Anderson Manufacturing

Anyone have any thoughts on this company and the guns they make?

Thanks.

 

I've had a few Anderson lowers. Never had a problem with them.

Never heard anything but good about them to be honest.

 

No experience with their complete guns but have shot plenty of builds on poverty pony lowers and built one for a friend. Not the sexiest option but a mil spec lower is exactly that. Mil spec.

With most of “higher end” lowers you’re just paying for the name and roll mark.

 

First and second posts are correct.

I’ve built a few. No problems.

Definitely not as sexy as a LaRue.

 

Lowers are g2g

 

I’ve built off their lowers.
And have run their uppers.

Never bought a whole assembled rifle.

But the lowers are great.
And the upper I had ran great as well.

 

If they are in spec they're fine, problem is their QC is not on the same level as the higher end brands usually are- every brand has bad products slip through occasionally though. Here's a quick video that shows the most common complaint- the last round hold open not working correctly due to looser tolerances on the bolt catch. He adds qualifying statements and reiterates that this is one issue, but it does demonstrate that their QC is not on par with other manufacturers. For most people and most uses this is not a big deal and Anderson may well have corrected the tolerances since the video was put out- it's just one that I recall seeing when Andersons were being discussed.



I do not own any Andersons but have shot a couple of never noticed the issue so again, Anderson may have fixed it.

If the gun/parts are in spec and have proven to be reliable then go for it, I'm definitely not a brand snob. I have owned DPMS back when folks used to make fun of them without realizing that DPMS was making parts for darn near every other company making ARs at the time and I have owned multiple PSAs, again, they weren't making their own parts at various times either. My SBR is an Aero manufactured PSA branded lower (because it makes zero sense to me to spend a lot on a Gucci lower that you're going to have to engrave with your info thus ruining any value it may have had). I also tend to spray paint my guns so... With the SBR, I had it mic'd by a very knowledgeable person in the industry and I had a good number of rounds through it as a pistol before I filed the paperwork on it. If it works, it works and most folks aren't good enough shots to notice minor differences (I know I'm not, at least with a rifle) and with the cost of ammo and inflation it's not like most folks are dumping tons of brass anymore. JMHO

 

Really you’re paying for the quality of turning a lower forging into a finished lower. So the proper milling, proper type 3 hard anodizing and their QA/QC process.



I have a couple of Anderson lowers (Poverty Pony as some call it). A bunch of PSA lowers which I put in the same category. Most of the lower end priced lowers have some sort a blemishing or tighter/looser tolerances. They’re okay. They work as advertised.

One of my andersons/ballistic advantage 6.5g



This is pretty accurate to be honest.

(Seems someone dislikes stag)

 

my point was that if it is mil spec it is built to military specification regardless of how fancy a brand it is or isn’t which is plenty good enough.

a lot of the higher end companies like to advertise crazy tight tolerances out to like 0.0001” which sounds impressive to the layman but working in manufacturing I can confidently say that in real life it doesn’t matter when you get down to 1/10,000 of an inch. It’s mostly marketing to make it sound more impressive.

IIRC mil spec machining tolerances is +/-0.01”.

 

Mil-Spec is the price of admission or basically the bare minimum to be taken serious. Also just because a brand says they’re mil-spec doesn’t mean they’re actually producing mil spec quality.

I’ve seen plenty of Colt M4 and M4A1 that look like absolute shit. Waves in the bcg, assembled terrible, not properly stacked and so on. Those are mil-spec guns in the military.

KAC isn’t a mil-spec gun. It’s above mil-spec.
DDs barrels aren’t mil-spec they’re above it.

The difference is a batch tested gun that doesn’t have the of quantity control of higher end gun and not just that it doesn’t have quality assurance.

High end companies have the assurance that their guns can be used at a professional level(special operations/high level swat/etc) without question.

Im personally not betting my life on “Good enough”. edit: actually I am but it’s not my choice.

 

Didn't Aero buy the original Radian company? I'm a huge Aero fanboy....but I'm not an "operator"


To the OP. My first rifle I built was with an Anderson lower and a complete upper. I had no problems with it. I swapped to Aero once they offered the M4E1 with a threaded bolt pin and trigger guard as part of the lower

 

I do really like Aero. The M4E1 are sweet and look great.

 

These are the last 2 I built(300 blk and EPC-9). Also have a few lowers sitting in the safe

 

Go with Aero Precision, they’ve got very good deals going on right now.

 

I’ve run Anderson full uppers, both needed work to run smoothly. But they have done just that, run smoothly. I have an assembled lower of theirs that run 6.5 Creedmoor perfectly, it under an Aero upper. In my little opinion, these components are fine, I find they need a little work to meet my picky standards of operation. That said, great bang for the bucks. I’m going to buy again sometime.

 

Yeah, I'm curious when that chart was made. Some of those names have shifted over the years and it's funny to see some of the guns that the instructors are shooting

 

I have Aeros, PSAs, Anderson’s, BCMs, Spikes, Rock Rivers, DD and a couple other brands. All of them work well, they are really just a place to hold on and pin the upper which has all the important machining for accuracy. I have taken the same upper and swapped it between all the lowers for fun and they all still hit the target 800m out.

 

Idk I just googled it. I agree it’s not perfect but close. Everyone was shooting BCM for the longest with a few DDs here and there.

 

Yeah remember when it was the ABCs- Aero, Bushmaster and Colt? RRA was a higher end gun at one time and Stag and Spike's were also considered very good for a period. And behind the scenes DPMS was making parts for everyone except Colt and even Model 1 Sales had ER Shaw barrels. Quite a few of those non "S Tier" guns were used overseas (and I know of a couple that put people down; State had a bunch of Bushmasters at one point for example) as well as being used by most law enforcement agencies. I'd take several of the "lower" tier guns over a modern Colt as well, including a PSA with the FN CHF barrel (hopefully CZ can get Colt back on track). I'd take a Savage 110 or 111 over most of those other manufacturers bolt guns as well. And I may or may not have some of the guns higher on that list.

It's kinda like the folks who only buy ACOG, Aimpoint, etc, yet there are a ton Holosuns out there on competition guns that are run a lot harder than most service weapons.

 

Back in the day I had an Anderson AR Pistol build with a DD Mk18 upper. Good stuff.