I remember there being a long list of high-quality attributes of the LMT rifles, but I can’t remember what they were. A friend is asking me about it, and I know you guys will give me the right answers for him.
Having owned a Defender for over 13 years now & with many many thousands of rounds, plus reading & watching videos and articles on them-
MY opinion is its just overall build quality with in house made parts they have all the QC over, and innovative designs on the high end stuff.
The barrels are awesome, and I think are still cryo treated…I know mine was…just an extra step some argue for, some agin.
In my several decades of parusing gun shops, Ive only seen ONE on a shelf for sale…and I bought it quick as lightning on the spot. It is hands down my go to weapon, the first thing Id grab
should I need a rifle. Dead balls reliable, still shoots better than me, runs every mag type/brand you put in it, just lovely. The one & only black mark was the factory trigger. It was horrendous out of the box and for a couple years before I dropped in a Velocity 4lb trigger. Simply tits ever since.
At this point I will take an LMT over a Colt. But good luck finding either
I remember something about magnetic particle something or other and some kind of proofing. Also something about LMT being a top-tier brand which actually sells to US military and complies with true Mil-Spec. . .
Can anyone shed more light on this? Do I have it right?
What actually sets LMT apart?
Besides all the info about outstanding quality, one thing I respect about them is that they’re more active towards commercial sales over the past few years. Even though they’re busy fulfilling military contracts to New Zealand and Estonia, they still haven’t ignored us non-gov purchasers (cough Colt). My MRP was my first AR and it’s been lights out accurate. Molon has done some write-ups on the accuracy of their barrels in the past, well worth a read!
Best of all, IIRC, they’re still privately owned.
They were one of the initial suppliers for the Mk18 project, so they had access to the TDP, hence the belief that the spec and QC followed to the commercial side. The old chart back in the day showed that they did almost everything to the TDP spec, minus parkerizing under the front sight base (big whoop), semi-auto BCGs, and carbine buffer (non-H). Full MPI inspections on barrel and bolt, proper metals for both as well. One other knock was that they used MIM carrier keys, but I don’t think that was proven to be detrimental.
LMT is simply a high quality manufacturer with some Mil contracts. The only knock on LMT (which isn’t a big deal for most users) is that they phosphate their barrels with the FSB in place and they don’t use taper pins on their FSBs.
Plus they moved operations from Il to Iowa.
Colt won the Mk18 contract, so that pretty much says it all. And that Henderson place is saying they get 50-100% more rounds out of Colt BCGs, compared to LMT and DD. That’s not to say LMT is bad, not at all, just that Colt is ahead of the curve, for the same price or less.
There’s also been rampant speculation about whether LMT conforms to the TDP for their commercial sales. Colt is still to date the only manufacturer that unequivocally says they provide the same parts to their civilian customers as they do to military and law enforcement.
Now LMT’s enhanced stuff is a whole different story. The Colt heat treat, while very cost effective, is merely a bandaid, whereas the LMT bolts (and by extension KAC’s as well) actually fix the problem, albeit at great expense. That said, I’ve heard conflicting reports as to whether the bolts will last indefinitely on Mk18s, which might be why SOCOM passed them up in favor of the Colts. Who knows. There’s not any clear answer how long an enhanced bolt will last in an SBR, if they last longer than Colt’s new ones, or if so by how long. They’re so much more expensive, and the information is so non specific, I couldn’t justify the cost or sacrifice of interchangeability. I hope in the future there will be some solid data on them.
When did Colt change their bolts?
LMT has some cool stuff with the MRP and their ambi lowers are nice.
Basic carbine vs basic carbine? I think a Colt has a slight edge, but an LMT is real close.
Sometime in the early 2000s iirc. For SBRs it’s more than a slight edge. More like the difference between predictable failure, vs. random self destruct.
I have posted before as to my experience with LMT. Two defenders both had the SA BCG and C buffers. I asked them why and never received an answer, nor would they answer me at SHOT. IG said is was a cost cutting method. Both of my BCG’s had substandard staking and the gas keys came loose. The CS was rather negative. Hence I repaired them and replaced the C buffers with H buffers. They have been extremely reliable thereafter.
I bought a complete LMT lower that was out of spec. The bolt catch/release plunger was wedged into the recess. It took me 2 hours to get it out. CS was terrible. they were arrogant and actually tried to blame the gun store?? I had to drill the recess to fix the issue.
However, I have built many lowers using LMT stripped lowers. They have been in spec and good to go.
Between my defenders, which have been reliable since I fixed them, and my colt 6920, I will take my colt every day of the week and twice on Sunday.
YMMV, Cheers, Steve
When LMTs patent expires for the mono upper the entire industry will change forever.
Man that’s disheartening to say the very least. Sounds like Aero is better quality for less money. Shoot, sounds like even Anderson is better. PSA for sure.
I actually had that happen to one. If it ever happens to anyone else, take a 5/32 drill bit and HAND HOLD it, push the detent in with it and gently turn to remove to offending material. The detent will release, then clean up the hole, touch up if necessary. Takes 5 minutes.
A 13.5” MLOK monolithic Colt with their 16” mid barrel would be ok.
You would think so, but I don’t see the Vltor VIS series flying off the shelves or in pictures. I will point out that I think Vltor needs to quit playing games and start up MLOK production. I don’t care how invested they are in Keymod, or how well it works, it doesn’t change that MLOK is what is currently selling.
All the monolithic stuff is heavy and expensive. You have to have a real use case for it to make it pay.
Colts made in then last two years or so are just mediocre at best. Their customer service is non-existent. Why anyone under 50 would buy one, other than for re-selling it to someone even older than them, when so many other options exist is beyond me.
Which Colt model would most directly compare to a Defender 2000 Standard Model 16? . . . a 6920?