Olmypic Arms AR

[goon]

I have a chance to get an Olympic Arms 16" AR with a collapsible stock for around $550 or possibly a little under. It is in almost new condition. How does Olympic stack up to other makers as far as quality, reliability, parts interchangeability, parts breakage, etc?
Think it is worth a shot?
I have thought about an AR for a while now...

 

[High Planes Drifter]

I have a kit gun I bought about 5 years ago. It has never jammed; great gun.
I have a few thousand rounds through it.

 

[georgeduz]

i have the 16 upper.its been just fine with me,just as good as my colt target match.

 

[Aguila Blanca]

I own an Olympic "Plinker" model. 16", standard furniture, not collapsable. It hasn't foght a war yet, but it worked right out of the box, hasn't bobbled anything, and the accuracy is acceptable (it is only a 16" barrel, after all, and I was only looking for minute of center of mass). Parts are pretty much interchangeable with any standard AR as far as I know.

I'm sure it isn't equal to a Bushmaster, but for the $500 I paid I am very happy with it.

 

[Foxtrot427]

If you dont get it I will.

 

[lycanthrope]

Mine's been great, but the gas key wasn't staked. I recommend that.

 

[MiniZ]

While many consider Olympic a "second tier" manufacturer, I personally believe they are a good value for the money. If nothing else, their barrels are generally respected as being very accurate.

My Oly is over 13 years old, and hasn't given me any problems that I could attribute to the gun itself.

I think for the price you can get it for, why not? In a worst case scenario, you could sell it for that price and get your money back.

 

[goon]

Thanks. I guess at the price and the shape it is in it would be hard to go wrong.

 

[Lennyjoe]

Good price on a good gun.

I have a PCR-1 that shoots just fine. No issues to date other than the free floating handguard gets a bit hot after shooting 100 rounds thru it.

 

[goon]

Just bought it today. I shot about 60 rounds of Federal 55 grain, Wolf powder coat 55 grain, and Olympic 62 grain green tip. There were no failures to feed, fire or eject. The mag hangs up a little when being ejected but I think that will wear in and go away and the bolt release is also a little stiff. I can't speak for accuracy per se but I was able to put my rounds into clay pigeons and a 1 liter pop bottle at 100 yards once I figured out where to hold. It seems to shoot a few inches high but dead on for windage. Recoil is virtually nonexistent but it is a little on the loud side (big suprise). I also noticed that the handguards did get pretty warm but not uncomfortably so. I wasn't shooting that fast. Are Olympic's handguards metal lined?
Lack of ammo and a flock of turkeys that showed up uninvited made my stay shorter than it could have been but I still enjoyed myself.
Anyhow, for $500 I think I did pretty well.

 

[lycanthrope]

Mags shouldn't hang up. Is it all of them or just one? Cheap mags can do that.

You can adjust the mag release by winding it in or out and/or clipping a coil off the spring if it's REALLY stiff.

As for the hand guards, just pull the hang guard slip ring down and pull off half the hand guard to check.

If you don't have an owner's manual......

http://ar15.com/content/manuals/manual_olyarms_ar.pdf

 

[goon]

Its just one. I only have one magazine for it. It probably is a cheap mag because it isn't an original. The store tossed in the mag of my choice just so I would have one. I'm not REAL worried about it yet. I have only had it for about 8 hours so I am OK with taking a little time to sort these things out.
Luckily, I did get the owners manual. I haven't had a chance to pull the handguards off yet. If they aren't metal lined it shouldn't be too hard to fix. I'll just eat some spinach and drink some green tea to get myself all hyped up and then hopefully I will have enough strength to get the damn things off.

 

[355sigfan]

Oly makes pure crap their not a second tier company their at the total bottom. They do everything from blow up to choke up. I had one and it took OLy over 18 months to fix it. Don't buy from this pos company.
Pat

 

[molonlabe]

Had two for years. Excellent firearms. Be advised many of them were sold as kits and put together by people who were not versed in AR's. This led in part to OLY's bad name in conjunction with some cast receivers and tight mag wells. To their credit Oly replaced all the cast receivers for their customers. This was a late 80's or early 90's problem and it still haunts them. For every person you hear bad mouth one there are a dozen who love them.

Mine's been great, but the gas key wasn't staked. I recommend that.

Thats common knowledge among AR builders and makes me wonder if that was a KIT. I bought a bolt assemble from them and the gas key was staked. The allen screws will come loose if not.

 

[goon]

The gas key on mine has "pings" on it adjacent to the allen screws. Is that what you mean by being staked?

 

[lycanthrope]

Yep. That's staked.

Mine was no kit. It's an OA93PT shipped straight from the factory....and it wasn't staked.