the receiver for optics. That’s as a result of a greater system got here alongside — two truly.
KeyMod Comes Alongside
Rails had been nice, however they introduced some issues. A brief built-in rail part on prime of a receiver for a scope base is ok, as a result of the place else is a scope going to go? However alongside a handguard of a protracted gun, equipment have totally different ideally suited placements relying on what they’re and what they’re meant to do.
So, in 2012, VLTOR Weapon Systems from Arizona created the KeyMod modular rail interface system for firearm elements. It was launched by Noveske Rifleworks of Oregon earlier than the sample was printed open supply within the public area so the whole firearms business may use it.
Until you’re working a full early-2000s U.S. Military M4 accent package, a lot of the area on an aluminum handguard with a full-length rail at 12, 3, 6, and 9 o’clock goes unused. It’s nice to have the ability to place a mount (nearly) anyplace you need, however all that wasted rail provides pointless weight and the slots are likely to tear up gloves or pores and skin if left uncovered. There are whole product strains addressing this — rubberized ladders and such that you simply minimize to suit clean rail area.
The KeyMod system let gun homeowners put rail sections anyplace they wished on a handguard that was lined with keyhole-shaped slots as an alternative of rails with out eradicating it from the gun. So, in the event you wished a flashlight mount close to the muzzle on the left facet of the gun, you simply put a six-slot Pic rail part with KeyMod nuts proper the place you want it, after which connect your gentle as regular. Increase. No additional rails, no wasted weight or area.
Moreover, a handguard can have slots at 45-degree positions alongside the size of the handguard permitting for extra ideally suited accent placement — plus, all these slots solely assist the barrel cool higher.
The KeyMod system is dead-easy to make use of: put the KeyMod nuts into the slots on the accent you wish to connect, being cautious to orient them the proper method, as a result of the screw holes aren’t centered. Then, get your screws began. Place the rail part within the right place with the KeyMod nuts within the holes, after which push ahead so that they’re pressed into the entrance of the slot. Then, tighten down the screws and the nuts tighten in opposition to the opposite facet of the handguard. That’s it.
However the system is way from good. Whenever you first see a handguard stuffed with these humorous formed slots it doesn’t look cool, and let’s be trustworthy, that’s an enormous deal for people who find themselves all about customizing ARs.
For this method to work, the spacing of the holes, and consequently the screwholes on a given accent, needed to be precise. They usually weren’t at all times so, because the gun business was nonetheless getting used to a common attachment system. Plus, low-cost rail sections with awful high quality management quickly hit the market like a tidal wave.
Magpul Drops MOE System Adopted by M-LOK
A good suggestion doesn’t stand alone for lengthy. Magpul started as an AR journal accent firm and finally bloomed into one of the crucial trusted and prolific firearm accent firms round, took a stab at a common mounting system within the 2000s.
Their system was known as the MOE (Magpul Unique Tools) and it labored sort of the identical method as KeyMod, but it surely had an enormous disadvantage. It required the installer to manually connect the nut to the bolt whereas it was inserted into the slot. That meant you couldn’t use MOE to connect one thing to a free-float handguard with out taking the handguard off the firearm. That’s an enormous drawback.
Realizing this was a dealbreaker, Magpul launched the M-LOK attachment system in 2014 as a alternative. The M-LOK system makes use of rectangular slots and a T-slot nut that may solely rotate 90 levels, which permits it to connect to a handguard similar to a KeyMod accent, however with out the necessity to push it ahead, making placement and match a bit extra precise.
Greater than that, equipment might be mounted both inside a slot or bridging a number of slots. Meaning the place of an adjunct might be adjusted in intervals alongside the size of a slot.
Utilizing the M-LOK system is about the identical as utilizing KeyMod, however it might take just a little getting used to. If you happen to thread the M-LOK nut onto the screw simply the correct amount, if you put it by the slot, it should lock in and tighten with a pair turns of the screw. If you happen to don’t thread it on sufficient, it should spin and spin. Due to this, you’ll discover folks on Reddit and Quora who assume — going through a lot ridicule within the course of — that you need to take away a handguard to make use of M-LOK.
Nevertheless, when you get an M-LOK rail or accent arrange, you simply have to provide the screws 1 / 4 flip to orient the nut so the accent might be eliminated. M-LOK screws additionally include a little bit of blue Loctite on the threads, making them prepared to connect precision gear like bipods or optic mounts.
Magpul had nice timing with M-LOK. LED tactical weapon lights had lastly turn out to be small and highly effective sufficient to be thought-about indispensable equipment. The identical goes for laser sights and different tech. LPVOs turned extra reasonably priced than ever, together with different optics. Plus, the market was full of sturdy, light-weight polymer attachments of each form and dimension, from angled foregrips at hand stops.
All of them wanted a dependable and common approach to connect to firearms.
Last Ideas on KeyMod vs M-LOK
One may make an excellent argument that the M-LOK system has enormously contributed to the general reputation progress of tricking out ARs. All these empty slots have a method of calling to an individual, teasing out infinite potentialities. In any case, it’s really easy to connect something precisely the place you need it. Shooters from the Sixties would scoff, and the old-timers who’re nonetheless round at present often do, however deep down, they’re simply jealous.