AR15 Lower Differences

Yup, I get that. It's, as it stands, sort of 'historical + current state of affairs'. There are big gaps, but as people contribute or I find new info, I will update it.
 
I've heard the claim that Armalite does all of their stuff in house, yet we have people who also claim that Aero Precision makes the forgings for them. At the end of the day who cares? A manufacturer could use forgings from a number of different forges if he had to, it's all about how it was finished, and how do you quantify that?. I've seen pictures of ugly flash on Colt, LMT and others that looked downright nasty compared to an Olympic, yet grab a sample from another batch and you could get the opposite. As long as all the holes are in the right place and it has type III anodizing does it matter?

Kind of a pointless thread in my mind.
 
Leg said:
I've heard the claim that Armalite does all of their stuff in house, yet we have people who also claim that Aero Precision makes the forgings for them. At the end of the day who cares? A manufacturer could use forgings from a number of different forges if he had to, it's all about how it was finished, and how do you quantify that?. I've seen pictures of ugly flash on Colt, LMT and others that looked downright nasty compared to an Olympic, yet grab a sample from another batch and you could get the opposite. As long as all the holes are in the right place and it has type III anodizing does it matter?

Kind of a pointless thread in my mind.
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There are only a few actual forging houses in the us who make ar forgings.
 
I believe Blue Line are forged in the US but machined in Canada.

Armalite does NOT forge and machine their lowers in-house. Last I checked, they bought unfinished but fully machined Aero Precision lowers and roll-stamped and anodized them in-house.

Remington lowers are re-branded DPMS, as are Bushmaster now that Remington bought both companies.
 
Claven2 said:
I believe Blue Line are forged in the US but machined in Canada.

Armalite does NOT forge and machine their lowers in-house. Last I checked, they bought unfinished but fully machined Aero Precision lowers and roll-stamped and anodized them in-house.

Remington lowers are re-branded DPMS, as are Bushmaster now that Remington bought both companies.
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I think I'm seeing a Pontiac, Buick, Chevrolet, GMC, Oldsmobile, Hummer, Saturn, Cadillac kind of trend. :D
 
I've heard the same Dlask/BL runners, but on a couple occasions, the BL reps wo are members on this site have posted to the contrary. Maybe it's a case of their changing suppliers?
 
The Colt sear block was only in use from '91 to '95. Why people think it was the norm is beyond me. New Colt's also have small pivot pins and small trigger pins as well. No more weird compatibility issues with different uppers or trigger mechs.
 
Leg said:
The Colt sear block was only in use from '91 to '95. Why people think it was the norm is beyond me. New Colt's also have small pivot pins and small trigger pins as well. No more weird compatibility issues with different uppers or trigger mechs.
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Maybe I'm not understanding the term "block" correctly. Every LE6920 I've owned has/had the metal web in the way to prevent the auto sear from being dropped in. Now, I also had a Match Target Hbar that had a seperate block of metal dropped and fixed into the receiver. Is that what everyone is referring to as a "block"? Perhaps the term "auto sear web" should be added to the list then, just to indicate that there's still extra metal in there.

Web on a LE6920
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Sear Block on a Colt Match Hbar
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Colt LE6920 (top) and Noveske (bottom lowers)
sesi06.jpg
 
^^^ Colt's had non-milspec sized pins for many years and was a common complaint among "purists". The '91-'95 time frame was apparently for the sear blocks like Cancer spoke of above.
 
Don't have exact years but all SP1 had large 2 piece pivot pins, normal trigger pins.

When they made the switch to normal size pivot pin they also switched to larger trigger pins.

It's only within the last year or two that they went back to normal trigger pins, not a huge issue as most aftermarket triggers can be had with larger pins.

cancer, I had seen that before, don't know what others call it but a "web" sounds more accurate.
 
Some of the Spikes lowers imported by Questar were low shelf, and Spikes specifically labelled them as such in the descriptions. These lowers were on the 10.5 LE models that were available mid last year. I'm not sure which parts kits were used.
 
Here's the I.D. of some forge stamps:

A (splintered) = Anchor Harvey Aluminum
AF = Alcoa Forge
C AF = Colt Alco Forge
C MB = Colt / Mueller Brass
Cardinal (stylized) = Cardinal Forge
CH = Colt Harvey Aluminum
Circle/Crosshairs w/"AR" = ArmaLite
CK = Colt / Kaiser Aluminum
CM = Colt / Martin Marietta
D (stylized) = Diemaco
DK = Diemaco / Kaiser Aluminum
E = Emco
EK = EMCO/Kaiser
E MB = EMCO/Mueller Brass
F keyhole = FNMI / Cerro Forge
FA = FNMI / Anchor Harvey
FK = FNMI / Kaiser Aluminum
FM = FN/Martin Marietta
FMB = FNMI / Mueller Brass
Keyhole = Cerro Forge
L = Lewis Machine & Tool
LK = LAR / Kaiser Aluminum
LM = LAR / Martin Marietta
M (under diamond) = Mueller Industries
PA = Capco / Anchor Harvey
PM = Capco / Martin Marietta

[] (square) = Brass Aluminum Forging Enterprises



Colt and other MFGs have distributed [] marked carry handles in the past
 
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