Upper Receiver????

[JT3]

[BlogSarge]

[VASCAR2]

[Bigs28]

Uppers can change price for many reasons. Forged, billet, titanium, magnesium, etc.... for your needs any upper will do.

[PVBoom]

For your pistols anything will do.

In general, the upper won't matter unless you are spending for quality in the barrel and trigger and are a good shot.

But if you have the money and patience, get BCM/VLTOR/Noveske/JPE for a thermal fit and more accuracy.

[Klem]

JT,

I agree with the guys.

More a discussion on philosophy but instead of building three guns you could just build one; choose a calibre and put all the money and love into one gun. Or at most two; one of each. Then you have the luxury of not having to count pennies or fix factory issues which are typical of cheaper parts. If you feel the need to glue an upper to a barrel for example, you might have to admit you have a dud to start with.

In a fixed budget, rather than buy an expensive upper and an average barrel I would put all my money into the barrel and whatever is left can buy the cheapest upper and be prepared to square and glue it. Bottom line, the barrel IS the gun.

[Red*Lion]

Not to veer the thread off topic, but are folks saying that you have to have an upper that you need to thermal fit or otherwise glue and shim to have a secured barrel and accuracy? I'll hang up and listen.

[Bigs28]

One of my barrels was loose inside my Alexander arms upper receiver. Would my barrel nut torqued to spec keep it from moving? I didn't think so as i couldn't get less then 2" groups. I took it apart, lapped it, bedded barrel with loctite and then torqued the barrel nut to spec and my groups were instantly cut in half. Everyone might not have the same experience but im convinced and lap and bed everytime now.

[Klem]

Not to veer the thread off topic, but are folks saying that you have to have an upper that you need to thermal fit or otherwise glue and shim to have a secured barrel and accuracy? I'll hang up and listen.

I argue there is more to tight groups than thermal fit however it will certainly help. Help, because the interface between the barrel and scope is equivalent to being seamless, but also companies that concentrate on such tight tolerances tend to be quality manufacturers; focussed on quality, and not necessarily quantity.

Thermal fit is a more recent innovation in the AR industry. There are plenty of tight grouping guns without thermal fits. Mate an Olympic grade stainless barrel with a 7075 billet upper and you can almost guarantee sub MOA without any post-purchase fiddling or thermal.

[BlogSarge]

For a very loose fit, you can use some thin shim stock wrapped around the barrel extension to make it snug, then do the thermal fit process.

But this is for making precision builds. For close range target shooting and hunting, it probably is not necessary.

[JT3]

Thanks everyone, much appreciated.

[JT3]

[lazyengineer]

As far as I can tell, there are basically 3 speeds.

-Basic upper - where there's no difference between a cheap Anderson and more expensive Spikes, or whatever.
-Tight Upper - of which BCM is the best known. It's basically a standard spec upper, but they run their fit such that a 0.999" standard barrel extension is going to be TIGHT. In theory this is more accurate. I don't think it's a bad thing, but once you put 60 ft-lb of torque on the barrel nut, I'm not convinced it's super important. That said, given the choice, I kind of prefer this route (other route is to run a 1.000" barrel extension btw)
-Premium feature. Which tend to be the billet, or otherwise exotic configuration; which has cool personal preference points, but otherwise not functionally any different.

In general, when it comes to recievers, I find your basic Anderson is as good as anyone else, for a lot less cost - and know from a few manufacturers that Anderson tends to OEM their same lowers for some of the boutique brands. Nothing wrong with the Poverty Pony. But again, for near the same price, I hve grown to prefer BCM, for the tighter fit

[A5BLASTER]

As far as I can tell, there are basically 3 speeds.

-Basic upper - where there's no difference between a cheap Anderson and more expensive Spikes, or whatever.
-Tight Upper - of which BCM is the best known. It's basically a standard spec upper, but they run their fit such that a 0.999" standard barrel extension is going to be TIGHT. In theory this is more accurate. I don't think it's a bad thing, but once you put 60 ft-lb of torque on the barrel nut, I'm not convinced it's super important. That said, given the choice, I kind of prefer this route (other route is to run a 1.000" barrel extension btw)
-Premium feature. Which tend to be the billet, or otherwise exotic configuration; which has cool personal preference points, but otherwise not functionally any different.

In general, when it comes to recievers, I find your basic Anderson is as good as anyone else, for a lot less cost - and know from a few manufacturers that Anderson tends to OEM their same lowers for some of the boutique brands. Nothing wrong with the Poverty Pony. But again, for near the same price, I hve grown to prefer BCM, for the tighter fit

60 ft lbs good lord what are you shooting? A howitzer?

Only barrel nut I ever put more then 35 lbs on was one that used a nut that had all the teeth on it to line up the gas tube properly.

All my current guns with free float tubes and non indexing barrel nuts get 35 lbs.

[montana]

60 ft lbs good lord what are you shooting? A howitzer?

Only barrel nut I ever put more then 35 lbs on was one that used a nut that had all the teeth on it to line up the gas tube properly.

All my current guns with free float tubes and non indexing barrel nuts get 35 lbs.

If memory serves, Bill Alexander recommended 60 ft lbs of torque for his Grendel barrels.