Once a year or so, Wilson will have a blowout sale...last time I think the "blem" lowers, which just had the slightest scuff marks from sitting on a shelf with others, were $49 each. Just sign up for their offers and announcement and wait for the sales. With AR demand being pretty low and prices down all across the board, I'd think they'd be priced similar again at some point.

quote:

Originally posted by sigfreund:
If you wanted to have several good quality stripped AR lowers on hand, what would you buy?

I don’t necessarily want the most expensive (even if the best for some reason), but I’m not looking for cheap for the sake of being cheap, either. For example, even the most expensive Wilson Combat receivers are less than $200 and I’d be willing to pay that much if desirable.

I can highly recommend FNH lowers. They have a few different models, but my recent experience was with the FN-15 stripped lower. Fit finish, quality, and value were excellent. Very impressed. The lower quickly morphed into this:

quote:

Originally posted by SigSauerP226:
I don’t know if I could recommend Aero right now, I’m still waiting on a stripped lower bought on Black Friday. LGS didn’t have any in stock and ordered one for me. Called a couple times and order hasn’t been processed by Aero. Google the shit and I see many unhappy Aero customers waiting forever for random products, but FFL stuff like lowers seem to be the worst. Idk what’s going on over there right now.

I was a happy Aero dealer for a good bit, sold a ton of lowers, some uppers and parts as well

then they got a bit odd on dealer pricing,

sales rep was not very communicative on deals and sales (I'm talking dealer pricing) and had several instances where I placed a large order, got charged and then about the time of delivery they would run a sale that could have saved me several hundred bucks to a grand or more,

with an oh well, next time wait till we run a sale type attitude,

I confronted them about this at Shot Show a few years ago and got blown off by 2 of the booth monkeys (Supposedly marketing and production people) and was told my rep would call me to meet at the show,

found out later he was fired instead,


also heard they have suffered a bit since buying a new facility as well as the barrel company,

not sure if that is true or not, with the market saturated as it is, I cut back my orders considerably

I have several Anderson lowers sitting here because it's all I can find in stock locally and any other inexpensive lower becomes way less inexpensive once I add tax,shipping and my FFL's $50 transfer to each lower. I have one aero set in OD green I bought because of a post here about green rifles, but still haven't completed it with anything in front of the receiver.

The two finished builds I have are both on Anderson lowers that have seemed to be perfectly functional. If you're not hunting roll marks, I find them acceptable. I'm also not building $2k rifles, so ymmv.

quote:

Originally posted by wolfe 21:
I have several Anderson lowers sitting here because it's all I can find in stock locally and any other inexpensive lower becomes way less inexpensive once I add tax,shipping and my FFL's $50 transfer to each lower. I have one aero set in OD green I bought because of a post here about green rifles, but still haven't completed it with anything in front of the receiver.

The two finished builds I have are both on Anderson lowers that have seemed to be perfectly functional. If you're not hunting roll marks, I find them acceptable. I'm also not building $2k rifles, so ymmv.

Same issue here. Local places only stock Anderson, and with shipping plus transfer fees at $50, you can quickly almost double the cost of anything you order in. The best I can say for the Andersons is that most of them have been ok. Not a glowing endorsement, I know lol.

I have 2 builds on Andersons and they work just fine.

Will your local shops special order you all stripped lowers?
Most distributors have quite a few options with one or two of those running some deals at a time.

My LGS will order me whatever they can get from their distributors even if they don’t choose to stock them.

Bought a few PSA Stealth lowers on sale for $30 each a while back...

quote:

Originally posted by Black92LX:
I have 2 builds on Andersons and they work just fine.

Will your local shops special order you all stripped lowers?
Most distributors have quite a few options with one or two of those running some deals at a time.

My LGS will order me whatever they can get from their distributors even if they don’t choose to stock them.

I guess I could ask them. Usually when I ask if they can get something, the answer is "No." And then I pay them $50 to go find the gun on my own that they couldn't get for me. But I've never asked about a lower...I've just knelt to their extortion and bought an Anderson off the shelf.

I've been toying with the idea of an SBR build, and while I've been happy with 4/5 Anderson lowers that I've owned, I'd rather have something a little better if I'm going to jump through all the hoops and spring for a $200 tax stamp. When the time comes that I get around to doing that, maybe I'll go in and see what they can get me.

I bought a dozen Anderson lowers back when I was getting them for $25-30 apiece. Had a friend with FFL that transferred them for free, so I came out ok. I've built out about half of them, and never had a problem.
I'd like to get an Aero or two for some SBR builds, but I'm fine with what I have so far.

I don’t know for sure, but as mentioned earlier and from what I understand, most lowers are forged in few places and all the companies buy them and do the final machining and finish and add their roll mark. I feel like you could probably get any decent lower as long as it accepts your LPK with relative ease and mates to your upper. Then again I too get caught up in wanting a specific lower even if it has no effect on the end result and function of the rifle.

quote:

Originally posted by tigereye313:
Bought a few PSA Stealth lowers on sale for $30 each a while back...

That’s pretty good, the Easter deal right now is $40 each

$29.99 Andersons

https://www.primaryarms.com/an...ntent=product-review

Andersons are probably the best bang for the buck deal if all you want is something to hold a LPK in place.

All the ones I used were good to go.
The extra features of the AP ones are handy but not really needed and easy enough to do yourself if you wanted to.

Those $40 PSA stealth lowers are VERY nice and as good as anything. I’ve used several. Way better than Anderson for similar money.

By the time you add a LPK, grip, buffer tube and buffer etc. you can get an aero complete or add a few bucks more and get a BCM or similar quality factory assembled especially when you add in an hour or 2 or so of work to assemble. Unless you love assembling lowers.

I like wrenching on them. There are frequent sales on Rise triggers. And I put a FRT in one of mine that took some fitting. It was a fun project. And I wouldn't want to risk messing up a real nice gun with mods like that.

My only issue with buying stripped lowers for cheap online is the high FFL transfer fees. Paying $75 to transfer a $40 lower seems kind of dumb so I am trying to buy my lower local. I did have a guy who ran a FFL business out of his house and gave a discount for being a CRPA member so the fee was only $15 but he gave it up unfortunately. Idk if I will find someone like that again.

I am also in Calif., and the FFL transfer fees are expensive. Plus, the waiting period means two trips to the FFL. I figure as the lower is the one part you are not going to change, may as well buy something premium. Most of my lowers are from Seekins, $250 a piece. A ridiculous price, but they are billet machined and there is no hammering in pins. Everything is threaded. Also the winter trigger guard is one piece and large enough to use when using gloves.

I missed the $29 Anderson sale a week ago, I would have pulled the trigger! They are still reasonable at $48. I don't really need anything rght now, I already have a couple in the safe. I am so fortunate to live 2 miles from a dealer that does $10 transfers. There's another dealer 2 miles from me that keeps a good stock of Aero on hand. I like Aero, they might be my favorite right now, I like the integrated trigger guard on the forged lowers, I think that might make them slightly more durable.

We had a group buy on private label Mega Machine Shop lowers in 2007 several and I bought several. Mega has changed hands, now owned by Zev, but I still like their stuff.