The Author takes aim with his personal BCM A2 clone wearing a full set of the new Retro Furniture from Brownell’s.
With the retro AR-15 craze in full swing, it was just a matter of time before a big name stepped up to the plate and started offering not just retro rifles, but their individual components for sale. So when Brownells announced not only M16A1-style carbines, but also full furniture sets, I was very excited to give it a whirl.
As someone who owns a Colt SP1 with original issue M16A1 furniture on it, I was curious to see how well Brownell’s new set stacks up. So I decided to put them side-by-side and take a closer look.
Dimensionally, both sets of furniture seem identical. It’s clear that the folks at Brownells either developed these sets based on the originals, or simply used the tech data from the military M16A1 assault rifles. Regardless, they are spot on in terms of size and fit.
Left: Brownells repro grip. Right: Colt SP1 with M16A1 pistol grip circa 1971.
In testing, the pistol grip fit every carbine and rifle I attempted to install in on, and the stock worked flawlessly on both new production lowers, and original 1970’s SP1 style lowers.
Personally, I’ve always been a tremendous fan on the M16A1 stock, since it cuts one and 5/8 of an inch off the length of pull from the A2-length stock. This might seem trivial to some, but as someone who’s only 5’9”, this allows me to comfortably shoot a fixed-stock AR-15 with my torso squared up to my target.
The A1-Length Retro Stock cuts the LOP by nearly two inches on a fixed-stock AR-15.
The stock is a mostly realistic reproduction of the original, but
