Trying to attach some homemade clips to a hand guard . I have tried 1/8 " rivets but they are a little to short and the next size seems to be to long . Has anyone had this problem and what did you do to attach your clips . Heard someone use a nail to attach their clips to their hand guard but did not say how exactly and not sure if some kind of glue or a J/B weld type would work for long or not . Do I need to cut more of a channel for the clip and rivet . Open to any suggestions .

Wow, I view the Krag hand-guard rivet as a tough and tricky job.

You can shorten an overly long rivet before the 'peening' operation.

I had a rivet come out of a repro hand-guard once. I had to resort to fixing it with an aluminum 'pop' rivet. It was not pretty, but, neither was the Krag. (I could not figure out any other way to set a rivet without destroying everything. I put a dab of 'liquid steel' on the hollow rivet head to make it less obvious ).

I found rivets that were long enough on ebay, but as BR said, hard to set without destroying things.  I was trying it on an already cracked and very much sanded model 92 handguard.  I really wasn't set up right, didn't have a vise and it wasn't long till the handguard had another crack I'll have to repair!  That project got set aside, and I wonder where those rivets ever got to?

I found it relatively easy to use cut-off common nails to rivet the clips when I made a Krag handguard from scratch a while back. It's probably essential to have a good solid workbench and vise to hold a steel rod or punch used as the anvil on the outside end while peening the inside end with a larger punch. Worked for me.

Here's the only picture I took of the finished product before shipping it out -

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Thanks guys for your response s . I tried shortening a rivet by removing the center pin (not sure if that is what it's called) and cutting off some of the rivet body  to make it shorter . But when tried to set it , it would not expand .  I am using a piece of wood to practice on . I looked on youtube about using a nail for a rivet but not sure I am brave enough to try an hammer on the hand guard , afraid I would wined up damaging it .

I guess I could practice with the nail idea and see how it goes . Getting the hand guard were it would not move and positioned just right might be the challenge .

Parashooter wrote on Feb 21^st, 2019 at 3:39pm:

I found it relatively easy to use cut-off common nails to rivet the clips when I made a Krag handguard from scratch a while back. It's probably essential to have a good solid workbench and vise to hold a steel rod or punch used as the anvil on the outside end while peening the inside end with a larger punch. Worked for me. Here's the only picture I took of the finished product before shipping it out -

Excellent wood work!
Vic

soonerfan66 - how did you make the clips?