They don’t ALL come with drilled and pinned front sight blocks. But for me, that’s a non issue. Two of my ARs have a pinned A2 front sight block, and the rest have pop up front sights. The A2 fronts don’t bother me at all....even with an optic mounted. The main issue in my opinion is whether or not you want to free float the barrel for accuracy reasons, in which case a lightweight low profile gas block will have less effect on barrel harmonics than the heavier A2 front sight/gas block and a non-floating handguard. But the truth is that, unless you’re trying to build a true precision rifle, and you’re a pretty good shooter, an AR with a regular old pinned A2 front sight will probably shoot better than a lot of shooters are capable of shooting it.
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Return to “PSA complete rifles?”
- Sat Sep 28, 2019 5:41 pm
- Forum: Rifles & Shotguns
- Topic: PSA complete rifles?
- Replies: 9
- Views: 36051
Re: PSA complete rifles?
- Sat Sep 28, 2019 3:08 pm
- Forum: Rifles & Shotguns
- Topic: PSA complete rifles?
- Replies: 9
- Views: 36051
Re: PSA complete rifles?
One warning, and I’m sure this is the exception rather than the rule, but still....
When my son was working as a gunsmith, a shop customer brought them a PSA complete barreled upper, and another barrel that he’d bought somewhere, and he wanted the shop to swap out the barrels. So they chuck the upper receiver up to the appropriate receiver block, put the block into the bench vise, and they start pulling off the parts so that they can get to the barrel nut.
My son finally accesses the barrel nut, hooks up the torque wrench on the barrel wrench, and starts trying to loosen the barrel nut. It quickly becomes evident that PSA had WAY overtorqued the barrel nut when they were mounting the barrel to the receiver. Heating the nut, and trying to cool the receiver didn’t work. My son was not comfortable trying to put on any more torque to loosen it without consulting with the customer, so they phoned the customer and he came into the shop so they could show him the problem. The customer was told the risks, and he okayed them to go ahead and apply however much torque was necessary to loosen the nut....so they did.
The barrel nut never did loosen on the threads, but they DID succeed in shearing through the metal and tearing the whole front of the receiver clean off....with the barrel still attached to it.
Ever since then, I’ve never had faith in how PSA assembles their barreled receiver sets. By themselves, I’m sure the individual components are just fine. In fact, they sell some really GOOD things, like FN cold hammer forged barrels, etc., and their individual component prices are pretty good. But if I were going to have a PSA rifle, I’d rather buy the components separately, and build it myself. That way I know it’ll be done right.
When my son was working as a gunsmith, a shop customer brought them a PSA complete barreled upper, and another barrel that he’d bought somewhere, and he wanted the shop to swap out the barrels. So they chuck the upper receiver up to the appropriate receiver block, put the block into the bench vise, and they start pulling off the parts so that they can get to the barrel nut.
My son finally accesses the barrel nut, hooks up the torque wrench on the barrel wrench, and starts trying to loosen the barrel nut. It quickly becomes evident that PSA had WAY overtorqued the barrel nut when they were mounting the barrel to the receiver. Heating the nut, and trying to cool the receiver didn’t work. My son was not comfortable trying to put on any more torque to loosen it without consulting with the customer, so they phoned the customer and he came into the shop so they could show him the problem. The customer was told the risks, and he okayed them to go ahead and apply however much torque was necessary to loosen the nut....so they did.
The barrel nut never did loosen on the threads, but they DID succeed in shearing through the metal and tearing the whole front of the receiver clean off....with the barrel still attached to it.
Ever since then, I’ve never had faith in how PSA assembles their barreled receiver sets. By themselves, I’m sure the individual components are just fine. In fact, they sell some really GOOD things, like FN cold hammer forged barrels, etc., and their individual component prices are pretty good. But if I were going to have a PSA rifle, I’d rather buy the components separately, and build it myself. That way I know it’ll be done right.