Home CMMG Smyth Busters: Can You Un-Stake an AR-15 Castle Nut?

Smyth Busters: Can You Un-Stake an AR-15 Castle Nut?

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If you’ve watched our earlier videos about staking an AR-15 castle nut, you know Caleb is very much in favor of staking. His Gun Tech™ colleague Steve likes to reconfigure his guns often, so he’s less of a staker. Maybe you’ve seen some of the internet forum / social media talk that once you’ve staked a castle nut, it’s permanent, and you can’t un-stake it. Fact or fiction? Caleb calls, “MYTH,” and shows us HOW to un-stake an AR-15 castle nut……

Get out your AR-15 armorer’s wrench or a dedicated castle nut wrench, properly interlock the wrench’s teeth in the castle nut’s notches, and go “loosey-lefty” to loosen the nut. It takes hardly any extra leverage to break the stakings and free that castle nut to unscrew it. That’s because staking simply prevents the castle nut from vibrating loose and letting the receiver extension (aka, buffer tube) work loose in turn. It’s doesn’t weld the castle nut permanently in place or anything like that.

The myth is handily BUSTED with practically no effort. A staked castle nut is by no means permanent and can be removed with the same ease as an un-staked one. In fact, you can say the guys are willing to stake their reputations on it!

CALEB’S RECOMMENDATION: When you remove a staked castle nut and then go to reinstall it, replace the endplate. A mil-spec endplate costs only a couple-few bucks. You want clean metal on the plate for the new staking notches.

Wondering why we stake the castle nut in the first place? Check out “Smyth Busters: Does an AR-15 Castle Nut Have To Be Staked?”

Want to learn how to make your stake well done? Check out our earlier video, “Quick Tip: The Right Way To Stake an AR-15 Castle Nut”

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36 COMMENTS

  1. Mine is not being that easy! i tried one time without the upper on and could see as i put a small amount of torqe that my lower would slightly tweek. so i tried with the upper receiver on it and it did provide some stability I put a little more torqe and eased on some more and was feeling like i could still break something and just backed off and have not tried again. SO its safe to say I did a good job staking mine!

  2. I really enjoy your content, fellas. You've got a great rapport, and I'm tickled to hear a Ryan George call out from Caleb! I probably fall more on Steve's side of things in terms of constantly tinkering and changing things around, but I have tremendous respect for the knowledge and opinions from both of you gentlemen.

  3. So I have a Stags Arms AR and obviously it had a factory stake job done on the end plate. I got the life of me cannot remove this SOB!! I've tried everything, I have the castle nut wrench and I've put an my weight into this little bugger but not able to get it to budge. It's it possible that they may have also used a substance like lock tight in conjunction with the staking?

  4. Mine was staked differently from the factory, about 1/8 inch rearward from what this video shows, and the castle nut shredded the buffer tube threads. Not the end of the world, but it was definitely not staked properly.

  5. really blue or orange loctite will do the job and all parts can be reused. i work on boilers and chillers so i have a lot of temp differential going on and then there are shut down times. blue or red depending on temps will keep everything in spec.

  6. Came back with a suggestion for upcoming topic, how to tune using correct recoil spring for 9mm,45acp based on ammo selected, ie hot vs light loads need different springs to avoid ejection/feeding issues, also if needed to protect from recoil wear, use of recoil pad?

  7. You don't really need to replace the end plate and castle nut unless looks are important. Just carefully remove the little burr that staking raises. Re-stake the castle nut in a fresh spot. I put my stake points on the under side so you don't see them as easily. When I am going for good looks and function I might use a fresh end plate and castle nut.

  8. I don't run the majority of my AR rifles or pistols hard, used mostly for hunting hogs. I have never staked any of my ARs, just tighten on the castle nut and I have never had one come loose. I can understand the provision to stake being there, pretty brilliant actually, certainly for military applications and hard use, I just have never had an issue with castle nuts coming loose without staking so I don't do it.

  9. Hmm. I avoiding staking my castle nut because my gun smith really struggled to remove the castle nut off of my PSA AR-15 and ruined the threads trying to replace the endplate. If it really is that easy to remove when done right I'll stake it. Wonder why my PSA was so difficult.

  10. I fired thousands of rounds through my Delton AR15 without the castle nut being staked and to this day it hasn't come lose. Maybe I got luck when I built it.🤔🇺🇸🇺🇸

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