If you REALLY want an adjustable stock on your AR...

[lowracer 0]

some company is releasing a monte carlo-stocked and slightly reshaped AR-15 either this year or next.

That would be blackstar arms. http://www.blackstararms.com/ Though I haven't seen any activity out of them lately.

Me personally, I simply don't see the point of over-neutering the rifle like these ARs above. I can't understand how a collapsible stock could possibly be worth trading for that awful looking grip. Especially in NJ where who knows, the AG/NJSP who can make up rules about guns as they go along, can simply decide to call that a pistol grip and throw you to the lions, on a whim.

Well in CA at least it's probably 50% the desire to have the AR rifle benefits, modularity, ability to drop 30-rounders with a finger press, etc, and 50% desire to extend a knobby middle finger to the CA Dept of Justice (DOJ) Bureau of Firearms and CA legislature. At least in CA there is some kind of legal deadlock the legislature and the DOJ have gotten themselves into, with law on one side and conflicting regulation on the other and whooops, there's a hole there big enough to drive truckloads of legal AR lower receivers through. So by building the evil AR, no matter if crippled with a mag lock or configured with an alternate grip, they get to make their oppressors wet their pants. Many people there buy way more lower receivers than they can possibly use just to raise that collective middle finger even more.

 

As much as their laws suck, at least California is clear about what they consider a pistol grip or not, what constitutes a proper magazine lock, exact model by model listing of the ban list and not "_____-type" etc.

 

But hey, to each his own. Me personally, I'd rather not have a stock that not only neuters my rifle even more than it needs to be, but also requires me to have an attorney on speed dial. :shock:

I understand completely. In the early days of the OLL (Off-List (legal) Lower receiver) movement in CA, shooters were uncertain about the laws and there was much fear and trepidation in deploying even something so now widely accepted as the bullet button mag lock. There was an arrest made and legal action taken against an FFL for selling rifles fitted with one of the alternate non-pistol-grip stocks; the FFL prevailed, and the DOJ was slapped down. So I guess there is always someone willing to be the test case, and lawyers willing to step up and defend that case. We've sold a bunch of Hammerheads into the northeast now, so time will tell. We do recommend shooters deploy only Type I or Type II configurations there though. There are also a fair number of "free state" customers who just want to hold their AR like a wooden rifle and don't see it as neutering at all.

 

Just FYI we now produce the product in engineered polymer. Got the weight and the price down where they need to be, based on our market surveys. Expecting to have these shipping by the end of the month. Weight is approx 5 oz. This is a photo of a preproduction sample:

 

[Malsua 1,422]

 

Just FYI we now produce the product in engineered polymer. Got the weight and the price down where they need to be, based on our market surveys. Expecting to have these shipping by the end of the month. Weight is approx 5 oz. This is a photo of a preproduction sample:

 

 

I'd be tempted to get that just because it looks different. What's the street price on that one?

[lowracer 0]

MSRP on the polymer is $36 + ship. Shipping is $2.25 via US Postal 1st class. We're taking pre-orders...

[Melgamatic 66]

I ordered one of the Polymer Hammerheads. At $36, I'm willing to buy one to see what it's like, plus lowracer strikes me as a nice guy, so I'm even more willing to give it a try. I guess I have to find a pistol buffer tube, too, and then I'll build one once the Polymer Hammerhead ships.

 

-Dave

[lowracer 0]

Thanks for the pre-order! The best price I've found on a pistol buffer tube is the Rock River arms tube at $25 direct from their website. Depends on if you want one with a foam cover. Ace makes a decent one as does Model 1 sales.

[KpdPipes 388]

By the way Low, which pistol Buffer is that in the Picture for the Polymer Pre-Prod model??

It's a pretty cool concept, and i'm probably going to oder one eve if it's just for the parts box until i get an extra lower to play with that isnt already build-spoken for.

[lowracer 0]

By the way Low, which pistol Buffer is that in the Picture for the Polymer Pre-Prod model??

 

That's the Rock River Arms tube that I mentioned in a previous post. Some people like foam covered tubes, but I keep coming back to the RRA tube. It's a fairly badass look too, IMHO.

[lowracer 0]

Thought I'd share some photos of the injection molding process. It's really quite fascinating.

 

Tooling (mold) for the Hammerhead. You can see the cavity that forms the outer shape of the Hammerhead about center of the image toward the right. Note cooling fluid lines running top and bottom vertically. The molten polymer material comes into the mold around 500 degrees F and the mold itself is so massive and gets so hot during molding that it has to cool down for hours before they can remove it to do another customer's part.

 

A newly formed Hammerhead, ready to be extracted from the mold.

 

Shop owner removes the rear insert. The insert holds cylinders that produce the threaded section and the anti-rotation hole as well as the cylindrical "cores" inside the part to help it cool evenly and make it more lightweight.

 

After the newly formed Hammerhead is ejected, it goes into a jig to have the threaded core section removed. This is a threaded steel cylinder that forms the threads and the largest core inside the Hammerhead. The product is still too hot to touch without special insulated gloves.

 

This is the hopper. Pellets of raw polymer material go in the hopper and are melted and forced into the mold by a large screw.

 

Here is the shop owner operating the machine. The timing of the injection, cooling, and extracting process is all controlled by a built-in computer. This guy's been in the plastics business for more than 30 years and mostly makes parts for the defense industry. They do a lot of polymer gun parts, magazine bodies and grip extenders. The shop has at least two dozen or more of these machines. They run three shifts 24/7.

 

After the Hammerhead has had its rear threaded core removed, an anti-shrink jig is placed between the tabs of the pistol grip mounting area (The jig hasn't been completed yet so for these samples they are using a bolt of the appropriate diameter, works almost as well and much cheaper). Polymer shrinks when it cools. If the tabs were not blocked in this manner, they would bow inwards and be very difficult to fit to the receiver. These Hammerheads are still too hot to touch. The big red bin at top of the image is filled with ice water. The parts go in there to cool. After removal from the ice water they can be handled with bare hands but remain very hot to touch for several hours afterward. The blacked out section covers a prototype of a future product I'm not ready to reveal yet.

[NJgunowner86 0]

Awesome pictures, thanks for sharing.

[Melgamatic 66]

Just got an email that my Hammerhead shipped today!