I bought an Olympic Arms 45caliber AR last year and immediatly started looking for someone to make a lower to accept the Grease Gun mags I owned. When I could find no takers I finally gave up and designed my own solution. I designed my AR lower to be a dedicated pistol caliber AR. It has an interchangable Magwell so that I can not only change calibers but also choose different types of mags in the same caliber. Since I shoot left handed I set it up for a lefty mag release.

I took it to the Indiana Subgun Championship match in June. I had literally finished fit the mags the night before and took it done there with the magwell still in the white. I had two mag out of the twelve I took with me that needed more fitting other than that it ran great.

BSumner.photosite.com

Can you post any details on how you built this lower?  Sounds very interesting...

Damn thats sweet

I know your gonna follow this up with some detail, arent you ?

I updated my Photo file today.

http://bsumner.photosite.com/45CaliberARProject

I approached several manufacturers to build a lower for me that had the extra material around the magwell to accept the GG mags. Most refused, a couple told that it could be done but that I should be patient and wait until they could get around to it. I waited for about six months with no action. My patientance wore out and I started looking at 80% recievers but most of those already have the magwell edm'ed.

I found a lower that was suitable from DPMS and milled everthing forward of the firecontrol area off. I cut a dovetail into the reciever and a mating block of aluminum. After locating the postion of the front pin I  drilled out the new block and installed the pivot pin. I then had a new magwell edm'd into the aluminum to accept the GG mags. Unfortunatly the location of the magwell was 30 thousandths to far foward.When I went to test fire it would only feed a couple of rounds before the nose of the bullet would hit the bottom of the upper and jam.

Back to the drawing board and a new block, I then moved the magwell location back to allow the bullet to feed. I took another trip to the range and test fired it. 30rnds loaded 30rnds fired without a hitch. At that time I did not have the mag release itstalled so I had to hold the mags into the magwell.

I looked at different types of mag releases and settled on the AR 15 style mag release. I shoot left handed and since I was building it why not build it to suit me. That left me with a dilema, the mag catch for the GG mag is on the right side of the mag. In order to stay legal I could not modify the mag in such a way the it could not be used it the original gun. I cound not locate the release to use the original mag catch so I used the AR mag catch and milled the GG mags so that they could be used in both the GG and my AR.  I had to redesign the pin for the magrelease so that a new style button could be installed. I made the release button larger and reccessed it so that it would be easy to activate but not by accident.

It would have been a whole lot easier to bould a right handed mag release!!!!!!!!!!!!

After the magrelease was completed and I tested it again at the range I set about the task of thinning out all of the excess material. Thinning it out lighted my load considerably and made it look like it an AR again. I then finished it Brownell's Backing Laquer.  

sorry, here is the photo link again
http://bsumner.photosite.com/45CaliberARProject

You are THE man.

That is awesome!  What do you do for work when you aren't modifying ARs?  Some sort of engineering or machining work?  That is amazing work...  Wish I could get one too!

Spooky

I have a severe case of what is called tinkeritus. I can't own anything without trying to make it  better  suit me.

I am in the proccess of building two more magwells, a 9mm for myself and 45caliber for a local gunshop.
He plans on using it in 3 gun matches.

I am also currently building a left handed upper using a Stag Arms Upper.

Bruce

Did you mess up the area on the lower where the serial number is?  That needs to remain untouched to be legal.

The serial number is located just above the trigger group on the reciever I bought. One of the companies I contacted was more than happy to relocate the serial numbers on the reciever as long as I was willing to buy several and pay a $300 set up fee.

Thanks for the detailed follow up.

I want one that is sweet.
when is a manufacturer going to start building 45acp lowers that take gg mags lots of people i know are interested but few are as skilled as you were very nice.

Very nice. I thought I my MK II lower/ Oly set up was cool. Yours gets my vote.