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Posted: 7/11/2004 6:40:57 AM EDT
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Hi, are there any steel-made upper receivers on the market? How good are they and how expensive? Any hints are very welcome. 
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| I want to build a "24 varmint upper with a bullbarrel with a free float tube. I think using a steel upper in combination with this heavy weight barrel just hold by this "small" nut gives me a different feeling for durability and safety. I want to go to Denmark on a shooting event where in some deciplines we have to shoot more than 30 rd in rapid fire and the idea of heating up the alloy receiver with that "24 bullbarrel as a front weight gives me that "certain feeling" |
I would not worry about it. The receiver does not heat up that much, at least I have never noticed it. Now the barrel will heat up, but I have yet to get a hot receiver. As a highpower shooter we shoot 20 round rapid fire strings and if you shoot the NTIT (Camp Perry) commonly called Rattle Battle, we shoot much more in a time limit of 50 seconds. Some will shoot as much as 30-35 rounds or so in 50 seconds. I have yet to see or hear of a problem with this. Many that shoot match rifles in highpower have barrels of 26" and some even with 28", again no problems. In short, you are worried about nothing. It is a non problem. Besides, I have yet to see one made out of steel. There may be some, but I have yet to find one. Maybe that is for a reason. Perhaps a solution in search of a problem? |
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Hey Theo, How's the house coming? Hope it's going well. With a proper functioning rifle, the upper receiver is really just a guide for the bolt carrier and really doesn't see much stress in the firing cycle. The bolt/carrier and barrel are where all the action is. Once the shell is fired, the bolt carrier rides back against the buffer spring pressure, inside the upper receiver, and is returned by spring pressure for the next round. If you had a really screwed up gas system that was pounding your buffer hard against the end of your buffer tube, then you might start seeing some problems but much of that stress would be exerted to the lower receiver, where the buffer tube threads into the lower reciever. Some may be transferred to the upper receiver through the take-down pins, but not enough to even worry about. I wouldn't worry about the upper receiver at all. Think about it this way. There are thousands of M16s out there right now with aluminum receivers being abused (in full auto much of the time) many times more than you could ever abuse yours. Good shooting! |
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The AR is supposed to be aluminum, there is VERY little stress on the reciever halves.... All the high-stress parts (barrel, barrel extension, bolt, boltcarier) are steel allready... The only reason I could think of to use steel is stainless, for a corrosive-environment (salt water?) safe environment... |
Okay maybe I was worrying too much about that. I read some article in a german magazine ( Caliber ) where they gave hints that this problem was one of the reasons for Richard Swan to invent his early "rigid frame " in the 80´s and later on the SIR system. Anyway building up a good upper is mostly more than twice expensive here in Germany than in the US and so I wanted to buy the "best" parts for my next upper to have something I could give my grandchildren in 50 years ( we´re still planning on our first kid  Thanks for the info. @ mongo : thanks , everything is fine - the roof will be my "never ending story" I guess but we have finished with the rest. Do you still got your ARMS rails for sale which you offered I think in may ? |
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