Been thinking about purchasing a radical firearms upper for my 300 sbr build.  $279.00 for a 10.5 in upper minus bolt, carrier and charging handle seems too good to be true.
For those of you that have purchased from them. Does the upper fit tight against your lower (no play)? How is the overall quality in your opinion? Does anyone know whose free float tube they are using on the 279 package. I don't see a brand listed. I realize you get what your pay for but what is your option of them.

Tag and bump. I'm interested in those as well.

I have one, sent the 1st one back due to issues, like my gas tube wasn't aligned correctly, so my NiB bcg would have issues getting into battery. Also when I went to take off the flash hider, the barrel unscrewed from the barrel extension.  Called primary arms, and they told me to call Radical. Radical basically told me to send it back and they repaired it for me. They said they had an employee that wasn't tightening everything, and not using locktite. So there were a few early uppers that slipped through the crack. BUT that person has since been fired, so hopefully no more issues.

As far as the quad rail:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/7-Free-Float-Quad-Rail-Handguard-Carbine-Length-Matte-Black-High-Quality-/121284121019?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item1c3d18d1bb

This is basically the quad rail that's on mine, Every part on mine looks like that, including the barrel nut.  Friend happened to have one of these rail, and what do you know, by tube threaded right on to his barrel nut.

IF you were going to go with Radical Firearms, I would pay the extra few bucks and get the one with the seekins rail. A LOT nicer rail, and probably a better value, think the upper only costs 20 bucks more, for one with a 200 dollar rail....

DSG has uppers pretty cheap, that's put togetther by seekins, comes with a seekins rail and adjustable gas block for 500. It was 400 on black friday.

Bolt would run you ~100 bucks and an adjustable gas block ~70, so I think it's worth the upgrade.

I happen to be a sucker for a deal that seems too good to be true, SO I bought ALL three, the DSG, RA, and AAC upper.  AAC shoots the softest, but I feel my DSG is more accurate. I really haven't shot the RA one enough to form an opinion besides my previous experience with it.

I have the Seekins rail version with the WMD BCG. Everything looks good but I haven't had a chance to hit the range yet. ****ing school/work schedule is hosed right now.

I purchased the same one your talking about and have to say for the price I am very happy with it. I haven't shot mine a lot yet but so far so good. I had questions about it and emailed them on a Sunday, David Specter him self responded back within an hour and answered everything for me.

I'm sure we all know every manufacturer can produce a lemon on occasion and I too had a gas tube alignment issue and that upper was a BCM.

I agree, That EVERY company produces a lemon from time to time. And David called me also when there was an issue, and then there was another guy he hired in to handle quality control issues that followed up with me. Overall, I can't complain, considering I couldn't build the upper for the same price I purchased it for. And it was just a cheap upper I bought, so I can decide if I Like the 300blk round before investing even more money into the plateform.  But in hind sight, I would get the seekins rail version, since I feel that's a better deal.

In September, I bought a Radical Firearms 8.5" 300 BLK pistol with the Sig Brace.  The build quality seems decent for the price.  When i tried to take the flash hider off, my barrel unscrewed from the barrel extension.  I never bothered to contact Radical, just put it back together.  If I can't get the FH off using barrel vise blocks, I will have to call them.

I'm now returning my second Radical barrel and will be switching brands. First was a 7.5" 5.56 that had a tight chamber and wouldn't let go of spent brass. Radical wouldn't issue an RMA or return emails so I had Primary Arms issue an RMA and they sent me another one. After about 100 rounds through the second one I couldn't get a round to chamber so called primary again and got another RMA. While trying to disassemble the upper, the barrel came loose from the barrel extension. They don't have them in stock now so they gave me store credit and I'll get a barrel elsewhere.

So that's 3 of us on here with radial uppers that the barrel unscrewed from the barrel extension. I have literally owned over 20 ar's many that were put together myself, and my radical was the only one that did that. Never have a barrel unscrew from the extension before that

It seems like they are taking the easy route when they melonite them perhaps.

Meloniting completed barrels rather than doing the extension and barrel separately then torquing them on.  

I have been to houstonplating here in Houston. They said they handle RF's meloniting.

Easy route or not, mine was severely under torqued.

make that 4

I hope you haven't shot it. That needs to be torqued to 150 ft/lbs and IIRC changes headspace.

I had one that had issues. The issues turned out to be a LGS hack taking rails off, mismatching parts,etc. Radical stepped up and fixed all issues even though it was not there fault, just there product that a hack messed up and put it the case. And that was the third upper from them. The upper have done well.

My 8.5" Radical  upper is just fine. No problems at all. I would buy another  one .
I was surprised how accurate it was considering it's  only 8.5 inches.  I was also kind of surprised how heavy it was though, probably another rail would be lighter.

sig braces tend to be pretty heavy.... Take off your upper and weigh it by itself.

We did have a batch of barrels that were treated after torquing causing barrel extensions to spin and the issue was addressed heads on. We torque, check head space, drill gas port and stamp after melonite since torque was being lost by the standard method. We actually have a video on our customer service page showing how to remove a flash hider and to hold the barrel with Melonite because it inherently is a slick surface.  If someone in customer service doesn't address a concern, always contact our owner, David.  He'd love to know why any issue isn't being addressed. Again, if any person had a concern about an extension, it absolutely was from a single batch, we knew about the issue, it's a small percentage, and we'll cover 100% of the cost to replace it since we are one of the only companies in the black rifle industry to offer a lifetime warranty if you are the original purchaser.

That's a pretty stand up kinda company and one that will see lots of further business....both new and repeat customers.  

Thanks for the info. That's what I needed to hear, I'll purchase an upper.

With as large as the firearms industry is, there are too many good companies to have to settle for mediocrity. I returned my Radical barrel to Primary Arms for credit and purchased a barrel from Ballistic Advantage.

Radical may have a warranty for the original owner but I'd rather it be right the first time and not have to send it in at all.

I want a cheap 7.62x39 upper just so I can use up all this extra ammo I had sitting around. Don't know what company to go with now. Seems like Radical has their stuff together now, but only time will tell.

Is there any way to determine if an upper purchased from you guys was part of the batch with bad barrels?

Maybe by purchase date? I have one of your .300 blackout uppers and would like to confirm its gtg before firing.

Did this "Batch" happen to wind up at Primary Arms for the (too good to be true) $65 Black Friday sale??

I had a upper that a LGS took out of case and sold me new as 10.5" 5.56 upper. First round was weird and very loud. Second round fired but was stuck, BCG was jacked. After investigation it was a 300 BO upper. It fired 5.56 OOB.

LGS blamed Radical, Radical ended up with me pissed as a customer and no fault of their own. I got a new upper and David contacted me personally several times. The customer service is top notch. The 3 uppers I have used in builds from Radical are fine, shoot well,etc.

The way Radical handled my issues, that where caused by a LGS was impressive. I will buy another when needed.

I bought a 300 bo barrel from them and with about 30 ft lbs of torque the barrel extension came off. This was while attempting to install the barrel using a barrel clamp. The barrel was also completely unmarked. They gave me a new one and the same thing happened. Eventually they just offered to install the barrel for me. I tried shooting some factory remington ammo but the chamber is too tight. I will say though that i shot hornady whisper ammo and easily shot inside 2" at 100 yards from the 8.5" barrel.

This weekend I had a chance to put a few boxes of subsonic remington ammo through my 8.5" 300 blackout upper. 100 percent reliable.  

This was after using a reaction rod and not barrel clamp as they recommend for a muzzle brake swap.

Radicals Customer service was also very quick to respond to my questions concerning the potential for barrel lug torque issues.

I also had the gas block come loose, they make sweet bolt action ARs =P

5.56 upper / 7.5" barrel if anyone is keeping score

I ordered a 7.62 7.5" barrel during their St. Paddy's Day sale, which was supposed to come with the gas block and tube. No block or tube. Seems that the positive stories I have heard about price/quality might not be so true, at least when it comes to QC. I placed the order last Monday, on Thursday sent an email asking when it might ship. Got a call within 5 minutes confirming my address, because it didn't come up in their system. I guess since there was a problem on their end, then they were waiting for me to inquire about my order? Not really the customer service I strive for.

This is the ad that I ordered because of (where it clearly states that you get the barrel, block, and tube)...might just see if I can get my money back at this point. I am a little upset, to say the least.

~24 hour update to above:

I was able to get ahold of someone late yesterday afternoon. I was told that they would talk to the sales manager and get back to me. We are almost a day later, and I haven't heard anything back. It's not like I am asking for anything that wasn't something they weren't offering in the first place. They claim that I did not order it correctly on their website, even though the website seemed to be the correct process for ordering. This ordeal (while not that big of a deal) is making me feel like this company is a complete shitshow.

UPDATE 1 hour later: I called and left a voicemail for their customer service about an hour ago, no return call yet. I am starting to wonder if they are just letting me ride until the end of their 5 day return period, so they can claim that I cannot return the item, and it's my fault for choosing to purchase from them from their website, instead of using psychic abilities from the above ad to know some other method to order? Who would have thought that I shouldn't use the website when they have it on the ad? Maybe I am jumping to conclusions, but how hard is it to say "wow, that is really confusing. Let's get you the parts that you expected." This is simple customer service. I am not asking for something they weren't offering in their "sale."

This whole thread reminds me of the sorts of threads we had about Palmetto back in 2012.

I just spoke with Jim, and they are sending the parts. I do think they need to revisit their processes, as well as how they run the commerce side of their website.

Completely agree. Growing pains like whoa.

Correct, it was definitely supposed to come with a gas block and tube, our shipping dept. accidentally sent a few out without gas blocks and gas tubes, but they sent out a separate package with gas blocks and tubes, but a few might have been accidentally overlooked. I do apologize about that. As for the phones: unfortunately we are a small company and our phones typically ring around 500 + times in any given day. Our email defintiely always works: [email protected] or [email protected]