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.45 ACP Conversion Guide (Page 4 of 22)
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Oly does not stock complete .45 uppers. They assemble them as the orders come in. If they say they don't have them in stock, they are really missing some or all of the parts. You stand a better chance of buying the barrel, ejector and bolt carrier assembly separately first. Then you can buy one of their upper receivers or use any upper receiver you like. The bolt carrier and the ejector is the same for all their pistol calibers. If the guy on the phone says no to .45 stuff, ask about 9mm or .40 parts. He may not know they are the same. I've been to their store and saw this happen myself. |
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| Just ran 150rds through my Bazooka BAZ45 lower. Ran perfectly. No issues whatsoever. I would highly recommend these lowers to anyone looking for an AR .45 carbine. Bazooka |
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I just put my Oly kit together. I modified the upper myself. I'm having a hell of a time getting it to chamber the rounds properly. It seems like the ejector spring puts too much pressure on the bolt. Anyone have any ideas? The holes are drilled in the proper places. Edit. I took the ejector spring out to see if that was the problem and it's not related. The bolt just doesn't seem to push the the round out of the mag properly. The round goes in at an angle and catches sideways. It's like the feed ramps are too steep. It might also help if the magazine was able to sit up a little higher so the round wouldn't have to exit the mag at such an angle. I dunno if laying the front of the feed ramp down a little would help at all. |
Try shooting it. My Oly upper wouldn't hand-cycle ammo at all, but it feeds perfect during firing. |
A varmint will never quit - ever. They're like the Viet Cong - Varmint Cong.
| The ejector spring should have enough tension to hold the bolt carrier in place when you hold it up and even shake it. It will work itself out after a couple hindred rounds. It will not load right when cycling by hand as mentioned above. Drop the one round into the chamber and then let the bolt slam forward. Then insert the mag. Fire it and it should load the next rounds just fine. |
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If there is way to much spring pressure, then the hole for the tail of the ejector is drilled too low. This hole is what sets the angle of the ejector spring. Too low and you have excessive spring pressure on the bolt carrier. Too high and you have weak ejection. There is no forgiveness in this hole location. And I have to ask. Why did you fire it if the round wasn't fully seated? Was there any damage to the gun. |
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| I fired it because I didn't know. What do you think, I was just curious to see what would happen? Like I said, It isn't related to the spring. The feed ramps are not right. This is an Oly barrel with my own a2 upper that is drilled correctly, a Cav Arms lower, a Hahn magblock, and grease gun mags. I've tried about 6 mags so they aren't the problem. The feed ramps just aren't right on the barrel. |
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I have not come across any Oly barrel extensions with messed up feed ramps. Don't mean it can't happen, just never experienced it. The Cav Arms mag catch could be out of spec. causing the GG mags to sit too low. It could also be that the spring is so tight against the carrier that it is slowing it down to the point of causing the round hangup similar to trying to test feed by hand. The carrier needs to be operating with all the buffer spring pressure and buffer weight possible to strip and seat the rounds correctly. |
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This gentleman is now finishing AR45 lowers. Turn around time has been just a couple weeks from time of reciept of the AR45 lower from the customer or from Justin, who can drop ship from CNCGUNS. www.thompsonmachine.net/gun.htm |
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I have 2 45acp uppers that I have been using with AR lowers and modded 16rnd Uzi mags, it would be nice to put my GG mags to use. I may order a 2nd lower with thompson since I'm waiting for the 1st from KW and never know when it may be done. |
Do you know what he is charging? Have you had any in depth reviews of his work on the AR45 lowers that he has done? Thanks, Joe |
| Justin e-mailed me last week and said that he is about to start another batch of 10% lowers. You can have him ship it direct or ship it yourself to Thompsonmachine. He will charge $80 to finish machining the lower and $35 to anodize or powdercoat in satin black. I have seen some of his work and it is nice. Justin said he sent a lower to him to finish, as a test, and was highly impressed. |
That sounds good. I have one that Khalan / Mitchell Jones did that has several problems. I sent it back to him for repair but I am still not happy with it. I may just trash it and start over. I really want an AR45 lower that is worth the time and effort to register as an SBR. |
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My "in depth" review of my Thompson Machine finished lower is still waiting.... because I haven't been able to shoot it! This weekend for sure though. I kind of wanted to wait till I had both this one and the Khalan, but that may never happen. The Khalan will go up for sale as soon as it show up, if ever. I can give a pre-shooting review I suppose, and it may make a few people unhappy with me. Oh well. I have complaints about the lower, as far as cosmetics. One area that would say could be better, but since it looks like many of the others I've seen, there's no surprise there. It's ot a major issue. The other area I'd complain about is also cosmetic, and an area that to be honest, looks rather poor. I believe it would be a complaint/issue with Justin and the original work done on the lower. Not the finish work done by Thompson Machine. Again, not a function issue, but cosmetic. It may just be the way they're machined and there's nothing they can do about it. Dunno. As far as Thompon Machine goes, I believe it took 3 weeks? He quoted me a ball park turn around, and then a short time into it, contacted me and said that it would be an additional week. He also explained why, which was completely understandable and perfectly acceptable. I mention it not as a complaint, but to say that after that he was exact on the completion/shipping date, possibly down to the very day he said it would ship. As far as TM's work, it was not 100% issue free, but the problems were fairly minor and understandable. I easily remedied the problems myself, and informed TM for future reference. One was a spec that needed to be changed. The second simple human error. Issue one was the with the safety/selector detent hole. The safety was very "floppy" (if that's a term?) back and forth. Basically the "step" in the hole wasn't deep enough, so the plunger wasn't making good contact with the selector. It was a simple matter of drilling it a mere 1/16th of an inch or so deeper. The "fix" took all of about 30 seconds and probably could have been done by hand power with a drill bit. I told Richard about the problem and he said he'd change his specs for the future. The second issue was a bigger one. A simple fix, but probably beyond many regular gun owners. The whole for the pistol grip wasn't tapped. Richard explained that he prefers to tap the hole after the lower is anodized, because the anodizing can harm the threads. So he anodized it, and basically forgot about doing the threads. Ok, so he's human. Quite understandable. It took me longer to double check on the tap size than it did to actually tap it, but again many people don't have T&D sets or want to do it. I could see someone else being real upset about having to send it back. Also understandable. Other wise everything seem to be in spec, I had no issues assembling the lower, other than the two mentioned. I did have to enlarge (lower) the rear hole in the Oly upper. I'v heard many people have had this same problem. It might be the AR45 lower specs or/and the Oly specs. (I know for a fact this Oly upper is whacky specs wise) So it needed a few more minutes work, but I ended up with a rock solid upper/lower fit because of it, so I can't complain about that issue. I wish more of my AR's had that problem. So taking into account of course, the fact that I haven't shot it yet.... I'm very happy with the work done by Thompson Machine. I'll update when I actually get some rounds down range.  |
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This is hard to shoot. Flash photos just washed out, so here's kind of an obliquely lit view. I realize that inside the trigger guard is always the worst area of any lower, billet, cast or forged. But this area struck me as looking kind of "crude" I guess. I think not so much because the ridge & machine marks are there, but because it's so "jagged"? Different depths and different widths.  There's more of the same on the ends, but that's "uglier" of the marks. |
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Good report, cas. FWIW my first Oly upper would not fit my BAZ45 lower. At first I wrongly suspected the BAZ45 because the Oly had fit (with a little help from a plastic hammer on the takedown pin) a CMMG lower I'd been using while waiting for the BAZ45. But subsequent checking revealed that CMMG lower is the only one that Oly can be fitted to, while other uppers fit the BAZ45 just fine. |
It's a go!  Got to run 120 rounds through it today. No issues what so ever. So I can now put my official "I would use him again" stamp on Thompson Machine.  (and as a side note, my Khalan lower is supposed to be here on Thursday.) Thompson machine promised 3 weeks. It took 3 weeks. Khalan promised 2 weeks. It took 6 months. |
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TC, I have to tell you that the AR45 upper you built for me is really running well. My lower is a tough piece to mate though. I mean it is really tight. I got it in Jan from Khalan after a super long wait. Well, I did it the other day and now I am not sure I will be able to get them apart. I am wondering if the lower might be slightly out of spec. Have you seen this before? Erik |
I don't remember if yours is a factroy upper or a custom job. If it is custom, chance are the Khalan machined loer is slightly out of spec. Wouldn't be the first time. Some Khalan lowers have had out of spec holes. Wouldn't hurt to run a drill bit through the upper and lower holes by hand and take a very small amount of material from both holes. Or just let the assembly/disassembly wear the holes after time. |
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If your going to mate the receiver halves I would suggest you use a 1/4" reamer. Remove the front pivot pin and attach the upper and lower pinning them together with the rear pivot pin. Use the reamer on the front pivot pin hole only and ream out the upper and lower at the same time. The two halves will be perfectly mated.
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Erik, I know of at least two Oly 45 uppers (and I have one) that have the rear hole drilled at an angle not perpendicular to the upper, making it largly impossible to mount to an inspec lower. Usually if you push a pin from one side (if you don't have the pin installed in the lower) it will start and bind, and you can't start it from the other side. On my personal upper, I started from the side where the hole was most out of align and drilled rear hole in the upper with ever slightly increasing diameters until I could fit the pin all the way through. I didn't want to make it loose, so I stopped at the point where I could at least get a pin in with a rubber mallet. ~Dan |
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Thanks to all. It binds like the last post states but I believe this was a custom built upper. 99.99 percent sure although I cant remember either TC. Since the above post, I have tried it on 5 AR15 lowers and 12 M-4A1 lowers. It fits like a champ on all of them which makes me think it may be the Khalan lower. I well carefully get the drill press out. Thanks for the help. Erik |
Dan, You can add a third to your list. Your desciption matchs my experience with the Oly upper I got. Same cure and I stopped just after a rubber mallet is needed, but I still need a punch to get the pins started. |
Women and cats will do as they please, and men and dogs should
relax and get used to the idea.
-Robert A. Heinlein
Drugs kicked in now, need sleep, radiation tastes funny at 7 am every day... a bit like victory. - Ginger
relax and get used to the idea.
-Robert A. Heinlein
Drugs kicked in now, need sleep, radiation tastes funny at 7 am every day... a bit like victory. - Ginger
The AR45 uses standard AR15 LPK. I use DPMS mostly because until yesterday I lived in MN and shipping was fast. As far as an upper goes you really only have two choices. 1. Order an Oly upper from either Oly direct or Ranier Arms. Uppers in stock are hit or miss due to availability of barrels. 2. Order just the Oly .45 BCG and ejector from Oly. Use any AR15 upper receiver, and order a 16" Thompson SMG barrel from Gun Parts Corp and send it to Kurts Kustom Firearms to have an Oly barrel extension made and mounted to the Thompson SMG barrel. The Thompson barrel has a funky taper right where the front sight base mounts so you'll need to free float the barrel and use a filp up or stationary front sight that attaches to a free float rail. All other parts are standard AR15. You can also order the barrel from Oly and just use the upper receiver of your choice. You need to drill and mount the ejector in your upper receiver. Plans are here somewhere4 on ARFCOM. The big advantage of the second option is your upper is exactly like you want it. My favorite builds are using RRA 9mm slick side flat top upper receivers without the big fat brass deflector. |
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E.r.i.k. I've been trying to IM and e-mail you for a week. It says you have an invalid username every time. Shoot me an e-mail[email protected] |
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Requires a whole new design to use thompson mags. They are longer front to rear due to the rib on the back and anew mag release slot would have to be cut into the mag. Having to modify the mags negates any cost savings over a GG mag. I do have one prototype Ar45 lower that uses Thompson and GG mags iterchangeably. I haven't had time to finish the design but a Thompson mag also requires mods to the bolt carrier and the upper receiver. These mods make it more expensive than the AR45 for GG mags. |
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. www.keepshooting.com/firearmaccessories/magazines/usgim3mag.htm |
FWIW I just bought a bunch of their new GG mags, I don't have my .45 ACP Carbine yet but those mags are beautiful. I have a friend who has a STEMPLE that uses unmodified GG mags and as soon as I can get to go shooting with him I'm going to try out 20 or so picked at random. |
| I've got 7 of those KeepShooting.com mags. One is still in the package but so far the other 6 have worked great. But then I"ve only got ~150rds thru the first 4 and ~100 thru the last two so that's not real conclusive but it's a good start. |
Women and cats will do as they please, and men and dogs should
relax and get used to the idea.
-Robert A. Heinlein
Drugs kicked in now, need sleep, radiation tastes funny at 7 am every day... a bit like victory. - Ginger
relax and get used to the idea.
-Robert A. Heinlein
Drugs kicked in now, need sleep, radiation tastes funny at 7 am every day... a bit like victory. - Ginger
Gun Parts Co. |
.45 ACP Conversion Guide (Page 4 of 22)
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