I am looking to go from my factory Colt M4 14.5" to a 12.5". My first thought was to have one of our armorers simply replace the barrel, but now I’m not so sure. Rifle will be carried daily as a duty weapon and stored in an overhead rack inside a cruiser. Not looking for anything fancy, just a functional shooter. Cost is certainly a factor as I will be paying for this out of pocket. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
Im using a Noveske Crusader barrel and like it but it’ll run you around 4 bills. For patrol use you might consider a BCM chrome lined setup.
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Just cut your current barrel.
Cutting a factory Colt barrel is probably the last thing I would do. If you have confidence in your dept. armorer then I would explore the option of getting a new barrel and rebarreling.
Another options is to sell the Colt upper complete (which you will get a good price for) and then buy a BCM upper and drop it on.
My BCM upper has had over 4K rounds through it and it has yet to have a malfunction, firing suppressed or unsuppressed.
I don’t see a problem with cutting on Colt barrels, I have lots of them and unlike ten years ago, they are easy and cheap to buy. And when I get them cut I know the threads are concentric and the gas port is whatever I wanted it to be.
Thanks for all of the info. After much emailing I decided on the DS Arms ZM-4 10.5" Upper. They just starting roducing uppers with barrels shorter than 14.5" so they’re not even on the website yet. I couldn’t pass up the price:
Upper $275
BCG $100
CH $13
Quad $120
Here is the link:
http://www.dsarms.com/DSA-ZM4-Forged-7075T6-A3-AR15-Upper-Receiver---DSZM4CBU/productinfo/DSZM4CBU
So you’re going from an excellent Colt… to DS Arms…
sigh
Do you have a negative experience with DS to share? I searched here and at the other site, but other than the odd customer service or lead time gripe, I could find nothing to eliminate them from consideration. They have been very responsive to my multiple inquiries which is more than I can say about some others.
BCM is, IMO, the only way to go other than Noveske. Dont have any experience with Centurion but from what Ive seen on here, they are top notch as well.
BCM 12.5
A chrome moly 1/9 twist that 99% sure hasn’t been HP/MPI tested and inspected. Pretty much in the same category as BM, CMMG, Delton, etc…
Good luck with it.
Dont go cheap on a duty weapon!:mad:
Well, now everyone has me second guessing myself. I’ve already ordered the upper, so when it arrives I’ll let the Armorer inspect it and go from there. Hopefully, it will zero fine and I’ll have no issues. Worst case, I can probably sell it for what I paid for it and get a BCM.
I am sure it will zero fine. But the last place you want to cut corners is on an SBR. If you have a Ned Christiansen chamber gage I would check it and see if it passes the test.
Also another thing you need to consider is what size gas port they are using. I would contact them and ask. I’ll be somewhat surprised if they can answer it.
Ok; thanks for the info. If they do answer it, what is the the answer I’m looking for?
Nothing. It’s just good to know if this thing is going to be overgassed from the get go because you will more than likely need to figure out which buffer to use.
While you’re at it, you could ask them if their barrels are true 5.56 or not. This way you will know if you need to worry about stuck casings.
I asked your questions and it took a day for this reply:
“Sorry I was out of the office on business. The port is roughly 78 and the barrel is in fact a 5.56 not 223.”
Well that’s good news. Just remember with the 1/9 you will have to try out the loads over 69gr. to see if they will work in your set up.
We’re only supposed to use issued practice and duty ammo in departmental weapons; both of which are 55gr so I should be ok. Thanks.
Yea I am about to do my first SBR build and I am hand picking parts from Noveske and Larue tactical. You definitely want the finest parts in your duty weapon. IT took me about a week to make my parts list. The total on the upper came out to $1,240.00.