I’ll begin by saying I love my ARC xylos. Love em to death. The biggest drawback for me, however, was the cheek piece. While I do love the design simplicity and adjustability, the flat metal with only a thin rubber cover wasn’t my favorite feature, so I attempted to improve on this myself.
I started by buying 2 inch diameter half round aluminum barstock from an online metal supply store and milling channels to facilitate the attachment screws and seating on the cheek riser.
I’ve attached a picture of the end result. I think it feels night-and-day better than the original and isn’t horrible to look at either. Another great benefit is that it is ambidextrous. I let my daughter shoot my 22 trainer, I’m a lefty, she’s a righty, so every time I switch it back I have to change the cheekpiece over. This is probably not a common complaint, but I still think being ambi is a nice bonus. Im also in the process of designing a cheek pad that can be attached with Velcro straps, and in the meantime I am looking for a place that can anodized the aluminum for me (I just rattle canned it black to see what it would look like).
****Any suggestions on a company who can help with small batch anodizing would be appreciated.****
Unfortunately it’s just not worth my time to produce any more of these for sale on the PX (plus I don’t have a vendor account), however if anyone is interested I’ll happily share the dimensions I used and more pics so you can make them at home.
A friend of mine did suggest building them out of wood which could be a lot easier for those at home who don’t have access to a milling machine. There are some companies I found online who do produce custom order dowels and could spin up a 2” dowel out of whatever species wood you want. You could probably get smaller diameter pieces ready-made, but I think less than 2” diameter runs the risk of being pretty uncomfortable. Either way, it’s a pretty good idea given the Xylo name and it’s current wood grip.
Anyway, just thought I’d share. This will be my first contribution to the hide, hope it helps someone who felt the same about their xylo.
I started by buying 2 inch diameter half round aluminum barstock from an online metal supply store and milling channels to facilitate the attachment screws and seating on the cheek riser.
I’ve attached a picture of the end result. I think it feels night-and-day better than the original and isn’t horrible to look at either. Another great benefit is that it is ambidextrous. I let my daughter shoot my 22 trainer, I’m a lefty, she’s a righty, so every time I switch it back I have to change the cheekpiece over. This is probably not a common complaint, but I still think being ambi is a nice bonus. Im also in the process of designing a cheek pad that can be attached with Velcro straps, and in the meantime I am looking for a place that can anodized the aluminum for me (I just rattle canned it black to see what it would look like).
****Any suggestions on a company who can help with small batch anodizing would be appreciated.****
Unfortunately it’s just not worth my time to produce any more of these for sale on the PX (plus I don’t have a vendor account), however if anyone is interested I’ll happily share the dimensions I used and more pics so you can make them at home.
A friend of mine did suggest building them out of wood which could be a lot easier for those at home who don’t have access to a milling machine. There are some companies I found online who do produce custom order dowels and could spin up a 2” dowel out of whatever species wood you want. You could probably get smaller diameter pieces ready-made, but I think less than 2” diameter runs the risk of being pretty uncomfortable. Either way, it’s a pretty good idea given the Xylo name and it’s current wood grip.
Anyway, just thought I’d share. This will be my first contribution to the hide, hope it helps someone who felt the same about their xylo.
