Why I buy PSA

PSA Products AR-15
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I'm sure many folks are drawn to PSA for their pricing and availability of a lot of the things we like.

I have been particularly drawn to the Government Property marked Lowers , as Military Replicas are of interest to me. I won’t use the term Cloning

Recently I was given a near dream opportunity to purchase a PRI ( Precision Reflex) Mk12 SPR Mod (H) complete Upper that some poor soul mated to an Anderson Lower with an A2 Rifle Stock.

When the purchase was made I was negotiating Only the Upper…the Lower was just incidental as far as I was concerned.

I was able to negotiate the deal I wanted and after a thurough cleaning of both halves the Poverty Pony Lower was sat asside and a freshly assembled PSA M4A1 with a B5 SOPMOD Buttstock was mated up.

The fitment par usual was perfect with a brand known to be Top Tier in AR world. I was pleased. This project is off to a near perfect start.

The following day I get a call from a Local Shop telling me a Retro Rifle was traded in or sold to them and they thought I’d be interested. I was praying for it to be an A1 to mate up to an H&R Lower I’m struggling to get its Upper mate for.

I look at this trade in and it was a Colt M16A2 Receiver ( Colt C and M marked for Martin Marrietta Forging )with all Colt Parts including the BCG and a new Green Mountain Barrel. Im excited.

The Lower was by Century Arms and it rattled when pinned to this near flawless Colt Upper. The Century which was my 1st encounter with them, just felt and looked cheap… I was able to buy the Colt Upper without the Century Lower…I’m on a Roll.

5 minutes after buying this Upper I’m sitting in a restaurant eating and ordering my 3rd PSA Government Property marked M16A2 Stripped Lower.

I decided not to Re-Purpose the A2 Stock that was on the Poverty Pony Lower from the previous day. That Lower had been Rattle Can painted and removal on Non-Metal parts is Never a certain thing cosmetically.

I opted to order a PSA A2 Buttstock along with the Receiver. This was a Huge No Go. PSA only currently stocks the A2 Buttstock as part of a Lower Assembly Kit , minus the Receiver of course. I really didn’t need all the other stuff but I was over a barrel of sorts… I ordered all of it.

I get home and I mate my Colt Upper to the Anderson Lower and it rattles like a Skeleton. The Fitment is absolute garbage. Keep in mind the Anderson Never figured into any future build anyway. I look at this combination and I cant handle a pristine Upper mated to an Imperfect and Camouflaged Lower, out comes the Acetone and all the other cleaning items.

After a lot of Scrubbing and the removal of my fingerprints during the process. I have a clean 2nd Rate A2 Lower… but I have a complete rifle till PSA ships the Build Kit to the house and the stripped Lower to my FFL… this making it a Great Complete Rifle in the future.

One thing I did take note of was this. After removing all the FDE , Coyote Tan and Brown paint. The usual Black Oxide color all AR’s sport now took on a look closer to that of Colt’s Gray from the Beginning of the AR-15 through the A2 Series. This was a small allbeit temporary win.

I mate the two halves back together and I’m stunned at how out of Spec the Anderson is…I tried other Colt’s , PSA’s , Delton , SAA and Aero Precision products to Confirm it was the Anderson Lower making a mess of things…not the Colt Upper.

I decided to try an Accu-Wedge to take some of the Slop out of this Rattle Trap…which it did do that but the rearward fitment and the gaps were still way off from my many years of experience.

I’m looking forward to Receiving the next PSA Lower and build kit. I would however ask that PSA make Stocks available as Individual items rather going the Kit route on spare parts… Stocks, Grips and Handguards are exactly that. … Spare Parts.

I’ll include some Pics to illustrate this story.

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Pic 1 is the Rifle Assembled Colt Upper and Anderson Lower. I placed an LED Lamp behind it to show the Huge Gap between the Receivers. Business Card Gaps are One thing…Two Credit Cards and a Business Card is another.

Pic 2 is to illustrate how well the color match of Modern Black Anodize and Colt Gray became after all the Desert Camo was removed.

Pic 3 is the PRI Mk12 SPR Mod H ( Holland )Upper mated to a PSA M4A1 with B5 SOPMOD Buttstock…included is the Colt M16A2 Upper mated to the Anderson A2 Lower Assy for temporary completion purposes.

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You are not the only one somewhat “disappointed” with fitment of Anderson lowers (80% or otherwise). I will however, give props to their LPK: investment-cast stainless trigger components are nice, very little polishing work to do to make a really good Milspec Trigger.

But no more will I buy their lowers.

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I used a “poverty pony” stripped lower and a PSA complete kit minus the receiver. Everything went together like a glove and truly the fitment is tighter and better than that of my PSA complete KS47. So I’m reading this and I now have a concern as to whether my KS47 with it’s rattling between the upper and lower, make it trash? Is this something I should send in for warranty?

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Jasnpouncy,

         Rattle is One thing..  Fitment and Huge Gaps are entirely different.

My " Poverty Pony"issue makes Closing and Pinning the two halves extremely difficult and I have a debris engress point into my Recievers you can march a College Band through. That is Poor Quality Control at it’s finest. That’s letting your Tooling fall out of Spec without oversight , then not catching it in QC.

I have Zero experience with your KS-47 variant so to say whether what you are experiencing makes it good or bad is Not something I’m going to Key Board judge. I can only speak about what’s in front of me at present.

My experience with AR-15/ M-16 family weapons runs long and deep. My personal collection spans multiple brands including what I call FrankenGuns with pieces I’ve selected from Multiple brands to build something to meet my requirements.

Honestly beyond 4 Factory Colt’s, I’m not an Off the Rack guy…I prefer to assemble them to suit me on my own.

Two recent aquistions regarding Lowers I’m impressed with are Heavy Armor Division out of Indian Trail North Carolina and SAA from the West Coast that I hear rumor of as being made by Aero Precision.

The SAA Lower is just understated regarding markings, which I prefer over the supposed parent brand without knocking the product as a mechanical whole. A simple matter of preference cosmetically.

When it comes to Retro Builds PSA and Now Harrington and Richardson are going to continue to earn my money everytime. I’m always impressed by them, including the so called Blem items.

Ive defended PSA numerous times when some Counter Clerk bad mouths the product. I’ll tell them the Only beef you should have with PSA is that they are a Product Line you dont carry and they are eating away at your businesses bottom line. Enjoy the FFL Transfers.

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