About a year and a half ago, I bought a 16" BRN-180 Gen 1 upper assembly and a BRN-180 lower and built my first build of this nature. Well, a few weeks ago, I decided to buy a Gen 2 BRN-180S upper assembly. I wanted another BRN-180 lower, but there was no speculation as to when they would be available again. I then turned my attention toward the 17DM-180 lower made by 17 Design & Mfg. as it was designed specifically for the BRN-180 uppers. Since this was going to be a pistol build, I wanted to use the new Gear Head Works Tailhook Mod 1 and some sort of folding support for it. I originally wanted the Midwest Industries new brace support, but they are out of stock until who knows when. I continued looking until I found something to my liking and that was an offering from A3 Tactical. Here are the specs on both builds.
Not really any classic AR-18/180 stuff out for the BRN-180. Brownells is working in conjunction with B5 Systems on a folding AR-18/180 style stock, but that is about it.
Just wondering. I have a Howa 180. The weak link is obviously the proprietary magazine and while conversions aren’t hard, Pmag options don’t exist. So an updated 180 that took AR mags and had a more modern barrel twist would be pretty cool.
I would love to get an AR-180, but the magazines are an issue. I have read that standard AR-15 USGI type magazines can be modified to work with the AR-180.
My black Friday purchase was a forged BRN 180 lower, a MI picatinny folding stock (from Brownells), a Tailhook Mod1 (from Barrett) and an 11.25" FM15 upper (from AIM). Literally everything I got for it was on sale and I paid for some of it with Brownells gift cards which worked out to another 20% off (buy $100, get $25 free). I think it was the least expensive way to get a no buffer tube 5.56x45 AR pistol built on a picatinny rail upper (no adapter) with a nice folding brace.
The not so great news is that I got an email from FM, the initial batch of 11.25" FM15 uppers might have the gas port drilled too small. If I can’t get mine running right, they will ship it and fix it so it might be slightly delayed gratification.
The upper comes with a picatinny adapter for threaded AR lowers that the BRN 180 lower obviously doesn’t need. I’m thinking of putting the adapter on a Polymer80 lower to use with a dedicated .22lr upper.
I think the FM15 should turn out nice and very packable. Some day I’ll get a suppressor for it too, that will be even more fun.
Well, it looks like my plans might not work out. FM doesn’t mention it but their picatinny adapter for standard receivers is actually a recoil buffer for the bolt too. They won’t warranty running it without the adapter. I’m going to do some measurements and see if there is space to mount a urethane buffer inside my BRN 180 lower but making everything fit without a custom machined buffer seems kind of unlikely. The upside is that I just need a plain AR lower to make it work.
The FDE airsoft one was much quicker. All you do is eyeball how much of the rear of the G36 hand guard to chop to get it to slide back over the BRN180 to the right spot. To keep it oriented snug to the top of the BRN180 top rail with no wiggle, you’ll need to put a shim into the bottom of the inside of the G36 HG. I had a piece of plastic scrap from an old project that worked perfectly. Once you slide it on, you can slide a bolt (1.25” if I recall) through the top hole on the G36 HG to engage a slot in the top rail of the BrN180 HG. The black one was a real HK part and required mods to remove heat shielding and a molded in screw along with some of the plastic on the interior of the G36 part to get it to work.
Renegade04,
What break-in period (If any) did you need before they ran 100%? A lot of other users had issues that went away after a few hundred rounds. Was this your experience?
