i finally put my grail ar together a couple of months ago and can't stop shooting it
it's a colt m733 commando or "HEAT" clone.  i always wanted to build a commando and after watching the bank robbery scene in HEAT a few too many times i tried to build a clone of the 733's used in the movie.  it's a mix of vintage and newer colt parts , although in the pics below there's a franklin armory bfs trigger and cmmg selector installed along with an aim lightweight carrier and sprinco red spring.  those parts can really make your clone gun run
i didn't want to refinish the upper since it was a nice original grey annodize with some light wear.  so i refinished the lower which was from a 6940 and black with norrell's xm grey moly resin.  actually i refinished it a couple of times.  the first time i sprayed it with the new xm grey semi gloss but didn't like it , so i redid it it with xm grey flat and hit it with some 0000 steel wool to try to match the wear on the upper receiver.  the lower receiver parts were also newer colt and black so i gave them the navel jelly treatment to blend in.  overall i'm happy with the way it turned out and it's a great shooter.  it's been so much fun to shoot that all my other guns except another ar have been parked in the safe all summer.
and of course a few mandatory pics


and a video of the bfs trigger doing it's thing.  this video was right after i put the upper together and was still waiting on the stamp for the 6940 lower.  so the lower in the video is a registered nodak spud a1 lower

 

 
 

Wow thats nice!

hell yeah thats sweet. I gotta avoid my blu-ray HEAT copy: every time I watch it I get the 733 build bug. That film already birthed a Colt 654 clone. Now you need a bungee-thing rigged sling for carrying underneath your suit.

 
 

Nice.

If you look carefully, you can sometimes find mid 90s vintange 6520s that are still Colt grey, have a factory staked 2 hole buffer tube and end up being cheaper. Basically, they guns that are post 94 but not LEO marked. That's what I used for my 727 and 733 clones.

thanks guys i appreciate it





blindguy --- i was putting together a 654 clone also but it got parted out for 2 other builds , a GUU-5/P clone and a 653 clone.  the 653 will be my "Sgt. Barnes" gun from platoon





usgi  ---  i'd like to run across 1 or a half dozen of those lowers at a decent price

 

Your video was the first I'd ever heard of and saw one of those trigger groups in action. If they ever make the safety look like a normal stock one, I will put one of them in my carbine.

Awesome. have the appropriate stock for such a build. I've always wanted to get a donor early/mid 1990s Colt lightweight carbine and do something like that.

How hard is it to find a gray C7 upper? Were any of these built with A1 uppers instead?

there have been alot of people wanting them to make a usgi type selector , so far no dice.  franklin armory does have a new gen 3 bfs that should be shipping this month that has a normal trigger in it , not the bronzish color , but it looks to use the same selector shaft as the gen 2 so lever selection is limited.  i'll prob move this trigger pack to another gun and pick up one of the gen 3's when they start shipping and just mod the selector shaft to be non ambi and screw a cmmg selector on it.





the cmmg selector doesn't look too out of place







 
 

i picked the upper up last year in the EE , they pop up from time to time.  what can be hard to find is one with factory improved carbine feed ramps.
i've seen 733 commandos built on A1 , A1E1(C7) , and A2 uppers.  700 series guns seem to be a mix of older and newer parts as they transitioned into the A2 configuration.  i just went with a C7 as i was trying to clone the 733's from HEAT.






 
 
 
 

Just have to look on gunbroker for them. They are normally LE trades, and you have to buy the complete rifle.. But I have bought a couple of those, and a couple of similar 6721s for under $800. Then I just part out the upper.

thanks for the heads up , i usually don't check gunbroker as often as i probably should





i would definitely like to have a few of those lowers for a couple of clones