Hey guys,
I’m working on building my first carbine and I’ve been doing a lot of reading on these forums to learn about exactly what I want. I recently bought a stripped Stag lower so I’m researching upper assemblies. After using the search function many times, I’ve determined that I want a 16" midlength gas system. I’m looking for LMT level quality in a midlength. Unfortunately BCM seems to be the consensus pick but will not have any uppers in stock for the foreseeable future. Other than BCM, only Sabre and CMMG really make a midlength system (I’m not considering RRA or Stag for quality reasons). Most people here prefer Sabre over CMMG.
My questions are thus:
How close is Sabre to BCM or LMT? I’m talking about barrel accuracy and reliability here - I’ve read the entire “Chart” thread.
If I buy this assembly at PK firearms with the Sabre Barrel and opt for the Sabre receiver upgrade for $475 without the BCG and then order an LMT or BCM BCG from somewhere else, will I have an LMT quality midlength?
Should I be concerned that the gas tube and other small parts in this deal may not have been done at Sabre or is the Sabre stamp on the barrel and receiver enough? Essentially, can I trust PK Firearms?
If this Sabre assembly turns out to be a poor choice, I guess my only other options would be finding Sabre elsewhere, CMMG (not really an option in my mind anymore), or getting Denny to make an upper with his Operator barrel.
I really appreciate the info and knowledge that is available here - thanks in advance for any replies.
I have been thinking about doing the exact same thing with the upper assembly from PKFirearms, saber barrel and receiver less BCG.
Grant, are you suggesting buying the upper receiver and barrel separately because PKFirearms isnot up to the task of putting together a quality upper. $475 does seem quite low for a Sabre Defense upper so my spidy sense is kicking up too.
Well, I have the SD dealer price sheet in front of me. There is NO WAY that you can buy a factory built SD upper for the prices quoted on the PK’s firearms. So something isn’t quite right.
Well its $475 without the BCG. Still seems like a pretty crazy deal so I was wondering if anybody else had dealt with PK Firearms - are these legit Sabre barrels and upper receivers?
Thanks for the input Grant. Do you still carry Sabre? I didn’t see anything on your site…
PK Firearms has fast shipping and they answer questions very quickly too, but I’m with Grant on this. It sounds like PK is building these uppers (using Sabre components), not Sabre.
As far as Sabre quality goes, their stuff is very good quality. I own two of their chrome lined middy barrels and couldn’t be happier with them.
and PK Firearms lists the Sabre 1/7 chrome lined middy barrel as $329 on their site…something isn’t adding up here…
I talked to PK on the phone and the guy in the shop said that they buy the barrels and receivers separately and put them together at PK - barrels and receivers are stamped with Sabre. Would assembly at a warehouse with quality Sabre parts be a bad thing? I can’t imagine the gas tube, etc can be really messed up but I’m really new to this…
Talon Arms has them cheaper than that right now on sale. Rainier Arms is close to PK’s price too. There must be some volume discount or something that we don’t know of.
I would trust PK that if they say it is a Sabre barrel than it is. They are somewhat well know in the AR building circles and like all other companies that belong there have too much to lose by making fraudulent claims about their products for sale.
Regarding sabre vs BCM, I have one of each on shooting guns.
They shoot about the same, both very consistent, thus far reliable (bcm at about 2500 rounds, Sd at 3500-4000). Granted my sample size is small, but the BCM I have seems to have a slight edge on precision, but not that much to be noticeable.
The Sabre barrels I have are all stamped like crazy, with twist, CMV, lot numbers… Pretty easy to ID.
The price quoted on PK’s site is for a Sabre barrel with CMT upper according to the last I spoke to them. They are not assembled by Sabre. I was told that I could have a Sabre upper for an additional charge but it still isn’t a factory assembled upper.
So does “factory assembled” make a difference? I know that Sabre only makes the barrell and upper receiver - the gas tube, handguards, etc are outsourced. So if they are genuine Sabre parts but not assembled by Sabre, will it matter?
While we’re on the Sabre topic… do all Sabre uppers have the Sabre name lasered on them? In other words if you buy a sabre upper rec, it should say sabre on it, right?
Quick story. Was talking to one of the SD guys about something and we got on the subject of dealers buying their barrels and then putting various uppers and BCG together and selling them as “SD uppers.” SD gets a warranty call about a problem upper. So they have the guy send in his “SD upper.” Come to find out, the upper was not assembled properly and only the poorest quality components were used.
IMHO, I would only buy AR’s built by certain dealers.
