I am about to purchase an EA lower and have some quick questions:

How is the quality, comparable to say Colt or Bushmaster?

Are they small or large hole?

Are these cast or forged?

Are all EA's preban, the post ban basically being Armalite, correct?

Thanks for your help.
Don

If you are speaking of Eagle Arms, Gensco, IL. and not Essential Arms, they are very high quality.  I have a preban Eagle Arms rifle and the fit and finish is great. I have also read on the forums that they are some of the best, close to milspec lower receivers out there.  They are all standard pin sizes like a Bushmaster would be.  They are forged as well.  Finish is dark grey. There are postban Eagle Arms rifles and lowers, though they will say Eagle Arms, division of Armalite. The serial number on a preban Eagle Arms lower should be below 30,000. You can verify at the Armalite website, though some under 30,000 were not assembled as AW rifles before the ban and consequently are not legally prebans.

-Gabe

Are Essential Arms forged or cast?

Essentail Arms, to my knowledge, will be cast. As I understand it however, they are very nice as far as cast recievers go.

thanks, guys, this helps.

I have had several EA lowers and have never had a problem with them.  I have one for sale on the EE board right now.

I have two Essential Arms J-15's One a carbine the other a HBAR 20" I love both of them The function has always been 100%. The rifle puts out MOA groups with surplus ammo. The finish with them (guess because they are cast) is a little rough. However, I've never sweated it. Everyone I have shown them to has always been impressed with how they look. Should you or anyone else find that they don't like their J-15 lower, drop me a line and I'm sure I have something I can swap you for it.

There was a thread on this board, several months back, which stated that a lot of the Essential Arms J-15 lowers were actually investment cast by Ruger. Good enough for me.

HTH . . . . Doug