Cast vs forged vs billet vs nylon

[TonyKat]

cast vs forged vs billet vs nylon

Once upon a time I sold all my weapons. With the movement in legislation it's time for me to secure a replacement. What to choose for the last and only AR il'l own.

I owned a stag and a rock river arms before. Which material is best? I was thinking about a noveske gen 2. Or maybe one made of nylon7 but I've never seen those before.

It's kind of slim pickings these days but between cast, forged, billet, and nylon what do you love and why. What do you dislike and why?

[saki302]

In terms of strength. here's my take, from best to worst

Steel/Ti
Forged Al
Billet Al
Cast Al
Polymer

From an aesthetic standpoint, I've seen some billet lowers which look pretty darn nice. But given a choice I prefer forged- lighter, stronger, and usually in a basic pattern.

-Dave

[dieselpower]

As an only AR it needs to be metal.
A back up or range plinker can be polymer. If the prices were $99 for a polymer, sure grab 2 and have a spare. NFA have a lifetime warranty I think.

There is really nothing wrong with a polymer, nowadays, especially the NFA ones. Its more about how you are going to treat it and if you think NFA is going to be in business to replace it if it breaks. If it last 10 years and AR15s are still available then you just replace the lower...10 years is a fair amount of time for the cost.

If you want to load the upper down with rails, flashlight, scope, bi-pod, VFG...dont get a polymer. The added weight will take its toll. Swinging open the rifle has a higher chance to snap the front pivot point with a heavy upper too. The added weight also adds to the force against the buffer extension tower area, so dropping it has a greater chance of snapping that area too.

If you are building a light weight a GPC (General Purpose Carbine) or KISS without all the gear, then polymer is a safe bet. The lighter the upper the better.

If you dont want to deal with all that and with the restrictions get a metal lower.

Be careful. These days everyone is pumping them out as fast as they can to get some easy gold from the market, so defects will creep in. Go with a known manufacturer to limit your vulnerability in this area. Stag, Colt, Nov, DD, Riflegear, Mega, Bushmaster, RRA, S&W, HK, ...blah blah blah.

I am not saying some off name is going to be bad, just saying the chances are smaller with a major player and if there is a problem the major player can address you faster since they deal with high volume sales and returns. This mainly deals with whole rifles and non-local manufacturers and sales through a Store front. Buying anything second hand comes with the possibility the manufacturer will not address ANY problems.

good luck

[TonyKat]

Mega billet 3s is looking nice

[bruss01]

Mega billet 3s is looking nice

^^ this ^^

If it were going to be one of many, I'd say material and quality don't matter much.

If it's going to be your one and only, now and forever... you want something drop dead reliable. MEGA Arms is very well spoken of in the industry. They use 7-series alloy for the receivers, whereas most use the softer 6-series. It costs them more in tooling, but it makes for an impressive receiver. In normal use, an AR receiver could be made of paper mache and bubble gum because they don't really take any significant load. However, you can't guarantee your receiver will only experience "normal use". You might actually have to fight with it. It might fall on the ground and have someone step on it or (God forbid) run over it. I'm not going to guarantee (nor will any sane manufactuer) that you can run over your receiver with a cement mixer and have it come out unscathed... but it stands to reason a stronger receiver will take more abuse before it becomes non-functional. Assuming it's the only one you will ever own (as in, grandfathered in ahead of a ban) wouldn't you want the most resilient piece possible?

That said... don't ever have just one of anything you consider crucial. Two is one, one is NONE.

[Burbur]

For a "one and only", I would recommend ensuring the receivers were made from 7075 heat treated to T6, it has nearly double the tensile strength of anything made out of 6061. The polymer guns aren't in the ballpark, in fact, they are playing a different game.

forged vs billet?
I like the billet options, only because they often have extra "enhancements". YMMV, but you don't see many forged lowers that have ambi bolt/mag releases or enlarged mag well bevels.