AR15 Loose Gas Tube

I was cleaning my primary home defense AR after re-zeroing it the other day and when I cleaned up around the gas tube, I noticed that it had a lot more play then I am used to. I don't remember it being this loose but I haven't shot or cleaned this rifle in ages since it's not my training rifle and mostly sits in a safe. In my experience the tube can normally move a little from side to side if pushed but is normally pretty fixed into place.

This can move around just from tilting the rifle in different directions. It seems to be still secured to the gas block and I didn't have any function issues when I zeroed it just now but I only fired 20 rounds. Is this a problem or pretty normal?

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Is the roll pin still present? I’ve never personally run across one that loose.

There is a gap around the hole in the upper where the gas tube enters. Is this the end where you are seeing the play? What kind of gas block do have? Did it loosen up?

So the play is on the back end, where the gas tube links up with the bcg. It's can move around enough where it can bounce the edges of where it comes out of the receiver just by moving the rifle around. The gas tube roll pin appears to still be in place. It doesn't seem to be coming loose from the gas block per se. All of the movement is from side to side, not front to back. I'm not sure the brand of gas block. A shop installed it a few years ago when I put the rail on. Below are some pics. https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/202...7e64cfdc4c.jpghttps://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/202...9c1616072b.jpghttps://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/202...1c3fa1eff1.jpg

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Disclaimer: this is the "ask an armorer" section and I am not an armorer.

With that said, one of my rifles has a ton of play. It uses a Colt Match handguard tube which is its own barrel nut, which simply doesn't lock up the gas tube as tightly as other handguard/barrel nut interfaces, to the point that every time you cycle the action the tube will shift position upon mating up with the BCG. The play is up and down, not side to side. It's a low round count lazy range queen, no problems thus far, and not something I'm concerned about.

That could be the case here. The ALG rail that's on it replaced the barrel nut with their own hardware. All of the other ARs I have any amount of time on used a stock barrel nut. It's always worked fine and I've put probably 750 rounds or so through it since that gas block was installed with no issues. It just struck me as a little off that it could move so much.

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I’ll defer to a real armorer too, but if you’re sure the gas block is solidly mounted to the journal I’m thinking it (the block) is seriously out of spec. I have two ARs with ALG barrel nuts and rails, and neither demonstrates movement like that. Only a sample of two, I know.