Cheap AR Lowers to AVOID?

[pacrimguru]

i have a few stag uppers and a lower and they have all been fantastic. i've seen vulcans up close and gotta say the workmanship is lacking.

[wash]

That is true in too many cases. As long as a lower is in spec you are good to go, but there is so much more to worry about when looking for a quality upper!

Only having one AR, I thought about it and took what I think is the easy way out. I bought a Colt upper. I haven't heard anything negative except for the oddball pin sizes, but this upper has the standard size holes.

It's a 20" A2 Hbar but the price was right and I wanted a featureless build with Iron sights any way.

It could have been luck or it could just be that both were machined to spec because my Vulcan lower mates up very nice with only a tiny bit of play.

I'm pretty sure that the Vulcans are not really made by Vulcan and are functionally just as good as any other in spec lower. Mine went together without a hitch even though I had never built an AR and did it by myself. My old Bushmaster catalog was the reference I used. I didn't see anything out of the ordinary.

The only thing that I wish was different is the hole they drilled to pin in the magazine. Now that the pin is gone it doesn't effect the function and it's hidden by the mag release.

The end result is a rifle that I'm proud of. It shoots well, it's more accurate than me. I don't know if it has the latest whiz bang feed ramps but it feeds fine. Colt must sight in their uppers pretty well because the first shot was on paper at 100 yards, I think I just had to adjust the front sight post once to get it hitting dead center. It would put five rounds in to a little over 2" which surprised the hell out of me because I thought the rear sight aperture was way to big for me.

From what I have heard there were very few problems with the other Vulcans that were sold by Irvington Arms (they said they had sold dozens).

I'm not a Vulcan fan but if there is a workmanship problem with Vulcan AR lowers its not very common.

[CSACANNONEER]

A lower is a lower. I'll never recommend that anyone buys a Vulcan but, I'm about to buy one just to say I have it. Maybe, I'll put it in a frame with the Vulcan/DOJ letter.