Posted: 1/15/2004 1:14:05 PM EDT
|
Hi Guys, I just thought I share a few photos and details of a really rare and super cool gun. While this might look like a run-of-the-mill M4-gery, it is quite a bit much more. This gun is the closest thing to a real M4 you can get, outside of the military and CIII land. For us guys that live in non-NFA states, it doesn’t get much better than this. This gun started life as a pretty plain Jane R6600 Match Hbar. This would be considered a Green Label. In it’s original form, it looks just like you’d expect a Green Label to look. It featured a slab side lower, Mil-Spec firecontrol pins, oversized pivot pin, and lacked a sear block. It also had the desirable “AR-15” markings, instead of the current Sporters. Through a series of mishaps, this gun had a short life. While the original owner will not claim otherwise, it appears that an overloaded round detonated with catastrophic results. He claims that it fired out of battery. Water under the bridge. This detonation resulted in the utter destruction of the bolt and upper receiver. It also damaged the lower to the point that it just didn’t look right. The magwell, when looking down on it, looked more oval than rectangular now. I had thought about just putting it into a vice and reforming the magwell, but the stress cracks were just too worrisome. I wish I’d have saved some pictures. After a call to Colt, I boxed it up and sent it in. They told me that they’d look it over and let me know what they could do. At first, they told me that they couldn’t really do anything with it and suggested that since it was no longer safe that they couldn’t return it to me. They would, however, in exchange for it, give me a new postban lower for a reduced cost. This was absolutely unacceptable to me, no way was I going to let a preban Colt go in the toilet. I was able to work my way up to the head of customer service. Here, I got some good answers. Colt had decided that they would apply for a variance from ATF to re-manufacture a lower that had the destroyed lower’s serial number. For this, they’d only charge me $200. I agreed. Colt seemed to be taking a long time getting back with me. I heard all sorts of reasons for it taking so long. The last reason was that they had to do the lower over on the “non-commercial” production line. I took this to mean that they were having the line that made the military guns rebuild this lower. After nine months, and weekly phone calls, I got a box in the mail from Colt. Inside, I found this newly manufactured lower that had my old serial number on it! How cool! Upon further inspection, I realized just how cool this lower was. This new lower now featured just about everything you could want in a Title 1 preban Colt. Mil-Spec firecontrol pins. Mil-Spec front pivot pin hole (.250” instead of the large .312”). My preban serial number. “AR-15” Roll Markings. A2 reinforcements (Mag fence). NO hardened steel sear block (or the ugly pins that hold it in). I found out along the way that one of the reason that it was taking so long is that Colt had a few other lowers that they were going to re-manufacture all at the same time. I later found out that they only remanufactured FIVE lowers! The head of customer service later told me that Colt had so much trouble organizing this project with their production crews and the ATF that they would not do it again. This makes this lower extremely rare (one of five), and probably even more rare when you figure in how many of them were AR-15s vs. Sporters. Upon it’s return, I matched this lower up with a Colt sliding butt stock assembly, and a M4 Carbine top end. To keep this as close to Mil-Spec as I could, I chose a 14.5” 1/7 M4 profile barrel. A Vortex is permanently attached to the end to get it up to legal length. Thankfully, since the lower was of new production and the upper was also, the colors of the Hard Coat Anodizing are very close. I’ve actually bought NIB guns that had a worse color match! This is definitely not a gun for the refinisher. Here are a few pictures. Thanks!        |
Lumpy my friend, in the world according to Stokes everything is for sale….. he’s a slave to the dalla'.  I’ve had the privilege of handling this gun quite a bit and all I can say is that it is the coolest non-class 3 AR that I have ever seen!!! |
|
Very Nice! What I don't get is the "big hassle" over xfr of the S/N to a new lower and destruction of the old. Olympic does it all the time and they never mention any "hassle". Why can Oly do it and Armalite/Bushmaster/Colt not? I'll be glad in a few months when/if this pre/post crap is all over. ~ s0ulzer0 |
|
Well, Colt doesn't really make their own lowers. Like much of their stuff, and much of that in this industry, they are made by subcontractors. Most Colt stuff is done by Lewis Machine & Tool. This extra step is what really put the problems in the works. Oly can do it easily, as they make their own lowers on their own machines in house. The sunset of the AWB probably won't effect this gun much, assuming that nothing replaces the current AWB (I don't trust politicians, I expect something to come in to replace it). This gun still has features that Colt still wouldn't make, no matter of federal mandates. |
I wasn't really meaning the "physical hassle" of making it, but the ATF/Legal hassle. Any insight on that? ~ s0ulzer0 |
|
It's because Colt farms out this stuff that the ATF/Legal hassles are so great! This gun is technically a green label, as this serial number was shipped in a green label box. The features it has now would be consistent with some white label guns, but even they don't have all of these attributes. Colt is kinda like a box of chocolates.... |
| That is a fine rifle Stokes (can't see the pictures, but good description). Reminds me of the 6420 lower Postban got back after Colt's busted his during a refinish job. Cept his did not have the correct trigger/hammer pin hole diameters. Wonder where the other three are? |
Ekie, it takes a WHILE for the photos to download, even with my LAN. |
According to the Colt Armorer's class, ca 2003, Colt does make their own lowers. Lowers made for other companies must be marked with the original makers name. See the lowers made for CAI by OAI. I wouldn't put it past a sales weasel to say that this was a reason for the "hassle" when, more likely, it is an attempt to keep Colt from being overrun by "onesy twosy". [grammah] |
That's what the variance is for. Pretty commonplace in this industry really. Many small time 07s have lowers made with their name on it. I've know some small time 07s (Such as Dalphon, Tromix, ForceTen) that have manufacturing licenses that don't actually own the machines and/or tooling to even start building lowers. Their names are the only ones on the lowers. The situation you describe also happens, but is more like private labeling. This practice is also commonplace for small batch orders, where the small company (usually an 01) doesn't want the costs of the 07. I'm going to guess that you took your class from Elmore. He's a pretty damn sharp guy. I also wouldn't expect him to say that Colt subs out work. When (Name deleted to protect 1Gunrunners favorite corporate drinking buddy) was the National Sales Director at Colt (from about 1999-2001), he told us that at one time Colt actually manufactured only six parts of their AR series of rifles. The rest was sub'd out. This isn't to say that Colts quality isn't there, because it obviously is. I'm not exactly sure who was making thier lowers, but I think it was Lewis Machine & Tool. It might have been Continental, but I could be wrong. I think those two outfits make (as in cut parts from raw materials) more AR stuff than the rest of the industry combined. But, you might be right. They may have bought some new machines to do lowers themselves now. Stranger things have happened. |
I'm quite aware of common industries.  Even then, the original maker doesn't need permission to recreate a lower, at least OAI never did.
I think that works like suppressors and such, the licence holder must be physically present during (only a few steps define a "lower receiver" from any other part) manufacture. It's one big reason Val jumped through the hoops to get her punches. I'll have to check.
Actually, he gave us the list of parts that Colt currently makes and told us the rest were farmed out. |
That's the point, Colt wasn't the original maker.
Not quite. Tony Rumore never came out to Oly to have his lowers made. He had a variance. If he didn't then the physical presence thing would probably work when the steps from 80% to finish were being done.
Would you mind emailing me that list? I think it would interesting to see if SACO is still making barrels. |
|
That's OK! It really is only special to guys that collect Colts. If you're into shooters, this definately wouldn't be for you. Then again, if you're into shooters, a good RRA postban would probably fit the bill. For the money, they make some of the best AR15s out there. |
Ah, IC, it's an older lower so potentially it was a contract one. Hadn't thought about that.
So the variance Colt had to obtain allowed them to reproduce another company's lower in house.
It's not a list of who makes what. It's a list of parts Colt makes, as of the date of the class. |
|
My apologies about the pictures. I had thought I was hosting them on AR15.com, instead of imagestation, but I guess I wasn't paying attention. I'll bring them over here in the next day or so. I've also found the original upper receiver from this gun. You'll like those pictures! |