I picked up a KE Arms polymer AR lower a few weeks back. Palmetto was having a deal on a lightweight pencil-barrel upper with bolt carrier and charging handle. Well, why not? Put it together the other day and it is pretty light. Threw it on the scale and it came in at a touch over 5.5# with open sights. Its my understanding that if you spend the bucks and get a genuine WWSD rifle you drop the weight down to almost 5#. Thats about the same as an M1 carbine. And it’s about a pound lighter than a military M4 with 14.5″ barrel.
Gotta say, that poly lower seems pretty slick. I had heard good things about the old Cav Arms lowers and these are supposedly quite improved over them. I need to head to the range this weekend and dump a few rounds through it and get it sighted in, but it’s pretty nice.
Although I have a bucket full of stripped lowers sitting here, I think I might need to pick up a half dozen of these lowers and put together some more guns. I rather like the lightweight nature and how all the weight is carried out front.
I gotta wonder what happens to one if you leave it in a hot car on a sunny day in Texas or Phoenix.
Or if you drop it on a balmy sub-zero January day in the mountains up your way.
Same thing as happens to a Glock etc. it gets warm.
I have a poly lower on a 8″ “pistol” w/ a .22 cmmg kit. Tons of fun and super light. They say you cannot use a plastic lower to breech doors but I’m not going to be using a $700-$1000 rifle to smash a door when a $20 harbor freight sledgehammer would do the trick better. Besides if your breaching doors during shtf your doing survival wrong IMHO.
I had a New Frontier lower and it was sweet. I never had an issue with it. I’m in the midst of building a few AR’s and now I’m thinking a lightweight one might be added to my list.
Pairing a PSA upper, found on special, w a KE lower is a no brainer. I even got mine w a new BCG and no sites, from PSA’s blem section. You might even get free shipping.
I have a nice S&W lower w a bunch of Magpul parts on it, but it might live in the safe for a bit, until I get tired of shooting the new one.
I also understand these have the same likelihood of melting on a hot dashboard or freezing in a cold trunk as a Glock, Smith or any other polymer framed pistol. If you carry all metal to avoid this, you have better hips and a stronger belt than I.
I’ve thought of getting one and mating it with a brn180 upper to get that old school ar180 look but I like your idea better. Pencil barrel for a lightweight rifle. When you posted about the full stock on a carbine upper a while ago I put a spare A1 stock on a 16″ upper and it felt far better than the MAgpul collapsing stock that was on it. It just might stay on it now.
Yeah, unless you need to adjust length of pull for body armour, or you have some really pressing storage requirements, I dont see much advantage to telestocks.
Ah, America, where we had it so good, the lightest assault weapon ever was still too heavy and we got to order three of the old “heavy” ones and double down on some even lighter ones. Not complaining, mind you. Only that I had to buy so much food the last few years I couldn’t buy more guns. That’s me, bitching I have to pay taxes after I won the lottery LOL. I guess the arms industry will be the last successful one here, as the lights go out.
I had to get mine out and weigh. 5.5 pounds with sling and Holoson 407. I love mine. I saw remarks about the plastics durability So far, everything I have seen, puts the KE receiver as quite a bit tougher than the standard aluminum receiver. I have the early one with the rubber but pad, which I prefer.
Comparisons to Glock’s plastic, and other manufacturers, is not realistic unless it is stated to be the exact same formula polymer. Plastics degrade over time and environmental conditions. Time will tell.