for plinking or to trust yer life with???An undocumented one
http://www.ar15.com/archive/topic.html?b=3&f=4&t=432545
Just depends on who makes it. Most are crappy.
Me, I agree with idea that there is nothing wrong with carbon fibre rifles IF engineered to be carbon fibre from the start. Using carbon fibre in place of aluminium and copying the original aluminium design without re-inforcement is a bad idea.
for plinking or to trust yer life with???At this point you’ll be lucky to find ANY AR15 let alone have to make a choice on its construction.
That said, carbon fiber is very strong and light but it cannot handle the stresses in the same way metal does. Anything which causes deflection of the carbon fiber will damage it and the damage cannot be repaired.
There are some good comments on ar15.com.
You picked a bad time to go AR shopping.
Its a bad time for building them too.
You’ll be lucky to find parts.
I'm far from an expert, but based on my own personal (limited) experience you do not want a carbon fiber AR-15. I just cannot see how one could possibly stand up to the rigors that an AR-15 will likely be put through in the near future.
If you look at gun and ammo sales, this is a country that's (IMHO) preparing for civil war. Do you want something tried, true and reliable or lighter weight?
I'll go for reliable any day.
BTW: I HIGHLY recommend The Rock River Arms LAR-15 Series. A finer, more reliable AR-15 you won't find.
Disclaimer: NO, I DO NOT work for Rock River Arms. I am however one of their customers and a fan of their quality craftsmanship.
Most of the plastic ones are polymer.
Pros: Might take a crushing incident better than aluminum because of its “memory.”
Cons: It will age and fault, eventually, especially in high altitude sunlight. And it will easily burn.
Aluminum:
Pros: Won’t age and fault nearly as fast. Won’t burn to the point of being out of spec as easily. Don’t crush it, and it will probably outlast polymer by many years.
Cons: Might not crush to being out of spec as easily, but doesn’t have the “memory” of polymers used in lowers.
Properly designed and engineered for the plastic material, carbon fiber lower should be fine. The problem is the manufacturers of these lowers try to make them look like the aluminum lowers. This does not work, and thee are many failures in the buffer tube area due to not having enough “meat” to support the stresses there.
The cost of the lower is small compared to the complete rifle, just spend the extra $80 and get an aluminum lower for your rifle.
Why did you wait so long?
I don’t think you should buy one NOW unless it costs around what they did two months ago. I guess it depends on your state. I don’t think the federal ban will pass, but if it does, I think my state will nullify.
I saw New Frontier stripped lowers for over 100.00 on gun broker but I’m thinking they’ll go back down.
Bide your time and buy a fully assembled genuine Colt's whenever you find one available and new in the box. Prices are sky-high anyway.
If you'd seen the foolishness I'd seen at the local gun show today, you'll stay home and buy from a reputable online dealer. Have your credit card handy, because you're going to warm that mother up.
Wait until the price comes back down.
We've been through this before.
The Left is not going to get a single gun bill passed. They are just stirring up as much dust as possible so while you're paying attention to guns, they get six other things on their bucket list done.
Don’t bother with carbon fiber.
If you get a nick or abrasion on it, the first time you run your hand over any fibers that are cut and sticking up from the surface, you’ll be wishing you had bought aluminum.
CF also isn’t something you can re-finish, should you ever wear off the outside finish.
Overall, I really don’t see the point for CF on guns. To add stiffness to a wood stock, sure. But to make a receiver or front tube out of one? It’s a solution in search of a problem.
Getting mags may be less difficult than finding reasonably priced ammo to fill them. Ammo choice is another hot topic, I really like the terminal effects of M193 spec ammo so I try to stockpile that (Federal XM193 is well liked), there are better rounds in existence if I understand correctly. Mk262 spec ammo tends to have better terminal effects at 300+ meters, and Mk318 spec is supposed to be a better penetrating version of Mk262. Those rounds are sometimes used by the spec ops guys iirc. The modern spec military ball is M855, it behaves similar to M193 but fragmentation amount and range tends to be lower. It does a better job of penetration than M193 but I tend to favor a greater fragmentation range over increased penetration (5.56 is small, I want the greatest terminal effect I can get from it, M193 fragments dramatically, leaving exit wounds far out of proportion to entry wounds.). Others may disagree. This is just my somewhat researched opinion.