Has anyone made a 9mm AR upper that doesn't require all kinda of adapter blocks / mods to the AR lower?
I'm thinking SBR.... maybe with a can....
I'm thinking SBR.... maybe with a can....
- Thread starter garandman
- Start date
The 9mm adapters/inserts/dedicated lowers allow use of 9mm stick magazines and provide anchor points for the 9mm-specific ejector and feed-ramp.
Don't think there's any way to make a 9mm AR without them.
Don't think there's any way to make a 9mm AR without them.
Last edited:
Not sure I'm following your line of thinking here...
There is no way to hold the considerably smaller 9mm magazine in place without either: a) a dedicated magwell lower (RRA, CMMG, DDLE and others have made 9mm lowers with a specific 9mm ONLY magwell for use with Colt pattern...even Glock pattern mags...of course, that means no going to alternative calibers/AR-15 mags with that lower); or b) some sort of magazine block/adapter in a standard AR-15 lower that will allow you to remove the block and run any AR-15-based caliber/mag.
What are you wanting to do that gives you pause about running a mag adapter on a stnd AR-15 lower with any given 9mm upper receiver group?
You can virtually eliminate the "one-off" parts in the lower with a proper conversion and the correct mag block so that all you really have to swap out to go from adapted 9mm back to AR-15 standard mag/calibers by dumping the mag block out and swapping your buffer components.
Oly Arms used to make an upper / metal mag combination that worked with a standard unmodified lower. I wondered if anyone else did.
It was an absolute, unholy abortion of a system...PERIOD...despite the acclaimed "advantages" of being able to run their upper on an unmodified AR-15 lower, buffer, spring, etc.!! The old Oly system used modified Sten mags (feedlips modded along with mag catch cuts into the mag body) which also had a steel adapter block welded onto the spine of the mag. They didn't work terribly well then and even with Sten mags at the time being fairly abundant at $5-7/mag, it was time consuming and costly to @#$% around with modifying the mags and then, some worked and some didn't work.
To my knowledge, nobody is doing the sort of system you are talking about at present.
This was my build. CMMG dedicated lower, custom built upper.
The mag block is really no big problem.
The major manufacturers are Hahn and RRA, Spikes makes a version of the RRA. These are one piece blocks that are ether installed from the top or the bottom of the magwell.
The RRA style block is a bottom loader and has a tension mechanism that you tighten to snug it into the magwell.
Hahn offers a top loading, bottom loading as well as a dedicated block.
The major manufacturers are Hahn and RRA, Spikes makes a version of the RRA. These are one piece blocks that are ether installed from the top or the bottom of the magwell.
The RRA style block is a bottom loader and has a tension mechanism that you tighten to snug it into the magwell.
Hahn offers a top loading, bottom loading as well as a dedicated block.