One of the best ways to truly customize your rifle and give it a look of its own is to go with a color or pattern. Adams Arms provides Kryptek rifles and parts in Highlander, Typhon, and Nomad and offers Kryptek kits that includes matching stripped upper and lower receivers, 12″ Extended Samson Evolution rail and Magpul MOE fixed rifle stock. Manzgear showed off his flat dark earth Adams Arms custom build with our piston gas block on YouTube and we thought we would share. Check out the video and transcription below.
“Alright guys, this is Mike from Manzgear here and I’m bringing you another video to show you the latest AR 15 that I built. This is it. I went with the flat dark earth theme as I picked up a shake and spray kit from Lauer Custom Weaponry. Initially I painted my lower receiver and it is the Magpul flat dark earth. The lower receiver is a Spikes Tactical multi caliber lower receiver and I gave it a try with that Lauer Custom Weaponry shake and spray kit which worked really well. My only issue with this gun is I need to do the upper receiver and do the whole thing and leave the barrel black. I just haven’t had time to catch up with that I just wanted to show you the gun at this point.
So I will go over a few of the things on the gun. As you can see I have a Magpul UBR collapsible stock. I did paint a few of my mags in the flat dark earth and I also painted this Knights Armament forward grip. I put on it a Troy TRX free float rail, I think it is like 7-7.2″ and like my first one, this is also a piston gun. I am really fond of the Adams Arms kit so I installed the Adams Arms kit on this build as well. Right now it just has a stock Milspec trigger in it but eventually I will probably put a Timney trigger in it just like I did on my AR 10. For optics right now I just have the 8.21 Micro which I really like. I had a bigger one before and while it was a great optic, great red dot I really like the smaller aimpoint a lot better. It is just lighter on the gun and it is just easier looking through it.
Eventually, I will get flip up sights on it which is why when I ordered my 8.21 Micro from LaRue Tactical, and it comes with their mount and the mount is set up for absolute co-witness. The barrel I got from a guy on Gunbroker and he said it came from Bull Dog Barrels. It is a 1:7 twist barrel Government profile. It is very accurate, not a chrome lined barrel so since it isn’t chrome lined it won’t last as long but they are more accurate. At the end here I have a Vortex Strike Fire and it has the carbide bits for punching out windows or upsetting your neighbor. It is kind of like Gallagher’s sledge-o-matic, you know what I mean. I just had to have that on the front.
I will show you a couple of the inside things that I always do on my AR 15’s. Now that I have the gun a part and I’m not wasting your time I just wanted to show you a couple of the inner parts that I think are important on an AR 15 that I have built. First thing is with a charging handle I always go with an aftermarket one, I always use Bravo Company Mod 3. I like the big one, some people like the medium one, some people like their smaller version but either way you can’t go wrong with their charging handles they are great.
Since I am running the Adams Arms piston kit, it comes with their bolt carrier group. It doesn’t come with the bolt, and I always use a chrome bolt. I know regular bolts work just as well but it just runs a little bit cleaner and nicer. With all my bolts I always take the extractor and I put the Bravo Company updated extractor kit on all of them. The one thing that probably looks goofy unless you know about them is my POF rolling cam pin. I know regular cam pins work just as well but I think the POF rolling cam pin is better technology. I truly believe that when this bolt carrier goes back and fourth in the upper receiver, the fact that this is round and it rolls along the side as opposed to something square causing serious friction in your upper receiver. Especially if your upper receiver is Aluminium and your cam pin is steel, that is just going to keep wearing back and fourth into your upper receiver as time goes on. Granted, steel ones work just in my opinion I think that the rolling cam pin is the way to go.
The last thing I think is important, but I guess only if you are running a piston system, is the buffer. I get my buffers from heavybuffers.com. Clint makes all of these custom. This buffer is the HS piston buffer and this little nipple that comes out is where the bolt carrier rides on that which keeps this from having carrier tilt and destroying the back of your lower receiver. Again, you don’t necessarily need them. Adams Arms says that there system will run without developing carrier tilt. I run it anyway. The buffer I am running is 6.5 oz. which is a lot heavier than a normal buffer so it’s just a softer shooting, nicer shooting gun. Because it is a piston gun it is a little bit heavier, how much heavier I don’t really know. I have never really noticed it because from the beginning my first AR 15 that I built was a piston gun. Anyway that is my latest build.”
So what do you think? Are you ready for your own Adams Arms Custom Build? Try one of our Kryptek kits for a unique camo pattern. If you are not sure which type of coating process is best for you, read our article over the differences between Duracoat, Cerakote, and Hydrographics (hydro dipping) here.