Cap'n Mike
NES Member
Anyone else into these? Post up what you have, even if they are just old Prebans.
Retro/Fixed Carry handle ARs have become very popular over the last few years. A decade ago you couldn’t give away a fixed carry handle upper, as everyone was swapping them for flat tops.
Whether from Covid, or lack of availability when NoDak Spud got bought out, the supply of Retro uppers got very tight for a while, and prices soared. H&R, LuthAR and several others have stepped up to the plate and supply is beginning to catch up with demand, though the original stuff from from back in the day will always be worth a premium.
What Makes an AR Retro? The fixed (Non Removable) carry handle is really the only requirement, but anything AR from the 60s, 70s, 80s, and 90s adds to the astetic.
Clones of Military ARs (US and Otherwise) from those decades are a big part of the Retro Drip. Nostalgia for Vietnam era guns all the way up to the GWOT fixed Carry Handle guns that guys carried while serving is a large part of the attraction.
Movie gun AR clones, like from Heat, Predator and Scarface, as well as from military movies like Black Hawk Down are likewise well represented in Retro land.
As I said, there is a lot of nostalgia wrapped up in these guns. I bought my first AR in 1991 when they pretty much all had fixed carry handles, and served in the US Army right before Flat Top ARs becam so ubiquitou, so that is definitely a lot of the draw for me.
Here are a few of mine.
XM177E2 I posted a build thread on here
Black Hawk Down/Gothic Serpent clone
Colt 6520 I bought in 1991 along with some of my 1990s gear.
Billy’s gun from Predator I built, this one was fun.
Post up those Retro Carry handles
Retro/Fixed Carry handle ARs have become very popular over the last few years. A decade ago you couldn’t give away a fixed carry handle upper, as everyone was swapping them for flat tops.
Whether from Covid, or lack of availability when NoDak Spud got bought out, the supply of Retro uppers got very tight for a while, and prices soared. H&R, LuthAR and several others have stepped up to the plate and supply is beginning to catch up with demand, though the original stuff from from back in the day will always be worth a premium.
What Makes an AR Retro? The fixed (Non Removable) carry handle is really the only requirement, but anything AR from the 60s, 70s, 80s, and 90s adds to the astetic.
Clones of Military ARs (US and Otherwise) from those decades are a big part of the Retro Drip. Nostalgia for Vietnam era guns all the way up to the GWOT fixed Carry Handle guns that guys carried while serving is a large part of the attraction.
Movie gun AR clones, like from Heat, Predator and Scarface, as well as from military movies like Black Hawk Down are likewise well represented in Retro land.
As I said, there is a lot of nostalgia wrapped up in these guns. I bought my first AR in 1991 when they pretty much all had fixed carry handles, and served in the US Army right before Flat Top ARs becam so ubiquitou, so that is definitely a lot of the draw for me.
Here are a few of mine.
XM177E2 I posted a build thread on here
XM177E2 clone build of a MAC-V-SOG CAR-15
I’m a military history buff, and I have been reading and listening to podcasts lately about MACVSOG Spike Teams running recon on ”The Trail” in Laos and Cambodia during the Vietnam war. Many of these guys carried XM177E2 CAR-15s, and I have been motivated to combine my love of guns with my love...
www.northeastshooters.com
Black Hawk Down/Gothic Serpent clone
Colt 6520 I bought in 1991 along with some of my 1990s gear.
Billy’s gun from Predator I built, this one was fun.
Post up those Retro Carry handles
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