545 uppers

Is there a reason why no one seems to want the S&W uppers?
Thanks

My take is that the boutique uppers have a little more love invested in them than the evil corporate S&W was willing to muster.

And many people feel they run better, too.

There is nothing wrong with S&W uppers. However, I went with Spikes because it has Melonite coating for corrosion resistance.

i have one for blasting with my M-16 lower. works great too!

i am currently putting a rifle together with a ballistic advantage 16" middy bbl (melonite coated). adjustable gas block (also melonited). a 2 stage trigger, spikes Nickel-boron coated 5.45X39 BCG.

the cost for the upper i'm putting together is coming in around $750, so yeah, more $$$ than a S&W upper, but also quite a bit better quality.

I don't really think it is a matter of nobody wants the S&W. More like the good news is that there are some good alternatives and nothing wrong with the S&W.

Some of the options have more attention paid to corrosion resistance and that is worth considering when the supply of mildly corrosive surplus is still good and cheap.

But is the quality worth twice the price? CDNN has them for $399 and has for some time.
Also, what mags are you using?

my latest issue of CDNN shows them for 499

where are you seeing 399?

why? because if you time it right you can buy a adam arms upper for the same or less. i have two of the aa uppers and very happy with them. easy to clean, fast to clean. the last one i bought i got for $525 from midway.

$399 is a great price - I would not hesitate.... IF I could get a bunch of cheap ammo.

I have a Spikes 5.45, an S&W 5.45 and two uppers made from Bulgy AK74 barrels.

Corrosion has not been a problem for me in any of them.

Your only real option for mags is CProducts, unfortunately.

My S&W 5.45 had problems with magizines and most ammo but my LWRC 5.45 upper works with the same magizines and fires anything put thru it. So I sold my S&W

I wish someone made a dissipator 5.45 barrel/upper.

I have a S&W 5.45 thats works. Ive put 540rds through it in the last 3 weeks, and it rocks with all 7 cproducts mags Ive got. The surpluse ammo is as accurate as you can expect for the price. But I am Having a hard time getting the salts out of the barrel. The price of the upper S&W is a bargan.

Take the upper into the shower with you when you get home from the range.
Rinse it out.

When you're done drying your hair, use the blow dryer on the upper, then clean the upper as usual.


You can also dry the upper with an air compressor, and then clean as usual, too.

It's really not much different than cleaning the upper after shooting in the rain. You dry the water out before introducing solvents, oils and lubes, right?

But, why can't you get cheap ammo???
It has been hovering at about $0.13 per round delivered. Check the Gun-Deals.com website.
Unless we are saying you consider even this price too high. I am comparing it to 223 and can't touch this price with anything centerfire that I am aware of.

S&W uppers are not $399, they are $499. Still a good deal; but I built mine for about the same price, and I got a better upper. BCM blem upper, BCM gunfighter changing handle, Ballistic Advantage nitrided midlength barrel (comes with NIB barrel extension, melonited FSB, delta assembly and handguard retainer), Spikes melonited gas tube, Spikes NIB bolt, A2 flash hider off the EE, surplus carrier assembly off the EE, set of tapered handguards off the EE, heavy trigger spring, all came to right at $500 with shipping. I run USGI 30 round mags with the old black followers, seem to work ok with 25 rounds.

Where can you go right now and get 10 cases for $131/K delivered? A person would need to be able to buy enough to justify the initial cost of the upper. It would take 5-6K rounds to break even if the upper was $500.

I bought some more last night at that price, but I was limited to two cases.....

Last week the limit was four cases... the lower prices are starting to disappear.

Aim should have it back in stock soon. Shipping is dependent on your location. For me it is only $10/can which I think is a bargain.

If you can't buy a bunch of ammo now I personally don't think it's a great idea to get an upper...... Although for $130 per 1080 rds you get really outstanding ammo (compared to Russian/East Bloc .223 @ $200/K).

Yup.

When it takes 5-6K rounds just to break even, you better be able to get a considerable amount more than that to benefit from the lower cost per round.

I get it shipped for $14 per can, and I don't think that's too bad, either.

My Smith has ran 100% even with the c product mags.
the only ammo I use is surplus.
I spray it down with Windex and clean it when I get home.
I've had no corrosion problems

Build one yourself. Ballistic advantage will cut the barrel and drill the port to whatever size you need.


My two 5.45 builds.

Awesome. Thanks for the tip.

Since we're posting pics ; this is the Ballistic Advantage based upper I described earlier. Government Tactical profile; a little heavier than A2 under the handguards.

Where's the pic?

You dont see it? IE seems to take issue with gunco. Need to move my pics to some friendlier hosting service.

edit: see it now, nice looking rifle!

fwiw, i also used the 16" middy tactical profile barrel from BA.

hope to shoot it sometime this week!

what kind of accuracy do you get with this barrel and the russian surplus?

Hows that ^ ?

Accuracy is pretty good, wasnt really shooting groups just function testing and they were all in a were about the size of my fist. Next time out I'll see how it groups.

What optic is that

Old school Hakko Blue Ring 4x24 on a flat top adapter.

Since we are posting pics:
Ballistic advantage 16" middy barrel
PSA upper w/ spikes bolt

Keeping with the trend, here's my S&W MP15R upper shortened to a pistol (11") with an Osprey piston system. I have a couple thousand rounds of Wolf so I'm not too worried about corrosive surplus. Had to tweak it after shortening the barrel––––opened up the gas port a tad and cut a few coils off the buffer spring and now she runs like a champ. Several hundred rounds through it so far. Have since put on a CAA stock saddle (all accoutrements jive with ATF letters on the subject).

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