AR 15 UPPERS FOR SALE
AR 15 UPPERS FOR SALE.
First, let’s get the specifications out of the way. For all intents and purposes, the upper I was sent is as close to a “standard” 16″ upper as you can find.
There are no weird features or proprietary technologies that are going to drive up the price of this upper. The price online for this specific upper is $369.99 as configured below:
- SKU 617-UA556CM41618P-15M3
- Weight: 5.3 lbs
- Length: 16″
- Barrel Profile: M4 Contour
- Twist: 1:8
- Finish: Parkerized
- Material: 4150 Chrom Moly Vanadium
- Thread Pitch: 12/28
- Caliber: 5.56 NATO
- Feed Ramp: M4
- Flutes: N/A
- Gas System: Carbine
- Gas Block: 0.750
- Gas Hole: 0.070
- Charing Style: Rear Charging
- Color: Black
- Dimpled: Yes
ASSEMBLY QUALITY
Most of you who are looking for a completed upper aren’t looking to fiddle with the product much. If you’re like me, you expect to order the upper, open up the box, maybe put a little bit of gun oil on it and then slap that thing right on the nearest available lower receiver.
This means you don’t want to be messing around with detents, or Torx screws, or gas systems to make sure everything is good to go before you take it to the range.
As soon as the upper arrived I gave it a good once over to check for any obvious defects – there were none. Everything seemed tightened down correctly and the gas block looked like it was put in the proper place and screwed down nice and tight.
Finally, the flash hider was timed correctly with the crush washer installed in the correct direction.
To make sure the handguard stayed in place throughout testing, I went ahead and placed some witness marks along the handguard and the Torx screws to make sure nothing would rattle loose throughout firing, handling, and some light physical abuse.
The only minor issue I had was perhaps some minor fitment issues with one of the lower receivers I tried to pair it with.
This could be more of an issue with tolerance stacking but I had very strongly wanted to place this Bear Creek Arsenal upper on my newly acquired KP-15 Lower.
In the end, I was able to get the two receivers together but it did take a bit of finagling to get them to mate up and the fitment is very tight.
This could be a plus or a minus in your book but I thought it was worth mentioning as some of the other lower receivers I tried to pair it with (Aero, Cobalt Kinetics, PSA, etc.) fit with no problem.
Either way, the dimensions of the upper receiver takedown holes seemed to be within spec so you shouldn’t have any fitment issues regardless of your lower-receiver selection.
RANGE TIME
I’ll put this out there once again and say that I am by no means a precision rifle shooter nor am I the best shot even within my own zip code. I took the upper receiver to the range in tandem with the KP-15 lower to test that out a bit and also topped the rifle off with a nice SIG Sauer TANGO6T 1-6x24mm LPVO.
I did a quick boresight of the rifle in at 50 yards and then gradually stepped it out to 200 yards. Since I wanted to get just a general accuracy-test done, I shot only at steel targets at the range I had access to.
I was able to reliably make hits at 50, 100, 150, and 200 yards on a 12×12 inch square steel plate using that particular setup. I’d say that’s some reasonable accuracy for an out-of-the-box AR.