Building a Lightweight AR Upper

Exurban Kevin has a guide to building your own AR-15 upper receiver out of lightweight materials. I never really thought about building my own upper, but it could be an interesting project. Right now buying yet another AR, even a homebuilt AR, is a bit spendy considering how much money my house is sucking out of me at the moment.

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6 thoughts on “Building a Lightweight AR Upper”

  1. It helped that I had the tools and an experienced gunsmith to walk me through it, but honestly, it was not that though. The hardest part wasn’t in the post, which was waiting for the @$!@#! gas tube to come off of backorder!

  2. I’m not quite sure I’d count that as “building your own upper”. Where are the chips all over the place? Or did you forge the pieces, or cast them?

    But then, ever since I saw pictures of guns made from blocks of aluminum, my standard of “building your own” has been seriously stringent. :-)

    (And yes, I hope to build my own gun someday…and I even hope to get the materials I build it with from a junked car, just to amuse myself.)

    1. Yeah, I was thinking that too. More like assembling your own upper. Which is nothing to look down on either, as many people couldn’t do it with a ‘kit’ and detailed instructions! I know people who can’t even figure out how to use a screwdriver……….

  3. According to the post it only managed 4+ inches at 100 yds?
    Was that rested?
    Is that considered “accurate” for an AR?

    If that’s what good accuracy is in an AR I guess I’ll never own one! As I demand better from my rifles or I get rid of them.

    Anything over 2″ @ 100 is too much for me. Under 1″ and it’s a definite keeper. If it was shot offhand standing then it would be acceptable, but since you didn’t specify (at least not that I saw) I assume ‘test firing’ to always be from a bench.

    1. Actually, it’s a 2″ mean radius, the proper measurement to go off of.

      And it was from a rest. With the 20″ barrel upper on that lower, 1 MOA is easily accomplished.

  4. Just got back from the range after sighting in the red dot, and ended up with a 1.26 MOA group (it was actually a bit better than that because the target was at 100 metres and not 100 yards, but brain hurts right now).

    So yeah, that’ll do.

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