What is the consensus on these polymer lowers? Are they a serious piece of equipment or more of a novelty? What are your thoughts.
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What is the consensus on these polymer lowers? Are they a serious piece of equipment or more of a novelty? What are your thoughts.
I would never use one personally.
I love them. I own three of them including prototype #6 (still running).
Way back when they first started I called them up and asked how the polymer stood up to arctic extreme cold. They were like we have no idea, we are in Arizona. So, I was like send me one and I'll try to break. I did, it didn;t, I still have it.
They are very very durable and ultralight and do not suffer from any of the problems that the other polymer lowers do.
A cav arms receiver has the grip and stock integrated to the receiver and its a fixed A1 length stock.
Other polymer lowers try to be more conventional and accept carbine tubes, but they frequently fail at that junction.
TED
A friend of mine put together a lower using one and a DD parts kit, and the parts seemed to fit normally, so it at least has that going for it...
I have one for a lightweight build, and no sign of wear after thousands of rounds:
http://i689.photobucket.com/albums/v...l/100_0620.jpg
It required some minor fitting during the build to get pmags to drop free, and has been flawless since then.
My first AR had a Cavarms MKII lower. Upper was an A2 with a Colt 20" A1 (1:12) barrel.
On the positive side, it was fairly ergonomic, it was ridiculously lightweight and it was reliable.
But it was not exactly a hard use rifle. I've since switched to LMT and BCM lowers and BCM uppers.
I have thought that a lightweight 16" middy barrel would be a nice compliment to one of these lowers though.
^^^^This.
Why?
No stock options.
No pistol grip options.
No trigger guard options.
No cost benefit.
Not proven in a hard use environment.
Why limit yourself? The modularity of an aluminum lower is hard to beat; make it your way, to your liking, not the manufacturer's.
If I were to build another rifle right now, I'd be looking at one of the newer ambi lowers.
I like mine a lot for specific uses. Otherwise, adjustable LOP is king. I have no worries about reliability nor durability of this lower.
Stolen from another site, after a Google search for "broken Cav Arms stock".
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/10...f/a4e1c41c.jpg
http://img213.imageshack.us/img213/2...armslower3.jpg