8/23/2023 0 Comments Accessories for picatinny railsIn 2009, a new rail interface system was standardized as STANAG 4694: the NATO Accessory Rail, or NATO rail. The NATO Rail: A Picatinny Rail For The World Today, an extensive array of Picatinny-compatible accessories exists scopes, red dot sights, carrying handles, backup iron sights, holographic sights, weapon lights, laser sights, foregrips, bipods, and even cosmetic and decorative attachments. Initially, so were Picatinny rails, but the industry produced many other accessory types with the Picatinny rail in mind, adapting the system for mounting attachments at a 90-degree angle (side rails), upside-down (underbarrel rails), or on all four sides of the firearm (quad rail handguards). Weaver rails are primarily optics rails, intended only for scopes and similar optical devices. Weaver rails, on the other hand, may not be the same from one manufacturer to the next.Īccessories intended for Weaver rails may fit on a Picatinny rail, but attachments designed for Picatinny rails will not work on Weaver rails. In contrast, a Picatinny rail slot is always 0.206” wide and a distance of precisely 0.394” between the centers of each groove.īecause Picatinny rail dimensions are standardized, each rail is guaranteed to have the same overall dimensions except for the overall length. The Model 920 became the M4 carbine, the Model 921 became the M4A1 carbine, and the Model 945, also once known as the M16A2E4, later became the M16A4 rifle.Īlthough all three of these firearms are modernized versions of the earlier M16 rifles and CAR-15 carbines, they are the most successful derivatives of Eugene Stoner’s original designs.Īlthough visually similar and cross-compatible to a limited extent, Weaver rails and Picatinny rails do not share the same dimensions.Ī Weaver rail features 0.180” wide slots with no guarantee of consistent spacing between each slot. military type-standardized it on February 3, 1995, as the MIL-STD-1913 rail.įollowing the standardization of Picatinny rails, the first firearms to see widespread adoption of these rails were the Colt Models 920, 921, and 945, the first M16 derivatives to feature flat-top railed receivers. The first Picatinny rail prototype was completed in 1995 and sent to Rock Island Arsenal for trial and official review. They contacted Picatinny Arsenal, a New Jersey-based company, tasking them with designing a mounting system that could fulfill military requirements. However, none of these early attempts fully met the U.S. ![]() The industry’s first attempts to modernize the Weaver rail started in the early 1980s, with A.R.M.S., Inc. developing the original dovetail dimensions that would later become Picatinny rails. The Picatinny rail’s primary purpose is to allow military firearms to attach scopes, but the system was later adapted for compatibility with a wide array of attachments. The Picatinny rail is the common name for the MIL-STD-1913 rail interface system. Despite that, Weaver rails served as the base in the development of the Picatinny rail. The inconsistent slot position between each rail made it impossible to ensure that every accessory could be installed consistently on each rail. Shooters at the time considered Weaver rails to be inferior they were less durable and impossible to adjust for windage. Weaver rails competed with Leupold’s Redfield mounting systems. ![]() The slots’ position on a Weaver rail is not standardized each rail may differ from the next. Accessories intended for Weaver rails typically feature locking screws designed to interface with the slots, allowing the user to tighten the accessory in place. ![]() This company is responsible for creating the first attempt at a universal scope mounting system for rifles: the Weaver rail.Ī Weaver rail consists of a metal rail with teeth and slots, being approximately 0.180” wide. The William Ralph Weaver Company was a manufacturer of rifle sights and scope systems founded in 1930. Before the Weaver rail, scopes and attachments were more or less proprietary to each firearm, employing attachment points such as dovetail mounts.
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