The newest two piece free floating rail from Midwest industries is made in the USA, simple to install, and has a street price of around $150 for the carbine length model. We received one of these awhile back, but didn't have a weapon to mount it on. When a friend on the teams came up and asked me if I would swap out an A1 receiver to a flat top upper receiver, he jumped on the offer when I volunteered to upgrade his weapon with this rail as well. I'll point out this isn't one of the team weapons, its a personal AR that has been around for awhile.
The Midwest Industries MCTAR-20G2 is the carbine length model we are looking at. Specs from the manufacturers website show "Weight 9.0 oz, Length 7 inches, Width 2.3 inches, Height 2.43 inches". This makes this rail a little wider and heavier, but substantially cheaper than most other rails on the market. Installation of the rail does NOT require you to remove the barrel, the pictures below only show the barrel removed because we removed the old upper which it came with.
The first step of any weapon work is clearing the weapon, if you don't understand that, you probably shouldn't be touching weapons anyway. Next, grab your trusty Dremel or similar cutting tool, and chop the Delta ring cap off. The easiest way to do this is typically to make a cut on each side and chop it in half. This allows access to the spring underneath, you can grab that spring with a pair of pliers and get rid of it, you won't need it anymore. Now take the upper and lower rail sections and position them in place. You can see from the pictures the barrel nut lines up with a cutout in the rail. Your last step is to use the included thread locker and allen wrench, and tighten the screws down. Ensure you are keeping the upper rail lined up with the upper receiver. If you have problems, take a straight edge and press the rail and upper down on it while you tighten the screws. Now you are done. This rail is a very affordable way to get into a free floating rail for your AR15/ M16/ M4 variant.
Check out the manufacturers website for more information. http://www.midwestindustriesinc.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=category.display&category_id=422
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