Exactly what is wrong with Olympic Arms AR15s?

[DaveHH]

The receiver is machined out of an aluminum billet, no cast, no forge. It works great and is dead reliable. I put a RRA trigger in it and it shoots very well.

[BottleBaby]

Most of it boils down to parts inspection. That's why you here so many points of view - one guy got a good one that lasts, another guy may not have gotten so lucky.

But parts quality and assembly quality figure in there, depending upon what specific model you are talking about.

This compares carbines - http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?k...jFwPrgTA&hl=en

[DaveHH]

they specifically say that their barrels are marked 5.56 but are CHAMBERED for .223. I have a 1/9 heavy barrel that is unmarked except for "5.56" from their website I found that it is 4140 steel chambered for .223.

[Bob Womack]

After this came up, it aroused my interest so I called them and waited through the on-hold thing. Their customer service rep said that all button-rifled barrels are 5.56. Mine is button-rifled.

Bob

[ralfus]

The only issue that I had with Olympics/SGW was the tight magwells. One was from 1990 and 3 from 2001. Mags that fit in other brand rifles would be a tight/non-drop free fit in the Olympics. This was with both Aluminum 30's and Orlite mags.

[texfed]

I have an AR, which I built some time ago using an Olympic receiver. Now the rifle is 100% early milsurp M16A1 with the exception of the trigger group. With this in mind..all the other components are Colt early military. I wanted a semi auto that looked exactly like the M16A1 I carried in '71.

The rifle ticks along like a dream and groups with the best of em....it has a Colt chrome lined military 'pencil' barrel.

With all this said....the receiver performs just as well as a Colt would.

[mercman]

I've built nine rilfles on Oly/SGW receivers and have never had any problems. The only Oly gun that I ever had problems with was a 9mm CAR that jammed frequently. I live fairly close to SGW so drove down there and the shop guys took care of the problem for me by grinding some clearance on the hammer surface. It worked fine after that but I ended up trading it off later.

[zertouche]

Two OLY/SGW lowers here. Not a single problem, not a single gripe. Pins are still tight and solid with zero issues after many thousands of rounds. A couple of bright spots where their semi gloss black coating was scuffed off but that is so minor, I have a hard time mentioning it.

Believe me, I have seriously abused them both. I am on my third upper between the two. One of which has an old A1 GI chrome lined pencil tube that puches black all day. I wish I had bought a dozen of them.

[Wolley]

Nothing is wrong with the Oly.
K8 Target Match
220yds!!
The first group has a weird flyer below the three. Trigger slipped.
Who says ya can't shoot 77s from a 1:9 twist barrel?

[Victor Six Bravo]

The problem is consistency. I've shot a couple Olys that shot good, about as well as any other maker. And I've shot some that were craptacular and would not keep the rounds anywhere in close association with each other (6" or better groups) off a rest.

They are probably much better now than six or seven years ago, but I still would not use an Oly without severe testing for anything more than plinking/varmint rifle. Not if my life depended on it.