ARs to avoid, which brands are not worth the money?

[Das Jared]

avoid Colt, LMT, Daniel Defense, Noveske, Larue, LWRC. They're just herrble!

Kill yourself.

sent from Jennifer Lawrence's bedroom

 

[kusai]

avoid Colt, LMT, Daniel Defense, Noveske, Larue, LWRC. They're just herrble!

plus they make you go broke faster than your wife

Sent from the black hole

 

[AustinN4]

plus they make you go broke faster than your wife

More often than not, however, they stay with you longer than your wife and they go up in value, so they are a better investment.

 

[ROGER4314]

There's a LOT of Blarney in this thread and I read every post! I'm going to do something different. I'll tell you HOW I gained my information so you'll know where it came from.

Owned 18 or so AR-15's personally. they ran from Gunsmoke to ERA to Colt to Bushmaster to Sun Devil Billet, to Olympic and on & on. I shot matches at 200 and 600 yards for years and what I wasn't shooting, I was observing next to me on the firing line. I served at the Regional Championship matches and saw hundreds of shooters in competition. I watched them to see what worked and what didn't work.

I refer only to machined aluminum housings. I have very little experience with polymer housing AR-15's

Here's what I personally observed.

I have NEVER had a malfunction on ANY AR-15 rifle that wasn't tied directly to ammunition and particularly steel cased ammo. Some of my rifles digested steel cased ammo just fine. Others vomited on it.

I saw ONE charging handle break at the forward end.

One match shooter blew a rapid fire stage because he installed a primer upside down.

One shooter left his Bolt Carrier Group at home. Another time, the same shooter brought the wrong ammo. Incidentally, he is a "High Master" shooter.

That's it!

When I hear someone trash a particular brand because of an internal part problem, I gotta laugh. The parts are cheap and it's no problem to replace them. Rather than to trash the brand of rifle, perform a little maintenance and fix it! Your rifle is a machine and like any other machine, it needs periodic maintenance. A problem like that does NOT qualify for an Internet bitch blitz.

In this thread, some of the "Trash" brands actually machine and supply upper and lower housings to many of the major brands on the market! Do a little research and find out where those housings really originated.

Summed up.........I have not seen ONE AR-15 rifle of any brand in actual highly stressed service that I considered "JUNK!"

Flash

 

[grumper]

Ya wanna buy my Olympic then? It only cost me 10 and a half Gs and 1 year of waiting to find out it was machined by a pack of blind orangutans and nothing that fits on other AR-15s would fit on this rifle which lead to another TWO years of waiting for the ATF to do their thing to make it right. True milspec Colt M4 uppers don't fit. True milspec LMT MK18 uppers don't fit. True milspec USGI magazines don't fit without cramming and slamming. Pmags require a mallet and hammering from the top with the upper removed to eject. When I changed the stock to an A1 stock we found out the buffer retaining plunger was some kind of proprietary part that wouldn't come out like an ordinary one. The inside walls of the lower were machined crooked so the astronomically expensive piece of the FCG that fits in that spot is also crooked.

Does that sound like good or even acceptable from-the-factory quality to you? Some of us with negative things to say about a brand also do so from personal experience. Some really really bad experiences.

Current market prices are around $25,000 (wow prices have gone up more than I realized) but I'd cut you a deal for $24,200. But I must warn you, if you want to do anything other than shoot it in its original configuration with apparently hand fitted parts you'll need to bring it to a machine shop first.

Edit: oh I forgot to add the front takedown pin hole must be slightly off center or something. You know how uppers are supposed to swing open at the front? This one won't except with the upper it came with. You can open other uppers maybe 3 inches before it jams up and feels like the front pin lugs are about to break.

 

[Jakashh]

So did the Olympic lower cost 10.5 g's or the auto fcg?

 

[grumper]

So did the Olympic lower cost 10.5 g's or the auto fcg?

Both.

 

[Das Jared]

Both.

If my shelf was milled in my lower, would I be able to LEGALLY drop that puppy into my own AR?

sent from Jennifer Lawrence's bedroom

 

[Moonpie]

BCM and KAC, yes. Also in the shit list.

People on shitlists shouldn't talk about shit lists.

 

[grumper]

If my shelf was milled in my lower, would I be able to LEGALLY drop that puppy into my own AR?

sent from Jennifer Lawrence's bedroom

Now, yes we could. But it took two years of back and forth with the ATF and copies of 30 yr old letters between them and the original registrant.

At the time I was screwing with that POS Olympic to try to make it work with milspec parts, no. They kept saying it was married to that POS receiver, even though the sear had the registrant's name, city, state and a serial number engraved on it. I had to show them the 3 decade old letters where the maker explicitly stated he wanted to register a conversion device and the examiner instructed him to engrave his info and a serial number on it to convince them otherwise.

I don't want to go through any bureaucratic nightmare like that again. None of that would have even been necessary if that Olympic had been up to spec in the first place.

 

[mitchntx]

Ya wanna buy my Olympic then? It only cost me 10 and a half Gs and 1 year of waiting to find out it was machined by a pack of blind orangutans and nothing that fits on other AR-15s would fit on this rifle which lead to another TWO years of waiting for the ATF to do their thing to make it right. True milspec Colt M4 uppers don't fit. True milspec LMT MK18 uppers don't fit. True milspec USGI magazines don't fit without cramming and slamming. Pmags require a mallet and hammering from the top with the upper removed to eject. When I changed the stock to an A1 stock we found out the buffer retaining plunger was some kind of proprietary part that wouldn't come out like an ordinary one. The inside walls of the lower were machined crooked so the astronomically expensive piece of the FCG that fits in that spot is also crooked.

Does that sound like good or even acceptable from-the-factory quality to you? Some of us with negative things to say about a brand also do so from personal experience. Some really really bad experiences.

Current market prices are around $20,000 but I'd cut you a deal for $19,200. But I must warn you, if you want to do anything other than shoot it in its original configuration with apparently hand fitted parts you'll need to bring it to a machine shop first.

Edit: oh I forgot to add the front takedown pin hole must be slightly off center or something. You know how uppers are supposed to swing open at the front? This one won't except with the upper it came with. You can open other uppers maybe 3 inches before it jams up and feels like the front pin lugs are about to break.

I hear you ... I had a Ford Pick up truck that was an absolute POS from day one therefore all Fords must be.

Curious ... how does one spend $10,000 on a $700 gun? Better yet, why would you?

 

[grumper]

Curious ... how does one spend $10,000 on a $700 gun? Better yet, why would you?

Range Day - TexasGunTalk.com style - YouTube

That's not the Olympic however, I was never able to get the parts to fit. Moved the giggly switch pieces to a Nodak Spud/McKay Enterprises receiver and as you can see everything works great when Olympic Arms is out of the picture.

 

[mitchntx]

OK answers the 10K question.

LOL ...

 

[Jakashh]

Range Day - TexasGunTalk.com style - YouTube

That's not the Olympic however, I was never able to get the parts to fit. Moved the giggly switch pieces to a Nodak Spud/McKay Enterprises receiver and as you can see everything works great when Olympic Arms is out of the picture.

Whoever made that video of me shooting your mk18 at SGA deleted it. All evidence has been lost. So, when you gonna come take that ammo I owe ya lmao?

 

[Jakashh]

People on shitlists shouldn't talk about shit lists.

Get out.

 

[grumper]

Whoever made that video of me shooting your mk18 at SGA deleted it. All evidence has been lost. So, when you gonna come take that ammo I owe ya lmao?

Lol since you're shooting your DD now we could go to ASC and meet up with Sugar Land there. Maybe AaronP220 too? Or make it an impromptu TGT range meet?

We can't use the 3rd position at ASC though, I think they would shit a brick and blacklist us all for life or something.

I'll bring this Olympic Arms so you all can laugh at it. I've never even shot it, don't know if it even works. Only know that the parts I wanted to put on it would never fit.

 

[Jakashh]

Lol since you're shooting your DD now we could go to ASC and meet up with Sugar Land there. Maybe AaronP220 too? Or make it an impromptu TGT range meet?

We can't use the 3rd position at ASC though, I think they would shit a brick and blacklist us all for life or something.

I'll bring this Olympic Arms so you all can laugh at it. I've never even shot it, don't know if it even works. Only know that the parts I wanted to put on it would never fit.

I'm down for ASC lol, need to sight in my aimpoint. So the olympic is just the lower or did you build something of it with parts that you found which did fit?

 

[grumper]

I'm down for ASC lol, need to sight in my aimpoint. So the olympic is just the lower or did you build something of it with parts that you found which did fit?

I put the MK18 parts on the Nodak Spud receiver and that's the one you shot at SGA and everyone else shot at Hicksville. The Olympic has the old retro triangle handguards, 20" barrel and fixed A1 carry handle on it... the stuff it came with because nothing else will fit.

Actually I was running the sear and MK18 parts on a DPMS receiver for a while. That's why I don't badmouth DPMS lowers. It functioned 100% under full auto for over 600rds with milspec parts and everything fits like it should. Can't ask for much more from a lower receiver.

When'd u get the Aimpoint? LOL I knew you'd like it better than the EOTech.

 

[Jakashh]

Yeah, I remember you telling me it was a Nodak spud receiver that you had the Crane stuff laser'd on there. As for the oly, a nice old fashioned A1 style rifle is a cool thing to own, even if it's full of proprietary garbage lol.

Got the aimpoint very recently. I actually was going to order an EOTech xps2 from Ganders website but when I called Gander Mtn direct to apply my employee discount on it, they said I can't use it on electronics over $250.

I got mad and said **** it, went with an aimpoint PRO from optics planet instead. The XPS2 would have come out to $400 after my discount.

I liked the reticle on the EOTech better, but the battery life and durability of the aimpoint.

 

[Das Jared]

Jackass, you do know NOT to go full auto through your upper, right? That pencil barrel WON'T like that.

sent from Jennifer Lawrence's bedroom