a buddy of mine @ work asked me to clean his AR and then teach him how to do it later. so removed it from the case a short time ago and of course noticed it was an Olympic Arms. no big deal i thought, not the best, but hey. so as i removed the bcg, hammer, trigger, etc...i began to notice how poorly made all of these components really are. not only fit and finish, but quality of the machining. it looks like someone built this thing with a dremel. i did not notice a single part on it that appeared well made. there is no way in hell i would rely on a rifle like this in any situation. the rifle actually feels like a toy in the hand and rattles like it's full of rocks.

Yup, that's an Oly for ya!

Keep the stripped lower receiver, sell everything else.

but i bet the fit and finish on the outside were superb

fit and finish doesn't affect performance.

Which model was it? Before I went the built route, I owned two UltraMatch rifles, with 1:10 twist "Broach Cut " barrels. Both were top notch shooters.

I saw some pics of an Oly lower receiver that crumbled from tapping the stock on the ground to try to get a jammed case out.

Pictures .... or it didn't happen

Funny.....I pulled my Oly apart at a friends house and we compared internals with his RRA.  The fit and finish of the parts was on par or better than the RRA.  Maybe I just got lucky, but I've been absolutely thrilled with the fit, finish, accuracy, and reliability of my Oly K3B.  But like I said...maybe I got lucky?  

That would have been one of the old cast lowers.  The current lowers are forged, by the same company that does the forging for multiple other manufacturers.

So, the lowers are fine.  Certain Oly barrels are FANTASTIC.  Everything else is shit.

But I thought fit and finish didn't have anything to do with reliability???
Only with some AR's I guess.......

it's an older olympic centurion 15. it's awful!! the newer ones are not much better either. our SO has bought some of the same rifle just a newer version. they suck!

So lets hear some personal experience other than you "cleaned" one. Tell us what sucks so bad and what broke.
(im not defending oly, just like to see and hear examples rather than here-say from a friend/coworker)

My OA that I purchased new in 1990 hasn't had any issues.

Olys would look good until you actually seen a real AR

i was pretty clear in my post. this was my experience with it. and upon seeing what i did, it is a rifle that certainly lacks any sort of decent QC. regarding the ones my SO has purchased they have had several failures to feed and eject that may have been an ammo issue, but if these rifles can't fire quality ammo then what's the point?

who said that? certainly not me. i'm a believer in quality, well made parts.

Top tier mfrs never have QA problems with fit and finish:

Swirl marks and pitted mag catch


Poor machining of selector tabs


Strange lines in the upper


Of course these are all just cosmetic and don't really effect performance like this one:



Of course it's got some miles on it.


Keep in mind that someof those old Centurion 15s were made during the ban with the receiver being the only Olympic part and the rest were poorly altered military surplus M16 parts.  I had one that had a Colt BCG and barrel on it.  Nothing wrong with it except for century's butcher job on the fire control parts to make them compliant, and their poor looking weld job of the muzzle break.  I got rid of the barrel and the lower receiver eventually but alot of the good mil parts found tehir way into other builds as the Century /Oly became a big sacrificial organ doner to the other builds.

Not a huge Oly fan, but passing judgment on them based entirely off of looking into what may be no more than a corporate franken-rifle is not entirely fair.  Good companies like Colt can have slips.  (Not that Oly is in the same category as Colt, just saying that just posting a bash post based on a single experience may not be the best apprach) If people based their judgment on just the pictures I posted Colt would be the next Vulcan/Hesse/Blackthorne.  

I've got a 2008 Oly Plinker and a 1979 Colt SP1. (A Bushy too for that matter.)

Colt has the chrome thing going for it. OK trigger. Runs great and accurate. Needs a accuwedge IMO since the upper & lower have a few thou of play in them. As a machinist I prefer a snugger fitment. Factory put a big glob of touch up paint where they screw up the receiver installing the bolt release pin. Common for this era. Nice finish on parts otherwise. No butchered engraving like new ones seem to often have.

Oly has better fitment of parts. Nicely snug. Machine work finish compares well to the Colt. Excellent crisp trigger. Runs flawless and is accurate. No chrome. Finish is OK. No flaws. But the anodizing is soft compared to others. I may apply black moly resin to it some weekend.

The Colt is now a $1200 collectors item that I only shoot occassionally. It was built the year I entered the service, so I keep it for the memories it brings back for me. The Oly was $569 new last year. I have no qualms using it and having fun with it or mod'ing it however I please.

An Oly can be an excellent little carbine for us non-professional shooter types out there. Great value for the money.

maybe i'm too picky. i just know i would not grab this rifle if the shtf.

i'll take some pics of the parts in question compared to my m&p tmrw. and maybe that will make my point a bit clearer.

Sometimes I wonder if an Oly could survive "high round-count" carbine courses such as those offered by Pat Rogers.  I have two Olys and contrary to what I have heard, they are very nice rifles. They are my work horses for practice and fun - I shoot them very often.  I do not however, discharge 500+ rounds in one shooting session out of each of them, so I really don't know if my Olys could do well in an intensive carbine course.

4 to 5 thirty round mags in a range session is all I can afford. My Oly handles that load just fine.

Nah he should burn it LOL

Yup nothing is perfect.

I have never had an issue with any of the OLY's I have owned. I think I have had about 6 or 7. I have said this before on here and I will go ahead and repeat myself. OLY's biggest problem is that for years they sold kit guns. These kit guns were assembled by people that had no experience or mechanical ability. While some factory guns turn out to be lemons I believe the majority of the turds out there were assemble in someone garage or a "gunsmith" that really is not a gunsmith. Add to this a couple of grouchy builders, that don't have any customer service skills, getting stuck in the front office and opinions go down hill. I have put close to 20,000 rounds through different OLY guns and have yet to break anything. My Oly rifles are just as reliable as my Armalite, Bushmaster, Colt, DPMS or RRA.

Hell yeah!

Ive had my Oly for about 5 months (first AR) and I've never had any real problems with it....replaced an extractor spring and its fine now.

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5 shots at about 90 yards with PMC Bronze ammo. (rushed that one wide )
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I've had my Oly K3B for 18 months. I've put about 8k rounds through it, routinely do 3-4 hundreds rounds per range trip. Haven't had any issues and it's pretty damn accurate with the right ammo. It doesn't rattle. No slack between the upper & lower. The FSB isn't F marked, but it is proper height. The flash hider had a slight tilt when I got it. Overall I'm very happy with it. I'm not going to claim it's a Colt or Noveske, but IMHO and based on my sample size of 3 (mine + friends), Oly is a mid level manufacturer.

Used mine in the line of duty.  The three rounds expended to save my life seemed to work just fine.  Although I had about 7 thousand out the tube before this incident.  Mine is a newer Oly built in 2006.

my olympic upper was having failures to eject, then we found out that the ejector spring is shorter by a few coils compared to my colt and bush. so i otdered from brownells and replaced it but also made a complaint letter to olympic arms(tom spithaler?) which they just ignored and denied.they did not even bother sending me a replacement spring. carrier key were loose too and not mated properly to bolt carrier so it was lapped and carrier key re staked. after that it ran fine until i sold it.

You got it, Sister!  Say hello to my LITTLE FRIENDS!



And….



and..



and the notorious MACE Hardware..



And..



And my good man, Hellhound…



On the lighter side...



And this is just how I pictured the operation!...




This is cute!...




And…



Here’s a new one!

My experiance with Olympic Arms is that I took my stock $700 "plinker" model with iron sights to a 2 day 500 round carbine course and finished with the highest score on the FBI rifle qualification course shooting 55 grain steel cased wolf ammo.

Most people  had more $ in their red dots then I had in my gun and I still out shot them with wolf ammo.

I had zero problems with feeding or extraction, while others had numerous problems with more high end guns.

I think Olympic might have has some QC issues in the past, but I dont regret buying mine at all.

Oh no you didn't!

Well believe it or dont, nobodies Carbines went down, but some the more higher end stuff (A S&W and a LMT for instance) had a few extraction problems.

I didnt have a single FTE or FTF.

My posting is based on speaking with one salesmen each at two stores.  All quotes are paraphrased.

================

My wife LOVES our BM XM15, and wants nothing more than to spend every day at the range.  She was talking about getting a second AR as “hers,” so she can do with it as she pleases.  Great idea.  We live near Olympia, and thought that a locally made firearm might be nice.

I asked a salesman at a local big box sporting goods store his opinion of Olympic Arms ARs.  He's a competitive shooter, and owned one.  Nothing but problems, OA blamed him for all the issues, and placed the burden of proof squarely on his shoulders.  “They are the Hyundai of firearms manufacturers.  Maybe you'll get a good one.  Maybe.”  He sold his as soon as he could.

We stopped at a locally owned gun store, that happens to be owned by 3 OA employees. I asked one of the owners (a machinist of barrels at OA) to tell me why I should buy one of their rifles when I have heard mixed-to-bad things. His answer: $700 gets you in the door.

But we're already in the door *and* down the hall with a highly reliable XM15…

He started to tell me that there are no factory second parts on their guns (odd. I never asked or implied that), and that the machine and employee that makes the barrels for their best rifle also make the entry level rifle.

I suggested that a baker could use the same equipment to make two batches of cookies with the same mixer and oven.  One with real chocolate chips and butter (expensive), the other with artificial chocolate and hydrogenated shortening (cheaper).  The materials make almost all the difference.  He didn't catch the analogy.

I asked about customer service, since I've heard of problems.  'Lifetime warranty.  If you have a problem, just drive the 10 miles to the factory and they'll fix you up.'  When I told him I'd heard of rude behavior there, he said, 'Oh that's person X.  He's an idiot.  You need to speak with person Y or person Z.”

Needless to say, this conversation did not instill confidence in the product.

He then told me and my wife to come by the factory “any time” for a tour.  Really?  Any time?

“Yes.”

I called OA today and told the guy on the phone to sell me on their product since I have heard issues, but wanted to support a local company.  He immediately sounded nervous (to me anyway), and couldn't complete a sentence without several “uhhhhs.”  He didn't have a sales pitch at all.  I asked about a tour.  He transferred me to someone else, who told me that setting up a tour would require:

-ten visitor minimum preferred
-one week advance notification
-“maybe” the tour guy would be available


Summary:

-cheaper
-no “factory seconds”
-the employee likely to be assigned to help you “is an idiot”
-come on down, maybe we'll give you a tour

I think my wife and I will keep looking.

My first AR was an Oly CIA rifle that I bought in 94 at a gunshow. I didn't know enough about ARs at the time to know what to look for when I bought it.  It did run flawlessly for years before I parted it out.  From what I understand the only part made by Olympic Arms in these rifles was the stripped lower receiver.  It was built using surplus M16 parts that were converted to legal AR15 parts.  I cannot overstate how bad the parts looked internally.  So I wouldn't judge Oly's quality from the parts used to assemble this rifle.  However, the lower did have a tight magwell and only 60% of my USGI mags fit and dropped properly.

I had an oly plyinker for a few years. Worked ok, all failures seemed to be magazine related. The lower was hard anodized but the upper's anodization would flake off if bumped against something. Eventually I sold it and bought something I liked better.

My son's Oly,( not a plinker ), shoots great, has never jammed in close to a thousand rounds, and the internals look as good as anything else I've seen other than a few really high end guns. The outside of his looks really good as well.

i picked up a K3B A3 after the election before i was an arfcom addict and knew better. However to be honest i have no complaints. the only issue i had was a failure to feed due to a 19 year old mag/follower, not the rifle. i guess i got lucky

You didn't get lucky. Everyone can make a bad product from time to time, and Oly made some junk with the plinkers. My Para 14-45 is supposed to be a pos as well, but after many thousands of rounds, the only problem I've had was a failure to feed with one magazine. I fixed the mag with a Wolffe spring, and have had no issues since. Shoot the hell out of it and move on.

I have a 24 year old Olympic... Shoots just fine....Never a problem

Some guns just don't like some ammo.  My friends Colt won't feed Federal for shit, but it will feed anything else.
We've seen pics here of Colts with terrible workmanship on the lower reciever and people defended it as acceptable because cosmetics don't matter, but when it is something else, cosmetics are the most important aspect of determining if a rifle is going to be good or not.

If I was going to use my rifle in life or death situation I'd make sure whatever I had worked before going into the field.  It's funny that most bashing of Oly rifles are from people that don't own one and never have.  They repeat what they've heard online and from someone in a shop that is trying to sell a more expensive rifle.  If an inexpensive rifle fails it's because it's crap.  IF an expensive rifle fails, it's because it's  a freak incident and no one dare name the "tier 1" rifle until the mfger has a chance to "make it right".

fixed it for you.

This is the typical goofball ARFCOM reply.  Yeah.  We're just repeating what we read online.... OVER AND OVER AGAIN.  YEAR AFTER YEAR.  Get it?

If people would take their emotional stake in a piece of shit gun out of the equation, the QUANTIFIABLE FACTS tell you that an Oly is inferior... even without the defects in manufacturing that we too often see.  They are a corner cutting, bottom feeder operation.  The put a nice painted finish on trash because they know most idiots will judge a weapon on FIT and FINISH.  OOOH... it looks good, so it must be a quality weapon.

Oly is consistently the most problematic mainstream AR by far.  There is a reason that Oly isn't associated with this site.

The most laughable part, for those who are experienced and have been on this site for a long time, is when that idiot, Tom, from Oly used to claim that their guns had tighter tollerances.  This was the explanation given for their out of spec chambers and such....   As though all the good gun manufacturers where beneath Oly's high standards.

You know what, I got my Oly Plinker Plus out to compare it to my new Daniel Defense and I am still surprised at the quality of it.

The only thing that I really can say bad about it is that the key isn't staked but 10 minutes of my time and problem solved.

It doesn't have M4 ramps or barrel extension either.

It locks up just as tight as my Daniel Defense, fit and finish is just as good, whether the parts are as good is irrelevant to me because I am not a high round shooter.  If it all came apart, I would grab my Daniel first but I wouldn't hesitate to use my Oly if it was all I had.  Neither rifle has any noticeable shake to it.

It has ran flawlessly and considering that I only paid $550 for it...well

New

An Oly was my first AR.Still have it.No problems in 1000's of rounds.Build quality is pretty good,BCG is staked.I have no complaints with this rifle.
Two weeks ago, I checked out a new production Oly.Piece of shit.Poor build quality,rough finish, and BCG was not staked.That this rifle passed QC in this day and age should be an embarrasment to Olympic Arms.A friend of mine who worked at the store said all the ones they received had been like that.
Before this, I had never really understood why people bashed Oly, my rifle worked fine.Now I see the concern.
I can't in good conscience recommend this companies product .

Here is an Oly 16" M4 SS barreled upper on a Mushy lower. It was the only upper that I purchsed during the '94 AWB and had the barrel threaded and put on an A2 FH a week after the sunset of the AWB.

I have thought of selling it on numerous occasions but its a shooter, very accurate and reliable. Wolf was hard on the extractors, but I reload and we havent had any issues w/ brass reloads.

Did I mention how worn the finish is?

As long as its a forged lower.

I have three cast Oly lowers and they are crap. Two of the three have become unservicable.

My first AR was a Preban Oly MFR 1:9 carbine.

-The bolt catch is "custom fitted" and very hard to release the bolt. Other companies would call it an out of speck lower but to oly is custom fitted.

-The first time I shot it the forward assist broke. Yes, the forward assist!

-in under 1,000 rounds the extractor spring collapsed. Not just fatigued, pancaked.

-It keyholes at 25 yards with Hornady TAP 55Gn ammo.

-Over the years using the rifle has caused the lower to wear in the area of the bolt catch spring and detent. Leading to overactuation of the bolt catch on an empty mag. basically the hole for the spring and detent has augered out from the steel bolt catch on the cast aluminum lower. Two of my three oly lowers have this problem.

-perhaps 50% of new uppers will mate with the lower, its a crap shoot.

-Commercial spec buffer tube, not staked.

-Weak hammer spring would not fire hard surplus primers.

-Trigger components resemble DPMS. If DPMS parts were black spray painted pot metal.

-Resulting trigger pull due to weak hammer spring and soft trigger components is a light, long and mushy trigger pull.

-Selector doesnt click into the safe and fire positions. Its just sort of a friction fit.

Its the worst rifle in my safe and doesnt get used much.  Its only had 2,196 rounds through it and has had 7 stoppages unrelated to the broken forward assist and collapsed extractor spring.

I bought an Olymipc arms AR in 1991.  It was a kit gun, but assembled by the same armourer that did my .45's and he built a lot of them for sale through his shop.   Mine was set up for national match shooting in a heavy under the hand guards barrel and a more or less A2 configuration (A1 uppers were the norm then and A2's all but unavailable).

I put several thousands rounds through it over the next few years and it was both extremely relaible and very accurate.  It would do 1 MOA 5 shot groups with the iron sights and would more than cut that in half with a scope attached.

So...I agree some Olys are pretty poor (factory or otherwise) and some Olys were kit guns that were not properly assembled and are pretty poor, but some are obviously very reliable, accurate and well finished.

The moral here is that, if you are shooter, you buy the rifle and determine the worth by how it looks and performs not by the logo on the side of the receiver. If you are a wannabe or someone who shoots comparatively little and sits on the couch having fantasies about the end of the civilization and the need for a shtf rifle, maybe the logo counts more.  I don't know.

Logos with proven track records definitely count more.

If fit, finish and finesse are mark of a reliable rifle then AKs would be complete junk and utterly unreliable.