Wheeler Engineering offers that one little piece of gear you can’t live without in the Delta Series Compact AR Tool.
What The Delta Series Compact AR Tool Includes:
- AR Carbon Multi-Scraper tool
- 5/64″ HEX, 7/64″ HEX, 1/8″ HEX
- Pivot and Takedown Punch
- #2 Phillips
- Bolt Waist Scraper
- Interior BCG Scraper
- T10 TORX, T15 TORX, T20 TORX
- A2 Front Sight Tool
- 3/16″ FLAT, 3/4″ WRENCH, 1/2″ WRENCH
- Castle Nut Wrench
So, there you are at the range, having fun with your AR (or other firearm), and you realize something’s wrong: Something’s loose.
You can’t continue unless you tighten it. What—no toolkit? Your gun bag is sans tools?
With a few mutters, you check your car/truck/SUV. No tools. With louder muttering, you check the clubhouse at the gun club. Surely, someone has left a screwdriver lying around—something, anything. Nope; nothing.
Now, with vile curses, you load everything back into your vehicle and sullenly drive home … knowing that within five minutes of getting home, you’ll have the problem solved. If you’d just had a toolkit with you, you could’ve solved the problem there.
Well, how about a toolkit that sits in your gear bag or even your rifle case, ready, just in case?
Big Name, Great Tool
Enter Wheeler Engineering, a division of Caldwell. The tool in particular that is this month’s subject is the Delta Series Compact AR Tool, a name almost as big as the tool.
OK, what we’re looking at is a flat rectangle of stainless steel that will slide nicely into a pouch or compartment of your gun bag. An array of tools resides on its two axles. On one end are three sizes of Allen bits (5/64, 7/64 and 1/8 inch), a Phillips head screwdriver #2, and AR bolt and carrier scrapers.
The round-ended one is the bolt tail scraper for the inside of the carrier. The hole through it is for the bolt tail itself.
The other scraper has a lifting hook for the cotter pin, a cam pin scraper, bolt lug scraper, primer pin scraper and a bolt face scraper (and I’m pretty sure that in a pinch, one of these will work to lift the pull tab on a soda can!).
On the other axle are three sizes of torx drivers (T10, T15 and T20), a front sight adjustment tool and a straight-blade screwdriver with a 3/16-inch flat. In the middle of the assembly is a bar that has a ½-inch wrench opening, ¾-inch wrench opening and a castle nut wrench.
Lots and Lots of Uses
Basically, if there’s anything that comes loose on your gun—anything that can be screwed or wrenched—the Delta Series Compact AR Tool will tighten it; maybe not to the arsenal torque spec, but surely tight enough to get you through the day’s practice and back home again.
And while you’re tightening things, you can also be scraping the carbon off. (You haven’t done that recently, have you? Now’s the time.)
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If you don’t want the Delta Series Compact AR Tool floating around in a mag pouch or banging into other gear in your shooting bag, leave it in the pouch it came in. It’s a heavy-duty woven and formed nylon pouch with a snap. This pouch will ensure the AR Tool stays away from other tools or gear.
Now, would I build an AR-15 using the Wheeler tool? No; I have tools much better suited to the assembly of a rifle than this one.
However, by the same token, I’m not going to haul that toolkit (which weighs about 15 pounds) out to the range every time I take an AR for practice, drills or testing. Heavens, no. In fact, I don’t take up trunk or cargo bed space with a hydraulic jack in case I need to change a tire. I have the emergency jack my vehicle came with, and I’ll make it work.
That’s what the Delta Series Compact AR Tool is for: If your scope gets loose or the castle nut gets loose (you should have staked it, I’m telling you), you can deal with the problem without having to drive home.
A Word to the Wise
The Delta Series Compact AR Tool doesn’t cost much: just over $30. It doesn’t weigh much or take up much room, so having one in your range bag, gear bag or rifle case—just in case—is prudent … because the tools left in the clubhouse or the work shed of your gun club just aren’t going to cut it (that is, if there are any).
The article originally appeared in the December 2019 issues of Gun Digest the Magazine.
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