I recently came across a few articles on alloutdoor that refer in some way to ultralight ar15 style rifles. I did some internet snooping and found a few builds, and the Bentwood OIP. This rekindled an interest of mine, the sub 4lb ar15. I am not wholly new to UL ar style rifles, I have an original, pre bushmaster, Professional Ordnance Carbon 15 rifle, and one of my pistol builds has a PO complete upper (uses a std ar15 bolt carrier, with the PO propitiatory bolt).
This reading got me interested so I started looking at the parts in the OIP, found V7 systems and all of their titanium parts (ohhhhhhh).
I have a "semi" lightweight build, 14.5" carbine pencil barrel on a matched spikes receiver set with a samson 9" evo rail. It is reasonably light and points well, but the FH that is welded on the barrel to get it to legal length is heavy. So I started to look around for lightweight parts to do a scratch build.
First thing I found is that light parts are expensive, and I would need an adjustable gas system, since I planned to use a low mass bcg and buffer setup. I priced all of the titanium and 7075 al small parts. The lofty price tags got me thinking: Can I use cheaper alternatives and lighten them myself? I have a mill and a lathe, plus a bunch of other tools and a small amount of skill! I figured I could give it a shot.
This build will likely yield 2 rifles, as I have sourced parts and ended up with multiples of the same. Plus it will give me the opportunity to try different approaches with my material removal techniques, as well as allow for comparisons.
Feel free to follow along, I will post pics and info. My main goal here is to end up with a sub 4lb rifle with the optics. Secondary goal is to use as many metal parts as possible, and third is to keep the cost down as low as I can. I will be using as many off the shelf parts as possible, and will limit my work to modding existing parts, rather than building items from scratch.
This reading got me interested so I started looking at the parts in the OIP, found V7 systems and all of their titanium parts (ohhhhhhh).
I have a "semi" lightweight build, 14.5" carbine pencil barrel on a matched spikes receiver set with a samson 9" evo rail. It is reasonably light and points well, but the FH that is welded on the barrel to get it to legal length is heavy. So I started to look around for lightweight parts to do a scratch build.
First thing I found is that light parts are expensive, and I would need an adjustable gas system, since I planned to use a low mass bcg and buffer setup. I priced all of the titanium and 7075 al small parts. The lofty price tags got me thinking: Can I use cheaper alternatives and lighten them myself? I have a mill and a lathe, plus a bunch of other tools and a small amount of skill! I figured I could give it a shot.
This build will likely yield 2 rifles, as I have sourced parts and ended up with multiples of the same. Plus it will give me the opportunity to try different approaches with my material removal techniques, as well as allow for comparisons.
Feel free to follow along, I will post pics and info. My main goal here is to end up with a sub 4lb rifle with the optics. Secondary goal is to use as many metal parts as possible, and third is to keep the cost down as low as I can. I will be using as many off the shelf parts as possible, and will limit my work to modding existing parts, rather than building items from scratch.