Convert a carry handle AR-15 upper to a flat top?

[MT2008]

Originally Posted by commando552

I am aware of no such upper existing,

Flattop AR uppers with no forward assist or brass deflector do exist. Rocky Mountain Arms manufactured those types of receivers for the Patriot Pistol in the 1990s, and I imagine some other manufacturers did as well.

Originally Posted by commando552

If for whatever reason flat top uppers are not widely available in South Africa so they have to make their own, this would also explain the peculiar M4s that have been in all seasons of this show, where the flat top rail is higher than on a real M4.

I think I responded to your comments about this on the AR page. Before the M4-style flattop receiver became the industry standard in the late-1990s, the flattop uppers made by AR manufacturers were often very different from each other. I already mentioned the Rocky Mountain Arms style. Olympic Arms also made flattop ARs whose upper receivers had higher RIS than those of an M4 (and their very earliest flattops used the same type of RIS seen on the Colt ACR, rather than Picatinny STD-1913 style). I would imagine that the more likely explanation that the "Strike Back" M4s have such tall flattops is simply that they're from older-model flattop ARs of non-Colt manufacture.

[commando552]

Originally Posted by MT2008

Flattop AR uppers with no forward assist or brass deflector do exist. Rocky Mountain Arms manufactured those types of receivers for the Patriot Pistol in the 1990s, and I imagine some other manufacturers did as well.

That upper looks like the DPMS bare bones with a rounded ejection port. The gun in the show looks exactly like an SP1 upper, just with a flat top. It also uses a large front pivot pin, which i think means that the upper needs to be a Colt Sporter. I take your point that there are differences between different flat top uppers and this is what I had chalked the M4 oddity up to until I saw this rifle, it just made me wonder.

There are quite a few odd guns in this series, but this one takes the cake. Judging from the fact that I can find quite a few matching guns on their website I think the weapons were provided by Hire Arms, and they have a rifle listed as the "M16 PRS Sniper" which is an exact match apart from the fact that it has the standard SP1 upper, which makes me think even more that it is this gun which has had the upper hacked hacked.

Just for the hell of it, here are some other odd guns that are listed on there which I think appear in this series and help with the ID:

• "HK33 SLIDING STOCK", which is a HK33 which has been chopped half way between a HK33 and a HK53, has a chopped SA G3 handguard and feeds from polymer R4 magazines.

• "SAS G3", which is a G3 which has been chopped half way between a G3K and a HK51 and has a chopped SA G3.

• "VEKTOR R4 GALIL, which is an R4 without lightening cuts and with a carry handle.

• "Vektor CR21 Bullpup", which has a chopped down barrel

• "ACCURACY INTERNATIONAL", which looks like an AI, but isn't as the action is wrong but it also is not a Remington 700 in an AICS.

[Markit]

You are probably right that Hire Arms is the series armorer Commando, so I'll go ahead and make a few changes to the HK33 and HK G3. As for the Accuracy International, I'm going to leave it as is until someone figures out what the base rifle is.

[MT2008]

Hire Arms is definitely the armory that supplies this show; pretty much any production filmed in South Africa gets all or at least some of its weapons from them. I actually know one of the armorers at that company. He sent me pictures of the gold-plated AK from "Lord of War" (which appear on the IMFDB page for that movie). I haven't talked to him in almost four years, but I'll shoot him a quick email and ask him about this. If he responds, I'll let you guys know.

Also, I should point out that many of the AR-model rifles seen in "Strike Back" and other South African productions seem to have a smaller brass deflector than a normal AR, which is why I suspect that they're simply made by a different manufacturer.