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Posted: 12/12/2006 3:33:08 PM EDT
| Hello. Quick question. Looking to buy an m-16 sometime soon, how is the Frankford Arsenal or Olympic Arms stuff? What would be a non-extravegant price to pay for one? Thanks. |
| They seem to be the lesser thought of M16's (by the internet crowd). Don't have any personal experience with them but they sure seem attractive because the price is always lower then the others out there...internet prices on these recently seem to be around $9,500 give or take $500... |
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Some (not all, but a significant percentage) of the Olys were not built to milspec. The three most common problems were mislocated takedown pin holes, too-tight magwells and too-high decks. If the takedown holes are off, you need to take a file to the corresponding holes in each of your uppers and open them up to fit your lower. Usually, doing that means that the modified uppers fit very loosely on any other lower. Or, you can send your lower to someone like M60joe and have the takedown hole welded over, redrilled in the correct location, and then refinished. If the deck (the top edge of the lower that contacts the upper) is too high, the upper won't close on the gun. The solution is to take a flat file and very carefully remove enough metal, in the proper locations, to let your lower mate with the upper. This is not a job for Bubba. Ditto for the magwell. You can open it with a file, but do so carefully. A lot of people get real nervous when taking a file or welding rig to a $10k hunk of aluminum. Of course, a lot of people also get real nervous trusting UPS/USPS/FedEx when shipping a $10k hunk of aluminum to a gunsmith across the country. Again, not all Olys have this problem, and many of the ones that did have already been "fixed." Remember, they've been out there for more than 20 years. But that's why Olys are lower in market value. |
This was the case with a guy in a class I took recently. Fuckin' OLY junk. 
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Tony knows a lot and to avoid the problems he is talking about, I bought a Colt A1. Thats that best way to go and save yourself a lot of headaches. It costs more but I dont have to send it off to get redone. It works out of the box as advertised. The only thing I am thinking about it is sending it to get chemically cleaned and looked over by a Colt smith. |
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I've got a few Class 3s and ben shooting them a few years now. Of course, I monitor and read this section on occasion. IMO, if Tony gives advice you should listen. Just to add to that. The cost different between a non-Colt M16 lower and a Colt (conversion or not) is fairly small in the overall scheme of things. Unless I had a chance to shoot, and try different uppers on it, I would not buy a M16 lower without a Pony. Not to say many aren't fine lowers just a higher percentage of chance of getting a dog. So what is the price dif today anyway? Last I saw a Oly/Frank lower would be about $9000+ versus a Colt conversion for about $11,500+. Am I wrong? |
You can do what a lot of owners have had done, and either sleeve the holes or have them welded up and redrilled to .250" milspec. You still won't have a captive pin and will need to use one of the removable ball-detent pins, but you will have milspec holes and can use any milspec uppers. Of course, if you buy one that has not yet been fixed, you're back in "ship-it-off-and-cross-your-fingers" mode. BTW, there are a lot of in-spec Olys out there. I helped a local shooting buddy buy one recently -- I knew the seller, trusted him, and knew the gun was in-spec. Otherwise, I recommend finding a way to test-fire it with multiple uppers and mags beforehand. If everything milspec fits and it test-drives OK, it's good for a coupla lifetimes of civilian use. But it's iffy to buy one sight-unseen from a total stranger. |
I normally hate Oly junk, but I will have to say that my ZX-16 (PAWS) has also been flawless with every upper I've used it with. I wouldn't be afraid of buying another. |
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