Hey guys. I have 2 Scar 17s. I'm trying to lighten them up as much as possible. It's becoming an OCD ODD thing for me. I have Handl defense aluminum lowers on both of them, which run fine, but weigh a good bit more than the OEM lower. These are now my only 762 rifles, so I am considering trading someone my lowers for their OEM lower to save weight and just use the FN mags. I have quite a few KAC/Larue/pmags I would sell off.

Should I leave them as is or do a few trades back to the OEM lower to save weight and use the FN mags? Not sure if it would be too much trouble.

Handl has a magnesium version of their lower. The weight is comparable to the OEM.

I traded my Handl lower for a OEM and went back to stock. I'm happy...but YMMV. I like the stock mags better than  PMAGs, and KAC/Larue mags are expensive and almost as heavy.

my pref is the handl lower over the oem.   if your carrying more than 1 mag the weight savings of pmags vs oem is decent.  the difference between aluminum handle and pmag vs plastic oem and oem mag is almost a wash.  so the difference is in how many spares your toting.

i prefer the ease of availability of pmags, ease of cleaning a pmag, and not worrying about dinging up the feed lips on the oem mags if i drop em.

ive got 50 pmags at 18$ each which is around 900$  50 oem mags would have cost 2000$   which is the biggest reason i got a pmag lower.  i can also use my sr25 pattern mags in other rifles.  only use for fn oem mags is in the scsr17.

the break even point is about 18 oem mags.  if you plan on buying more than 18 magazines get a sr25 pattern lower.  if you do not plan on buying more than 18 mags stick with the clunky oem mags.  if your looking at it purely from a money/cost pov.

so,  weight wise aluminum sr25 pattern wins if your carrying a bunch of mags; aluminum sr25 wins if you plan buying more than 18 mags.  only time staying oem makes sense is if your using your 17s as a bench gun or only buying a few mags ever.

i did modify my magazine catch to work with pmags and purchased a send catch from midwest gunworks if i ever need to go back to oem.   i have 7 oem mags just in case.

Thanks for the replies. I've got tons of pmags, and around 10 KAC/Larue mags. If shtf or I wanted to use the most dependable mags, I would use the KAC and Larue mags. They gotta be around the same weight as the Scar 17 mags.

Anyone know the weight of an OEM lower with Scar mag?

I'll toss mine in a scale after work. I personally don't care about buying different mags. It's a different rifle designed for a specific mag, and I'm not going to shoehorn a different mag into use in the hopes it will be 100% reliable (which my Handl lower was not...and the Stryker is even worse). If I want to use SR-25 mags I'll buy another LMT MWS or KAC SR-25.

Thanks for your opinions guys. I've decided it doesn't make much sense to have these lowers when its my only 308. If i had another platform that took sr25 mags it would be a no brainer, but i dont so i will stick with the stock lower and mags. I'll post my Handl lowers for trade on the EE.

You could try the Moses or Promag mags to save weight over the factory mags

Is it really a non-issue. Do the stock mags weigh that much more that it prevents you from doing anything with the rifle?  When I hunt I carry the rifle and one mag.  At most I have a cheat rig with 4 mags and one in the rifle for 5 total. It's a non issue unless you're talking about SHTF fantasies. Good call OP.

Id like to be able to use pmags in my SCAR, but for capacity.  
I really dont get the people that make a big deal about such minuscule weight differences.  Theyre probably huge fans of Nutnfancy or something.

I love the ability to use the 25rd Pmags and if I wanted even more capacity, I could use the Taran Tactical mag extensions for 30 rounds total without adding much length.

I use a Stryker SEAL lower and have zero complaints.

its a small meaninhless diff if your just toting a mag or two.  when you load up a range bag with 30 to 40 full mags....  thats another issue.

I've never found SR-25 mags to be 100% reliable.

Stick with the OEM Lower and mags