Celebrating the Armalite AR-180
Not exactly a visit to ArmaLite but a visit to the location of the Costa Mesa location.
I was working in Torrance CA last week so I took a little jaunt south to see for myself where my gun was made.
As some of you may have seen before the building where they set up shop is now a body shop and a busy one at that.
I didn’t want to bother them so I just took some pics and did not go inside.
This past Saturday I had the opportunity to visit Chuck at GunLab.net and it was an awesome and overwhelming experience. I wished I had taken the time to take more pictures but I think I was a little in shock at all the cool guns, parts, and equipment. By far the best part of the trip was the company, Chuck and Shirley are two of the nicest folks you could ever have the pleasure of meeting.
We chatted at length about his work on the AR-180 parts he is building. The lower parts that he is making to fit your AR-180B and Nodak NDS-18S lowers were at heat treating and should be back this week. Parkerization and final inspection along with one final operation on the springs will finish this phase. They should be ready to ship very soon.
Next up he is working on uppers. We are hoping to have them available in several configurations from flats to complete uppers with trunnions and rails. He sent me some pictures of his solid model of the stamping die he is building.
Trunnions have also been modeled and those should be coming shortly after the upper sheet metal.
I also gave him one of my original prototype AR-180C railed front sight bases and I am hoping that we can get a few of those made.
The AR-180C flat top might become a reality after all!
Finally yours truly with the only picture from my visit, holding an MP-44 for the very first time. I find it astonishing that they were able to crank these out in the numbers they did, with allied bombs dropping all around them, and that the complexity of manufacture I see in this gun was actually a time saver compared to older weapons.
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Chuck at GunLab.net has been working on AR-180 uppers and has reverse engineered the trunion and has put up a very interesting article.
I on the other hand, lacking any semblance of expertise in CAD took a differing approach when I reverse engineered my AR-180B upper.
Good friend of the site, Carl, sent me some square tubing that he has successfully used in his home builds. I decided to duplicate my upper using this material. It is much thicker wall than the original and I will have to shave this down at least on the bottom surface to get it to work with my lowers.
I did this for two main reasons. I wanted to refresh my skills on the mill as it has been many years since I last used one, and secondly, just to see if I could.
I made my first trunion out of 6061 aluminum just to test my measurements out and I have found that a few needed to be adjusted.
I learned a lot from this project and I find things like this much more rewarding than the usual beginners projects.
I will continue to tweak this until I am happy with it then I will start a new one using the first as a template. I think I will make the trunion out of 4140 unless y’all have any advice.
Some pictures that show what I have been up to for the last two days.
Some things to note if you attempt one of these yourself. The interior of the tubing is not perfectly square so some hand fitting will be necessary. The tubing spreads open once the bottom is cut. Some method of squeezing it back before welding would have to be considered. Lastly, all of this will be rendered moot once Chuck makes new uppers and flats available. Until then I will use this as a way to improve my machine skills and better learn my tools.
Reader Eric just sent me a message via the contact page and I have to say, it is something I have never considered before. I think it is a great idea. Here is the message he sent me;
From: Eric XXXX
Subject: Can we do a poll?
Message Body:
Hey guys, I was wondering if it was possible to put a poll up on the blog? Reason being, I’ve been communicating with Chuck at Gun Lab about making a bolt catch for original AR18/180’s modified to use mags with standard STANAG followers. I believe this will be a great opportunity for him plus provide us Armalite owners with a much-needed and way-overdue mod for our rifles. Simply put, no more “STANAG or Armalite” mags, just put a slit in a standard STANAG, PMAG or any of the dozens of other mags and it’ll function in the Armalite AND M16/M4/STANAG platform with a simple slit cut in the right-side mag body.
The poll would be simple…
“YES, I would buy this and maybe prepay”
“Yes, I like the idea but want to wait to see how it turns out (price, availability, quality)”
“No, I like being limited to overpriced, rare mags or modifying others to where they can’t be used in any other rifle”
Chuck might be on to one of the best mods to happen to the AR18/180 since it went to market. If we can put up a poll so he can see the interest, I’m sure he’ll move this up his “to do” list.
Thanks and thanks for the site and reviving the AR18/180 legacy!
~Eric, proud owner of a 1982 “widow-maker”
Please comment and let me know what you think of the idea.
A reader sent me some pictures this weekend and we were unable to identify the maker of this bolt. It has many similar attributes to the AR-180 bolt but the dimensions are not the same.
The overall length is 2.75″ and the “tail” is 1.0″ long.
The bearing surfaces look to be in the same place as on the AR-180 bolt, but the tail is too long.
A 5.56 cartridge fits perfectly.
Please comment with your thoughts on this and lets see if we can’t help him figure out what this bolt fits.