charging handles any one better than the others?

[j427x]

i saw a post over at this "mall-ninja" type of forum. where someone was comparing brands of charging handles. on his photos a DPMS was declared inferior due to it being a bit thinner than the colt. and of course a "colt " was a gift from god.

now i have a colt,several DPMS and a couple LMT charging handles. aside form some of them being either black or dark gray--they seem about the same in size, weight and function.


i figured this fellow had a steel DPMS CH and was comparing it to a forged alumminum colt charging handle.

anybody ever have a charging handle that was thinner and weaker than what should pass for the standard???

[moleman]

My buddy had an old one that the body was 2 pieces. The long front section was stamped and the back handle section was a regular forging. The back was aluminum and the front was steel IIRC. The nose of it broke off about 20 years ago and he replaced it with a forged one from M&A parts I believe. No trouble with the new one so far. I have many colt ar15 parts. While none of them are bad and colt may be a standard to judge others by, they're not the best player in the game.

[TheCol.U.S.M.C.]

As long as it works Why would anyone care (a side from Mall Ninja's)

The only thing i could think of is those tactacool extended latches that make it so you could charge your rifle with your fireing hand still on the the pistol grip. bud of mine had one and would not shutup about it till i showed him i could do the same thing with a stock one. and that he wasted some $$$. After a year of telling me I still had to get one i looked at his charging handle one side was so worn down it was eating up his charging handle and the upper because it was not being pulled back the way it was made to and was only rubbing on one side if his upper.

But Man I love those Mall ninjas they buy the best stuff

[j427x]

so far all the brands of charging handles i have are mil-spec and work as advertised. even the $15 ones.

back in the day all my m-16/car/m4 stuff was military issue. i didn't get into building ar-types till recent years so i must have missed out on all the "crap" "cast" & china/pot-metal" stuff.

i think it is general mall-ninja thinking that if it costs more IT MUST BE BETTER! my experience is that sometimes this is true but not as often as you would like to think.

sort of like the mill-spec thinking. these guys never saw a GI issue $238 m-16 i don't think. mill-spec can mean lots of things including the lowest bidder in some cases.

[TheCol.U.S.M.C.]

Originally Posted by j427x

sort of like the mill-spec thinking. these guys never saw a GI issue $238 m-16 i don't think. mill-spec can mean lots of things including the lowest bidder in some cases.

Dead one with the lowest bidder on most things, When my unit came back after the invasion of Iraq, we got all new M-16A4 for the battalion they were FN's all i can say was DAMM those were great rifles made the colts look like shit even the new colts. FN gets my thumbs up for sure mine was holding about a 1 1/2 MOA out of the box. Best thing was I got to wipe the packing oil off it thats how new we are talking. Shot it a lot, never dropped it cared for it like a first born man i loved that rifle

[j427x]

Originally Posted by TheCol.U.S.M.C.

Dead one with the lowest bidder on most things, When my unit came back after the invasion of Iraq, we got all new M-16A4 for the battalion they were FN's all i can say was DAMM those were great rifles made the colts look like shit even the new colts. FN gets my thumbs up for sure mine was holding about a 1 1/2 MOA out of the box. Best thing was I got to wipe the packing oil off it thats how new we are talking. Shot it a lot, never dropped it cared for it like a first born man i loved that rifle

it is a damn shame that FN can't sell their own version of AR-15's and or parts directly to the US public like everybody else.

all of our m-16a2's were FN.

i had wished that FN could have got some of the M-4 action. i think colt got the designation "M4" just so they could get the deal on a no-bid contract.

otherwise we would have had some FN made CAR's. as there is very little other than a couple deeper cuts in the barrel, depper cuts in the extension , upper and thicker/ better heatsheilded handguards between a car and a m4 as they are in all reality the same weapon and could have been updated from older stockpiles.

i never saw a FN bolt break either.

[MissionMTMan]

That's weird you guys like the FN M16's. The one I was used for a FTX was a peice. It jammed all the time and the quality looked like it was lacking. I do know that the thing was really old though. It was probably on its last days. That's cool the new ones work so well.

[j427x]

Originally Posted by MissionMTMan

That's weird you guys like the FN M16's. The one I was used for a FTX was a peice. It jammed all the time and the quality looked like it was lacking. I do know that the thing was really old though. It was probably on its last days. That's cool the new ones work so well.

when i was a boot back in 1980. we were issued some very old colt m16a1's that had fired countless rounds. they were loose as a goose and had every type of FTF you could imagine. the mags we got looked like a match to the rifles. they looked like vintage nam era 20 rounders.

a worn out rifle+worn out mags+ green boots= lots and lots of stoppages. i would give the bad mags 60%+ the credit for the stoppages the rest a combination of worn parts and user error.

later issue m16a1's preformed very well and they were made by various vendors like GM, H&R and others. later LMT and FN's we got were brand new in the crate and they also ran like champs. we also had some pretty good mags by then.

my guess is that the colt i was issued was likely a good weapon before it went through 10,000+ training cycles. had it had some work done and some good mags it still would have been a bit loose but it would likely worked well enough.