Leave a comment and tell me what differences you see between the early Howa and the early Costa Mesa in these pictures.
Navigating Armalite.com
I’ve gotten quite a few folks emailing me to ask how to find parts on Armalite.com.
They still have some AR-180B parts and many are on clearance. There won’t be any more once these are gone.
The best advice I can give you is to look in your manual and find the part number for the part you want and search for that. The break down can be found on pages 8 – 12.
Your second option is to do a search for 180B. That brings up many parts but will leave you somewhat lacking when you consider that some parts used on these guns are actually AR15 parts.
Armalite re-configured their site a few months back and there are no longer direct links on the homepage to the 180B parts. They are still there if you know how to search.
Now some other interesting information can be gathered from looking at the manual, the part numbers are in three different formats. This gives us a clue as to their origin.
Parts with a four digit number are the same as Original AR-180 Parts. They may or may not have been left over stock but they are a direct replacement.
2641 Operating Rod
Parts with an eight digit number are 180B only parts.
1882000 Front Sight Base
Finally parts with six digits and are prefaced with letters are AR15 parts that were used on the 180B.
EU0190 Front Sling Swivel
So there you go. Get them while they last, or at least before I buy them all.
What’s Been Happening at AR180S.com
What’s been happening at AR180S.com?
Just busy as all get out.
Shipped out the first batch of AR180 Lower Parts Kits. I hope that leads to more AR-180 enthusiasm as more NoDak lowers get sold and more Stormwerkz adapters get sold, and finally uppers begin to come out of the GunLab. I’m sure that there will be a time soon that you will be able to build your own AR-180 from scratch.
Chuck has a few extra Bolt Hold Opens and I will be posting those up for sale individually after I get them in my hands.
Work has me traveling all over since one of our trainers left to teach at a community college and I am filling in for him in the Pacific Northwest. Hopefully we will get a new person to take over that territory and I can stay closer to home.
New AR-180S
I am looking to build a second shorty upper and I hope to bring you details as the build continues.
I have a 180B stripped upper and found an HBAR AR15 barrel as a starting point. This will allow me to turn the profile to exactly what I want and not have to sleeve the barrel under the gas block like my first one. I will also be extending the hand guards a fraction of an inch to match the original AR-18S lower hand guard that I have. This will become the standard length an will allow me to design an endcap and they won’t have to be custom made for each gun.
You can see in this picture how the hand guard is long enough to retain the reinforcing rib.
I am also toying with the idea on an even shorter version with hand guards cut off at the first rib.
This matches the description of the AR-18K but I have never seen a picture of said weapon.
If anyone has any info about these short versions, please drop me a line. I would love to chat about it.
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