Armalite turning over a new leaf?

[C4IGrant]

Sales are so affected by prior "knowledge" of a product. I bet you said "hmm, whatever" as you walked by.

That's what happens when you may have, may have turned out what may not meet expectations.

Agree and is what I would have done if it weren't for a customer coming into the shop and showing me his Armalite.



C4

[carshooter]

Grant,

Did Armalite comment on Bolt Quality or uprgrades at all?

I was aware of some of the other upgrades you mentioned, but wonder if they've changed their bolts.

[M4arc]

I actually had the pleasure of meeting and chatting with Mr. Westrum after dinner one night in Washington DC. He seemed like a very knowledgeable man and was extremely nice and generous with his time.

Ever since then I've wanted to buy an Armalite and now I'm out of excuses

[Dport]

It's good to see a product that will be worthy of the name.

[C4IGrant]

Grant,

Did Armalite comment on Bolt Quality or uprgrades at all?

I was aware of some of the other upgrades you mentioned, but wonder if they've changed their bolts.

I asked about their bolts and said that they do NOT make them in house (which is fairly normal). They also do not HPT/MPI them (again, normal in the lower end AR market).



C4

[Robb Jensen]

Oh I forgot one other thing. On the 3 older Armalite AR15s where I've used the Ned Christiansen neck and throat reamer, the reamer removed a lot of metal. Not as bad as a Model 1 sales barrel but a lot. This leads me to believe that the chamber is no where near a 5.56mm NATO. Probably a .223 Rem chamber.

I did two coworkers Armalite barrels because they both were blowing primers using Federal XM193 and Radway Green. The popping primers stopped after the reaming which leads me to believe there are (or were) using .223 chambers. I think my 11.5" free-ninety-free barrel was a .223 chamber too. The reamer took about almost 10min to cut through the neck and throat. It ran pretty good but I reamed is just in case. Since I have 4K rounds of Radway, 1800 rounds of Guatamalan and some of each will be blasted though it. Since then I've done all but the Noveske barrel in our ARs. The only ones that reamer didn't seem to do much at all on was a Colt and a LMT barrel.

[Zak Smith]

I have a Armalite M15A2 for demo right now and it runs very well.

[Impact]

I just installed one of their lpk and the quality is great ! even comes with a fancy brownish plastic box.

[Crash]

To many, Armalite = less than stellar quality. This has been my opinion for some time as well. Recently, a customer brought in a newer Armalite and I looked it over closely as I was curious if they were making them better now. Some of the things I found were SHOCKING! Here is the short list:

4150 barrel steel (chrome lined)
M4 Barrel extension
M4 upper receiver (no dremel'd feed ramps)
Black insert in the extractor
Crane O-Ring installed in the extractor
6 Position, Mil-Spec Receiver Extension

This intrigued me (especially from a lower priced AR manufacturer) so when I went to the Shot Show, I spent some quality time at the Armalite booth. I managed to get ahold of the production manager and asked a bunch of technical questions. I basically wanted to verify that the weapon that was in my shop was standard and not some fluke of nature!

They verified that all the above items are STANDARD! I was very impressed with how they are doing things now and plan on picking up their barrels for sure and maybe their complete weapons.



C4

Grant,

I just purchased an Armalite AR10 Carbine and I haven't had time to even look at it. Its been sitting in my safe for a week. After seeing this thread, low and behold, it has most of what you listed, as far as I can tell.

6 Position MilSpec Buffer Tube: (Vltor on Factory Tube is a good fit)


M4 Feed Ramps:


Crane O-Ring:


Staked Gas Key:


I'm not sure what "the black insert in the extractor" is. It also came with the 2-stage trigger.

[R.D.]

Crash the staking job on that carrier is worthless . There should be metal from the key touching the screws so as to keep them from moving. I would recomend having them properly done.