Rifle Telescopic

AR Receivers For Self-buid AR-15

The choice of upper receivers for AR-15 builds is greater than it has ever been. Each manufacturer tries to offer something the others don’t in an effort to grab their share of the market. Today we’ll have a look at three examples of quality receivers each addressing a different part of the AR build market.

The Aero Precision COP monolithic  upper is one of the lightest monolithic uppers available. It offers excellent versatility. The full-length top rail completely eliminates the wandering zero problems you sometimes get with separate forward rails. The kit gives you a combination of three smooth, three full Picatinny and two half smooth and half Picatinny rails for great versatility in appearance and mounting. Two of the rails have QD sling swivel stud mounts incorporated. This gives you an awful lot of optics and acceessory mounting choices. The unit comes with its own barrel nut, wrench and fixings. The only drawback is that you have to remove six bolts to get at the barrel for cleaning. The unit is made of ultra strong 7075 T-6 aluminum, hard anodized black and M-4 feed ramp cuts are incorporated. For maximum compatibility with commercial and mil-spec lowers this unit uses the small pivot pin.

DPMS competition uppers are quite different. Instead of the usual clutter of forward assist, case deflector and ejection port covers that you find on most ARs, DPMS have a completely smooth surface with a completely clean ejection port. Let’s face it, most of us never get in a situation where dirt would get into the receiver and we don’t often need to shoot from the left shoulder. In a competition you would eject a hard to chamber round rather than forcing it home. There is a significant weight loss to be had from losing these components which can be put to good use elsewhere. These DPMS upper receivers come in two versions. The DPMS Low-Pro gives you a Picatinny rail at the same height as an A3/A4 enabling great flexibility in optic and BUIS mounting. The DPMS Hi-rider on the other hand puts the rail an inch higher than normal. This makes it problematic to find a BUIS rearsight and co-witness, but it makes for a more rigid mounting for scopes than super-high mounts and enables you to mount very large objective scopes without resorting to clumsy super high mounts. These are strictly sporting use only receivers and are not intended for use in military scenarios.

There are a lot of enthusiasts out there who tell you that Colt uppers are the only correct upper for an AR-15. Colt uppers are unarguably well constructed, but their use of large pins restricts their compatibility with other manufacturer’s lower receivers. In making this choice Colt created a captive market for their products. Colt uppers are available in traditional pre-A1 format in 9X19mm. This model does away with the case deflector and forward assist and can be fitted with the A1 500 meter backsight. The A2 carry handle variant can be had in both 5.56X45 and 7.62X39. Colt receivers normally come stripped. The flat top receiver ia 5.56mm (and allied cartridge) specific and comes with forward assist and dust cover fitted. These make great platforms for those who want to build up authentically Colt rifles, but there are arguably better units out there for the same money.

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