Looking into building my first retro rifle. Looking at doing an xm16e1. I have been looking at this forum for a while now so I have gained a lot of knowledge here. Where do you guys get all your small lower parts from? It looks like they are tough to find in the correct grey color. Seems like it would be costly buying each lower part individually. I don't care if the parts are original they just have to be "correct". Also, as far as barrels go are the brownells ones parkerized or just black? Would it be better to go with a brownells barrel or have a green mountain barrel drilled for the fsb? Thanks guys!

Ar15sport.com has a grey lpk in their retro section.

I see a they have grey parts, but I don't see a full LPK. How long ago did you see it?

Ok they have what you need,  not a full kit.

I wasn't trying to nit-pick. I was hoping they did have a package deal thing. Lol

Where can I find a full lpk thats correct?

To my knowledge, you are not going to find a complete and correct LPK for a retro build. Most of us have had to piece the parts together from either one source or multiple sources. The last batch of original small parts I got came from Indiana Army Surplus. You can call Slim (812-275-2801), give him a list of all of the parts you need, and he will see what he has left. These are original surplus M16 parts.

I was just doing some research and came across some good stuff. I think my best bet is to get a dpms set and naval jelly it then buy a grey mag button and trigger guard. It seems like a lot of guys do that. Whats your thoughts? Thanks for the help guys!

 

One last question. If I were to buy a Nodak 603 upper and partial fence lower in january when do you think I would have it by? Should I wait and see what brownells comes out with?

Are these actually  reParked, or just greyed up using phosphoric?

Wait times fluctuate.  I heard a rumor that it was 2-3 months at the time I placed my order in August, and it's been a lot longer.  It's totally worth the wait, and just gives you time to locate parts.  I can help you with authentic parts, but a LOT of it involves determining just how nuts you wanna go with the parts.  A truly authentic lower/XM16E1 can be VERY time consuming to obtain, but you can also find a mixture of substitute pieces.  I'd be happy to help however I can if you desire it.
v/r,
Jon

Thanks Jon. Its going to be an Xm16E1 build.  Im going to make all the parts be correct for the build but not original because thats out of my budget and I'm going to shoot it a lot anyways. Thanks for the help guys!

Again, it's not necessarily out of a price range.  It all depends on how quickly and what year you are looking for.  The XM16E1 had a couple pieces that may or may not be on there.  Transitional bolt catches and various other pieces COULD be on these weapons, and it may be either a cast or a forged no-drainhole FSB.  Otherwise the components are pretty much identical no matter what.  John Thomas can help parts look like a correct era, but without that "correct era" price tag....lol.  If you need a forged no-drainhole FSB or a few other components, they are around, and I have a few extra things.  Just gotta know for sure what you're looking for and that'll help me tell you what price tags you're looking at.

Transitional bolt catches I think he charges $50 (I paid $250 for my original, and have a second one on hold that I swapped a reproduction barrel for...so around a $150 value)....forged early FSBs are around $50-60, and I may have a couple extra FCGs....I don't truthfully know even right now what I have. (I'm trying to organize)

Otherwise, Slim at Indiana Army Surplus has some amazingly cheap pricing and is awesome to deal with as he'll hunt for pieces specifically for you.
v/r,
Jon

The pricey XM16E1 parts like transitional bolt catches and chrome carriers were used for a pretty short amount of time compared to the overall production run.

Far more XM16E1's were produced with park'd carriers, standard bolt catches, etc.

That's exactly what I was thinking. I'm not really going for that fresh of the production line rifle. In reality pretty soon after they were produced bolt carrier groups, buffers, and all sorts of stuff were swapped out. That's why I'm not getting an edge water buffer either.

Hello jeepdan, I was helping DBL-TAPER with the parkerizing, neither of us are professionals.  I didn't look too close at DBL-TAPER's parts as he finished them, I was paying too close attention to my own stuff.  I am curious if you see something "bad" in the pile of parts pictured.  The first thing I ran through was basically scrap metal and it looked ok.  The first "good" part I ran through had the frost / crystals on it and it looked like other new parkerized parts I have seen.  We both ran a bunch of stuff through over a period of a few hours.  Some of the parts came out darker than others, it didn't seem to correspond to being done early or late.  I looked the parts over as they came out and have looked them over again and everything seems ok to me.  It is not clear to me when a batch of solution goes bad.  We were careful to use distilled water in the solution, all parts were bead blasted, some got lacquer thinner too, then rinsed in a swig of boiling water before they went in the solution.  This solution never got cloudy as we parked things, I did start the solution with some steel wool that was rinsed in a swig of boiling water, I got all the steel wool dust out with a computer magnet on a wire that was cleaned with boiling water before it went in.  I poured the solution in a plastic container and I was going to try to use it again, the last time I tried to re-use solution it seemed to "die" but I did leave some cast iron brake drum shavings in it.  Some of the parts are very light gray and don't have they frosty / crystal look at all.  Should everything have that look?  I compared to some known "real" parkerized retro parts and they don't have the frosty look either.  What do you think?  Oh, I bought the park solution locally from another ar15.com member but I don't know who manufactured it.

somebob,
I don't know enough to give any advice, but they look pretty good.

I'm really interested in learning . I'm going to modify a barrel, and machine out a fake moderator for a future GAU-5/A/A clone.
I would like to Park it myself.