Vintage AR and Clone pic thread.....

[Core781]

70s isn’t A2. A2s aren’t completely round, they need a flat side to fitAttachment 52790

These fit on my Colt 6920 upper and lower. I have one on my Colt A2 carbine upper and a modern lower with minimal contact with the hardware I use to assemble them. They can be ground, but I don't grind them. I can assemble them and give them a patina coating black coating for 1980s look or leave them in original "gray" and oil them for a old school patina.

[Stickman]

[Stickman]

[Stickman]

Needs period barrel

You've never seen a military issued A1 upper wearing a M4 barrel? Odd.

[Core781]

70s isn’t A2. A2s aren’t completely round, they need a flat side to fitAttachment 52790

They determined a larger button was needed and they had contractors make these big button FAs. They found later that, the reinforced lower made contact with the big button FAs. The tear drop style were re-adopted and big button FAs issued were ground. This is what I have been told.

Nice stick Stick. Great pic as usual.

Pipboy334 the original Colts issued with an M4 barrel profile was an A1 upper forgot the model number. 6xx series I think. It's in Black Rifle II. What you won't see is the Govt. contract issued A2s with M4 barrels. It's well documented, despite not being a offcial Colt model. And the folks in SOF were known to swap them onto A2s.

[Circle_10]

You're probably thinking of the later production model 723s. They used the "C7" style upper - basically an A1 with a brass deflector. Early production 723s used a 14.5 inch "pencil" barrel with a 1/7 twist, later 723s had the "M4" profile (although it wasn't called that at the time)
If I remember correctly the later 723s that used the stepped barrel profile, as well as the 727s (carbine with an A2 upper) were both basically using the barrel profile originally devised for the model 720 (which would later go on to form the basis of the XM4 program).

The USAF rebarreled a lot of their carbines and rifles with M4 profile barrels as well (and also with 14.5" pencil 1/7 barrels too) these were often designated the GUU-5/P. The USAF preferentially used rifles and carbines without forward assists for many years and basically just kept upgrading them with new parts as needed. There are a lot of photos out there of USAF carbines with slickside uppers and M4 barrels.
If you go back to the previous page you can see my own take on a GUU-5/P build.

[ccosby]

Colt 6520 which I guess isn't that old. The colt 727 is from the 80's though.

[Circle_10]

I guess I can post a pic of my 6520 too.

It's an ex-LE gun, but it had very little wear and tear on it. Dated January 1999, the month I was born and the year I graduated highschool. I suspect it must have either been in a rack at a static post or just sat in an armory most of the time. Gun came with XS/Trijicon front and rear sights that are mostly dead, the old "half moon" semi-auto bolt carrier and the M4 waffle stock. I swapped the latter two parts for a Colt FA carrier and "N" CAR stock.
The dead night sights are the next thing that's going. I have a Colt rear aperture abd front post coming from Brownells. The the tritium still worked I might keep the XS sights but dead night sights that prevent you from properly zeroing abd adjusting for elevation aren't worth it.

The XS front sight can only be adjusted one full 360-degree revolution at a time. Which is why at 100yds I had to hold at about shoulder level on that B-27 silhouette to get those hits, and even then they are still a bit high. That's literally the best zero I can get with it, at least until the replacement sight parts show up next week.



I also recently assembled a 727 style carbine, so recently in fact I haven't fired it yet. Probably will in a couple days. I regret getting the barrel with the extended A2 already attached at the factory because the extended A2 they used is noticeably more extended than it really needs to be. I should have bought the barrel with no muzzle device and had a BCM A2X pinned and welded on instead like I did with my GUU-5/P,. Unlike the extended A2 I have on it now the BCMs are long enough to bring a 14.5" barrel up to legal length, but are still short enough to not look "off". Overall though I think it's a decent looking carbine.

[ccosby]

My 6520 is a police trade in as well. I went to a gun show with a friend and a guy had a table of them, I found the best one and bought it. Gun shows a bunch of handling marks but the inside was very clean.

[Core781]

You're probably thinking of the later production model 723s. They used the "C7" style upper - basically an A1 with a brass deflector. Early production 723s used a 14.5 inch "pencil" barrel with a 1/7 twist, later 723s had the "M4" profile (although it wasn't called that at the time)
If I remember correctly the later 723s that used the stepped barrel profile, as well as the 727s (carbine with an A2 upper) were both basically using the barrel profile originally devised for the model 720 (which would later go on to form the basis of the XM4 program).

The USAF rebarreled a lot of their carbines and rifles with M4 profile barrels as well (and also with 14.5" pencil 1/7 barrels too) these were often designated the GUU-5/P. The USAF preferentially used rifles and carbines without forward assists for many years and basically just kept upgrading them with new parts as needed. There are a lot of photos out there of USAF carbines with slickside uppers and M4 barrels.
If you go back to the previous page you can see my own take on a GUU-5/P build.

R0720 XM4, R0721 XM4A1 had A1 Barrels. R0727 Carbine UAE had HBAR, R0727 M16A2 had M4 barrel, R0728 & R0729 had M4 and HBAR. R0777 became the first M4 Carbine with M4 feed ramps. R0778 & R0779 also true M4's. R0920 was the first M4 Carbine with a flat top upper. R0921 was the first M4A1. But variations existed in the wild of many mixed components and claiming something is not clone correct is a double edged sword when it comes to the M16 Carbine and M4 series, as the military and contractors used what they had. Military units used what worked. The things you have to watch out for is placing new tech on and older clone, it's historically incorrect if you used a picatinny upper on a R0723 etc. But I have seen many A1/A2 uppers in my military years where the M4A1 and M16A1/A4 was also adopted. I have used SEAL team armories and other Naval commands on several ocassions and they has some cool stuff collecting dust. I worked with Marine Raiders pre-MARSOC and MARSOC. Also worked with DEVGRU, NSWG-XX, Teams, and DELTA, and many other foreign allied SOF: AUSAS, GROM, few others in addition to Rangers, Snipers, Force Recon, and Coastal Warfare.. I'm mostly interested in Navy and Marine variants, but the AF stuff is cool too.