Poll: would you be interested in an "AR lower receiver cover"?

[Brandon_T.]

Hi all,

Some time ago I made(/modified a different design for added strength and better fit) this 3D-printed AR lower receiver cover for a friend in Europe, and for whatever reason it was only now that I thought about posting it here to see if anyone else would be interested in it as well. The current design locks into an upperless lower receiver, allowing you to not worry about the fire control group collecting lint and gunk during storage or travel. As it is currently designed the hammer needs to be cocked to install the cover, but after the cover is installed, if it is accidentally "fired" the cover will prevent the hammer from fully extending and impacting on the receiver. All in all it works as advertised (I have even stood on it as an "I'm pretty sure I'm only doing this because I drank too much" toughness/stress test), and would be cheaper than the one or two other lower receiver covers I was able to find on the Interwebosphere, so I figured I would post it here and see what ya'll think.

As it currently stands, it does not cover the inside of the buffer tube, just the FCG. If there was enough interest to justify it, I could add a buffer tube cover to the design; if only a few people are interested in this at all, however, I would just 3D-print this on demand and as-is rather than investing the time into modifying the design. With that in mind, I'm going to attempt to post a poll here to hopefully find out what you guys think: I've got the poll set for up to 2 votes per person, so if you feel strongly about one of the options then please vote twice for it, but if you are either on the fence between two, or want to vote for the "but I also want an upper receiver cover", then please vote once each for two different answers.

Here's a couple pics of what I'm talking about:







...now hopefully the poll will appear when I post this, so I don't have to keep screwing around with this when I should already have gone to bed over an hour ago... (Immediate Edit: it appears that the poll is above this post, not in it. In any case it appears to work, so...yay.)

 

[SuthDet]

Question slash suggestion, does it prevent the hammer from hitting the lower if someone (or something) pulls the trigger? Just a thought from a backpacking opinion. Looks like an okay idea, upper and lower combo pack would be useful.

 

[Brandon_T.]

Question slash suggestion, does it prevent the hammer from hitting the lower if someone (or something) pulls the trigger? Just a thought from a backpacking opinion. Looks like an okay idea, upper and lower combo pack would be useful.

Yes; the current design stops the hammer about a 45-degree angle, so it neither hits the cover very hard nor allows it to contact the lower. (Although if you were to then remove the cover too quickly, in theory the hammer would travel the rest of the way and smack the lower.) Depending on poll results, if I were to put some more time into this project I would probably open it up so that the hammer would get closer to fully released, so even if you removed the cover with the hammer loose it would impact the lower with relatively little force.

 

[SuthDet]

It might be easier to have it push the hammer into the disconnect position, or only fit on a dropped hammer.

 

[Brandon_T.]

It might be easier to have it push the hammer into the disconnect position, or only fit on a dropped hammer.

True; I haven't put much thought into it, but off the top of my head I think I would probably go with disconnecting the hammer since that would result in the smallest form-factor for the cover; as it stands, I'm not even positive why this cover design (which I found and modified long enough ago that I cannot remember where it came from) even has as much open space around the FCG as it does. Do you know of any PCC (or other) lowers - that mate to uppers using "normal" takedown/pivot pin positions - that have extra junk sticking up near the hammer that might explain it?

 

[SuthDet]

Pcc lowers will have fixed ejecters on the lower.

 

[Brandon_T.]

Ah okay, that probably explains why there's the extra room there. Thanks for the info!

 

[SuthDet]

Usually they do, I'm sure a weird one exists.

 

[Steven Cali]

It's been a while since I've had my hands on a pcc, but I'm pretty sure the ejector was in the mag well filler, so further forward than the cover would allow. It kinda looks to me like it was designed in a hurry and they just wanted to be sure there was enough room.