I purchased the 16" middie stainless steel carbine kit with MOE furniture from PSA. It came with everything needed to build a complete carbine with the exception of a stripped lower receiver, magazine and rear site. A PSA stripped lower and MagPul MBUS were also ordered. The kit was $560, and with the MBUS and shipping came to $645. It was shipped by UPS and came in two separate packages. Lower was ordered during the Memorial Day Sale for $57 (including shipping) and when picked up, will cost roughly an additional $50 to cover transfer fees & Washington state tax. That’s $745 for a complete carbine with MOE forearm, grip and stock, if you’ve already got magazines. Wait was about two or three weeks for the kit and the lower will be arriving at the local gunshop this coming week. The LPK comes with a standard single stage trigger. As much as I like the Geisselle, I figured to give this one a good, honest try.
Here’s the upper, fully assembled and complete with BCG and charging handle, as it arrived from PSA. In the special instructions, I asked for the MOE furniture to be FDE and that’s how the forearm came. The grip and stock came black. No problem, a friend bought the grip & stock and I’ll get FDE replacements locally.
Bolt is marked MPI
and gas key looks properly staked to my amateur’s eye. If it’s not, please educate me.
Here’s the BCG stripped. It was coated with a preservative which was cleaned off before shooting
It looks like PSA used a generous amount of grease on the barrel nut during installation. It can be seen where it oozed out of the barrel nut. No Loctite here.
The receiver extension is milspec and the buffer simply has the PSA logo. PSA website says it’s a standard PSA buffer.
Since I don’t have the PSA lower receiver yet and was impatient to shoot my new carbine, I dropped the upper onto the lower for my precision rifle. Push pull, click click! New carbine that quick!
My brother assembled a PSA 14.5" M4 carbine. Compared to the M4, the SS carbine on the lower with UBR stock is heavier and doesn’t feel as lively. The profile of the 16" stainless steel barrel is similar to the Gov, where it’s thinner under the handguards than it is ahead of the gasblock. Still, it’s quick on target and the sights line up as soon as it hits the shoulder. With Magpul mags, it runs 100%. With a Brownell’s mag, I had two failures to feed, each occurred roughly half way through the magazine. It was a new, untried magazine and I haven’t been able to replicate the problem since. (EDIT: The failures did again occur with the same mags during the next range session. More later.) Only 200 rounds have been fired so far, but I can promise there will be more to follow. A trip to the range is planned for a formal sighting in. What’s surprising isn’t that I like the AR carbine, but that I like it so much! It’s easy to shoot, almost like an overgrown .22. Recoil, though a bit sharp compared to 20" rifles, is easy to manage. The MBUS has two apertures, one large enough to drive a bus through and that makes it fast to use. The MOE forearm does get just a little warm. The FSB and, of course, the barrel get downright hot!
I haven’t shot it for groups and so far it’s only been roughly sighted in during a weekend camping trip in the Cascades, but I’m able consistently hit fist sized targets out to a guesstimated 100 yards.
I’ve learned a few things as well. The 16" barrel proved to be very handy while moving down the trail through the thick forest. Most of my hunting rifles have 22" barrels and while they aren’t a problem when I carry them in hand, the shortness of the carbine, especially with the stock collapsed, made it easier to carry while slung.
When hiking, normally I simply sling my rifle over my shoulder. The AR is the first I have used the modern two point sling carry with. It was amazing how much easier it was to carry a carbine this way, negotiating the over-grown trail. While hiking with the kids, I slung the rifle across my back.
The last morning of our trip taught me something else. Just about daybreak, I took the trail alone and snuck down to the river to try for some pictures of the deer and elk we saw the prints of the day before. Halfway along, I heard a heavy pair of thumps, then another pair. I stopped and listened, camera at the ready. I didn’t see anything, but I could hear a large animal moving away through the forest. I thought perhaps it was a deer stamping in alarm. However, they usually only stamp one foot.
The river was a short distance further, and as luck would have it, I didn’t find any wildlife. But a search for new sign along the water’s edge led to a discovery that startled me. Bear tracks. That’s when the cold realization of what the thumps I had heard earlier meant. A bear!
We have black bears in the Cascades and they usually leave humans alone. This one had simply moved off. However, that’s a rather large paw print and I wasn’t going to take any chances during my return to camp through the thick forest.
A round was quietly loaded into the chamber using the forward assist and the rifle slung to the front. A few practice runs were tried and the carbine came to the shoulder quickly with the sights aligned on target each time. I didn’t run into the bruin again, but it gave me confidence to know my rifle could be brought into action quickly if needed, faster than any other sling method I’ve yet tried. While I admit I was at first a skeptic, I am now a firm believer (I owe a special thanks to all who took the time to explain the modern carry to this hardhead in another thread). It’s also why all my firearms must be reliable.
The stainless steel may not last as long as hammer forged 4150 chrome lined steel, but it’ll take enough rounds to wear it out that I’ll be proud to replace it when it does. It has the 1/8 twist and should handle the longer bullets easily. The MOE forearm fits my hand much better than the round style. That alone makes it worth the extra money. The original style charging handle has more flex than a Gunfighter and the smaller handle makes it more difficult to manipulate, but should last long enough to save up for a Gunfighter.
The FSB sling swivel is coated with a plastic- the HK snap I’m using has already worn through it. To be fair, the swivel was meant to take a sling, not the snap and the swivel remains functional. It’s also a stop gap until I can get a QD cup mounted.
So far, the PSA upper has proven to be money well spent. I’ll know more about the lower once it’s built. I’ll post pictures of the lower parts later
(Edited for clarity)
