AR Sponsor
Posted: 3/26/2008 5:51:06 PM EDT
| How hard is it to swap out my current upper with a new flat top upper? Are there any tools necessary? Can anything go wrong (screw up accuracy)? I have no experience, but am willing to give it a try. My other alternative is to sell my current gun and by a new one. What do you think? |
$35 wrench should do it. Jay has them, and he's a great guy too! I recommend getting the AR15-068 one. 
|
|
I have looked at doing this (and I have the tools on hand) and it doesn't really work out. If you have an upper given to you or you have some oddball special parts that you want on the upper go ahead but otherwise it doesn't work out. You spend money for tools and upper and you wind up with an upper you like better and a pile of used parts that have little value. Buy the upper you want (new or used) and sell the perfectly good upper you have or hang on to it if you think you will get any use from it |
Huh? |
|
I've done a few upper swaps and installed a couple free float tubes... It's not hard and you will learn a lot about your rifle. There are some tacked threads taht cover it in this forum. The only danger is if you have a turkey of an upper with a front sight base that is secured with straight pins. I had one like that and I had to hack it off and replace it with a gas block/flip front sight. But... I liked that way better than the old FSB, so I was happy. Besides, you can always recoup a bit of your costs by selling your old upper on the EE. You will not regret spending a few bucks on the tools. Especially if you have friends who also like AR's. Seems like you find yourself using them a lot when you get more confident and want to do more tinkering. +1 on the moly grease. You do NOT want your barrel nut siezing unto your upper. |
+1 I bought a DPMS NM upper on the EE. Swapped out the upper receiver and front site for flat top replacements. Made a nice varmint gun out of it. Used NM upper receiver for a CAR build. Front site is going on my SBR. If I hadn't used these parts on other builds I could have sold them on the EE. |
|
1) Field strip rifle 2) Take the handguards off 3) Punch out the roll pin for the gas tube on the front sight 4) Pull out gas tube from upper (slide in, twist, pull out...no force) 5) Put upper in vice/block 6) Use wrench and unscrew barrel nut. 7) Remove barrel Reverse, paying attention to start torquing the barrel nut at 30ft-lbs. Then rotate until gas tube can clear next tooth. And voila...done. |
AR Sponsor