M4 Clone Help

[dfariswheel]

Not a fan of Colt. Poor quality control. Lowered quality for Civilian sales than Govt sales(plastic buffer). Then just Friday(June 19 2015) they declared bankruptcy. Not sure how this will effect warranty.

Poor quality control??
Plastic buffer??????

Every Colt I've seen in the last five years had perfect quality OTHER THAN some slight chipping of the finish done during the manufacturing process on some rifles, not all.

I've been able to examine both police sales and military issue Colt's and the quality is the same as my commercial sales M4.

I've never seen or heard of a Colt with a plastic buffer. All I've seen have been aluminum with a nylon bumper on the rear end and the weighted buffer disks inside.
All the M4's I've seen in the last years have a heavy (H stamp) buffer.

[recon]

DSG Arms is having there Colt 6721's on sale for $799 plus 10% off! Tempting.

[Pikeman]

Poor quality control??
Plastic buffer??????

Every Colt I've seen in the last five years had perfect quality OTHER THAN some slight chipping of the finish done during the manufacturing process on some rifles, not all.

I've been able to examine both police sales and military issue Colt's and the quality is the same as my commercial sales M4.

I've never seen or heard of a Colt with a plastic buffer. All I've seen have been aluminum with a nylon bumper on the rear end and the weighted buffer disks inside.
All the M4's I've seen in the last years have a heavy (H stamp) buffer.

My former dept. PSP (retired now) got hundreds of HBars for duty. Individuals also bought to carry their own. All had a plastic buffer. Real stupid part was, during disassembly, a tiny mold hole in front of buffer could line up with buffer retaining pin resulting in a great big paper weight until you broke one or the other to take them apart. Scores were returned for misaligned carry handle halves. Optics mounted on the faulty handles would run out of horizontal adjustment before being aligned. Some of the flash hiders started to shoot off causing the dept to switch to 6520 Carbines (Civil line Hbar line lesser standard than LE/Mil line per Colt at the time) the 6520s were fine and are still in service.

[Schuetzenman]

My first AR was a pre ban 1994 Colt HBAR A2 version. I got it just before the Clinton ban of 1994. It always shot right and I have about 4 clicks of left windage left in the rear sight adjustment. The upper to lower fit was loose as a goose. Out of the box accuracy was shit, seriously shit! My mini 14 and my MAK 90 AK could shoot tighter than that thing.

I had to put a lot of work into it to get it to MOA grade accuracy. The first thing I did was epoxy bed the upper to the lower to take all the slop out of the receiver fit. That took it down from about 8" groups at 100 yards off of double bagged rest to 2.5" groups. Next I free floated with a CMP grade FF tube system. Looks stock, but isn't. Moved the sling swivel from the gas block (that has no bayonet lug) to the delta cap at the front end of the FF tube under the handguards. That got me down to about 1.5" MOA. Put in an Arnold Jewell match trigger, not a huge change with that but the trigger pull was much nicer. Maybe 1.25 MOA at that point. Finally I had to Cryo treat the barrel. With 69 gr. Sierra MK handloads I was able to achieve 3/4" to 7/8ths inch groups regularly. These are 10 shot groups by the way, not 3 or 5 shot groups.

The only factory original rifle I have is that Colt in the AR type of weapon. All the others I've built for myself and all have been vastly more accurate out of the box so to speak before refinements were added. Assurance of function wise, no difference one way or the other. Well with the exception of the piston converted mid gas carbines. Those have proven vastly more reliable than my DI weapons. They don't get carboned up like the DI weapons.

[dfariswheel]

The original question here was about choosing an M4 carbine, not rifles.

As far as new Colt M4 rifles and accuracy I can report the results of my buddy.
He's a President's 100 level match shooter and has taken up 1000 yards-plus shooting with a total custom built $15,000 dollar long range rifle, scope, and silencer.

He bought a Colt M4 last fall to use as a house/truck carbine.
Being a Match shooter he wanted to see how it would shoot just for general info.
He modified the M4 by installing a Rock River two stage trigger he'd removed from a Match AR-15 rifle when he'd installed a Geissele Match trigger.
He made no other changes.

He cinched up in a leather shooters coat and mounted a Schmidt and Bender Match scope on it and shot 100 yards prone.
He used his Match conditioned loads with 52 grain and 69 grain Sierra Match King bullets. He didn't have any factory load 5.56 ammo to test at that time.

His results were about 1.5 inch groups at 100 yards with both bullet weights.
He said that he was unused to shooting such a light rifle and that he believed he could get one inch groups or even better if he practiced with it.
Since it's not a Match purpose rifle, he mounted an Eotech sight and shoots only defense practice.
He told me a week ago that he now has about 4,000 rounds through it and has yet to have any stoppages or other problems.

I'm not that level of Match shooter and I'm getting older eyes and physical problems.
When I bought my Colt M4 LE6920 I bought a Colt carry handle and set it up for the Sandose Improved Revised Battlesight Zero method.
Even with bad eyes and physical problems of old age, I was able to get about 2 inch groups off the bench at 100 yards.
Since then I've mounted a red dot sight.

Both results of me and my buddy suggest the Colt M4 is capable of better accuracy then many people think, and his results indicate excellent reliability of the Colt M4.

Getting back to the original question, I think that due to todays price and quality, the Colt is a great buy if you're looking for an M4 carbine.

[NAPOTS]

You ever consider RRA? Their rifles are good quality. I have an M4gery that shoots great. It does have a heavy barrel profile under the handguard, I'd swap it out for a lighter barrel profile if it didn't shoot so well.

[dfariswheel]

My buddy is an engineer and like many of them he researches things extensively.
He does a lot of thinking before buying something.
He decided that National Match shooting was going to be all AR-15 now and the M14/M1A was on the way out.
He was right, his scores went up significantly and you never see a top shooter at Perry with anything other than an AR.

He did a lot of research about what National Match AR he would buy and chose Rock River Arms.
One major reason was that they were about the only maker at that time that gave a written statement about what accuracy they gave.
He had some accuracy work done, including installing the Giessele trigger and sending the carry handle out to have the rear sight pinned.

He was so impressed with the RRA accuracy and quality he bought another in a flat top with a full length heavy barrel.
He's getting some almost shocking groups with the flat top and either the Schmidt & Bender or a Nightforce scope and his Match loads.

[Schuetzenman]

My post isn't about rifles per say it is about quality or lack there of. Now maybe Colt has turned themselves around since 1994 on AR quality. In as much as the company is in dire financial straights, maybe not. If your product is good and of quality and not over priced there's no reason that a company should be going into Chapter 11. Colt has made a series of poor business decisions in my opinion. They discontinued many popular handguns over the last 2 decades starting with the Peace Maker classic .45 Colt six shooters. Then they made their AR weapons with non milspec over sized push pins, one pin and a bolt really. Eventually they started using the 1/4" pins but still the stupid bolt at the front. I had to put my own front captured pin on that HBAR rifle. They have been suckups to the antigunners and cut the bayonet lugs off their front sight / gas block systems.

Yes now Colt makes M4 clones and rifles with bayonet lugs and the prices have fallen. You know why ... they're trying to save themselves from extinction. You can call me an Anti-Colt person. They're the last maker I'd look at anymore for any type of firearm. The irony of that is the first two firearms I ever purchased were Colts; a Python and a 1911 Government model .45 ACP series 70.

[TEN-32]

If you haven't made a move yet you might want to consider this deal at aimsurplus.

http://www.aimsurplus.com/product.aspx?item=F1SW811036

[mrkalashnikov]

If you haven't made a move yet you might want to consider this deal at aimsurplus.

http://www.aimsurplus.com/product.aspx?item=F1SW811036

A shooting bud of mine has one of those S&W rifles. For some reason his is a jam-o-matic but I think that's due more to his tinkering around & altering the original gun than inherent design flaws. With all the great input I've gotten here the hunt continues.

[recon]

This is a very good deal here! My brother has one of these.
https://www.classicfirearms.com/dlte...465a-238435093

[mrkalashnikov]

This is a very good deal here! My brother has one of these.
https://www.classicfirearms.com/dlte...465a-238435093

Thanks recon, I've been looking @ those, along with some of the other AR platforms mentioned in this thread.

[Schuetzenman]

If you haven't made a move yet you might want to consider this deal at aimsurplus.

http://www.aimsurplus.com/product.aspx?item=F1SW811036

My 2 cents is that model doesn't have a ejector port door to keep out dirt. As close fitting as this style of weapons components are you need that door IMO. We don't have the slop of the AK to over look dirt on the bolt group and bolt.