Hardened Arms quick review

Gear Jammer · Feb 2, 2014

I just bought an upper from Hardened Arms. I couldn't find much info on them when I was shopping for my new upper, so I thought I would do a quick review. I contacted three companies that sell uppers in 7.62x39, the caliber I was looking for. The first company said it would be 3-6 months before my order would ship. The second company said 5 days if the upper I wanted was in stock. Hardened Arms told me 48 hours from order to shipping, if the upper I wanted was in stock, and their in Washington so I knew I wouldn't be waiting forever on shipping. I ordered my upper on a Monday evening, it shipped Wednesday and was in my hands Thursday. I finally got a chance to put some rounds through it today, 40 rounds of Tula, I had 2 FTL and 2 FTF. On the FTL when I slapped the bottom of the magazine the bolt closed and loaded the next round. On the 2 FTF I opened the bolt half way, let it close, and the rounds fired. Overall I happy with my purchase, I wanted an affordable AR that would be cheap to shoot, but still legal to hunt deer with in WA and this fits the bill.

akmewon · Feb 2, 2014

I also have an upper from them ..when i order thru gunbroker it was supposed to be complete upper.It showed up w no bcg.I called and dude was more than cool and sent me a bcg that day ..Over all I also had a great experience with them..

knc1105 · May 17, 2014

I have (2) uppers from them, a 16" SS free float 7.62x39 and a 7-1/2" pistol upper in 7.62x39 both are simply amazing. My gunsmith wanted to see how they were put together and took them apart and installed carbon fiber free float tubes I had already purchased. The carbon tubes were barely lighter than the factory tubes on them but carbon does not conduct heat. He said he was impressed with all the little things, the gas block had recces' in the barrel for both set screws and they were lock-tighted, lube and torque on barrel nut and he looked at both bores with a bore scope and said they looked really good. He had seen National Match stamped barrels that did not look this good. I fire-lap all my guns with Tubbs Final Finish from Superior Shooting Systems.com and the rifle with Golden Tiger shoots a ragged hole group at a 100 yards. The pistol shot sub MOA at 50 and 100 yards and I shot a 2-box 40 round group from the bench at 250 yards that was 4" the guys on both sides of me with their rifles at the range could not do that. Right now they are only listing .223 uppers or I would get another one to replace another .223. Once you start hunting Wild Boars with a .223 you fall out of love with that rodent round. With the proper hold-over optics those 7.62 uppers will easily shoot 400-500 yards, but a 400 lb Boar at 250 is still a single shot drop, and that won't happen with a .223 unless you shoot it in the ear. And AK ammo is $234 a 1,000 not $499-600. I cannot say enough about their uppers and their service, will buy more.

Gear Jammer · Jun 30, 2014

I thought I would add an update. I went out yesterday and put a hundred rounds through the rifle, I had one fail to load, which I figured out was due to me not getting the rounds all the way into the back of the magazine, and nine fail to fire's. On the FTF's, I re-racked each round and they fired. I'm hoping the FTF's are due to the cheap Tula ammo I'm shooting, I have a box of Federal Fusion's for it, and one of these days I'll make it to the range to see how they shoot, and get an idea of the accuracy of this upper with those rounds.

Gear Jammer · Nov 26, 2014

I finally made it to the range with this upper. I was able to shoot a 1.5" three shot group at 100 yards, shooting Federal Fusion ammo. I was hopping for a little tighter grouping, I can usually shoot a 1" or tighter three shot group from a good rest at the range. I hope to get back with some different ammo to see if it shoots better. I didn't have a single fail to fire with this ammo, witch is a huge improvement over the Tulammo I usually use for plinking. I'm also going to pick up an enhanced firing pin to hopefully remedy the FTF issue with cheap ammo.

Gear Jammer · Jan 24, 2015

I took my AR into a local gun shop that has a good reputation with AR's. After talking to them about my fail to fire issues they convinced me that the problems were likely being caused by the polymer hammer that was in my lower. I had them install a new trigger and hammer, and do a trigger job on it. I took it out and shot it today and this completely resolved my fail to fire issues with the cheap Tulammo.
After talking with them about my fail to load issue's we decided that the feed ramps needed to be opened up, and that the high point in between them needed to be removed. They did this for me and it solved my fail to load issue's.
Now I just need to pick up some different brands of ammo to take to the range, and see if I can find something that groups a little better.

cj02unc · Oct 7, 2015

Just got my 300 blackout pistol upper in last week. Took it to the range and wow. Blew my mind. No cycle issues or ftf. Only thing I didn't like was the white lettering on my upper. Easy fix though. I will be building another one soon.

Gear Jammer · Jan 18, 2019

Just thought I should give a long term update. After 4+ years and hundreds of rounds of mostly cheap ammo, this rifle still works great. I've been using ASC 7.62x39 mags without issue. I also finally swapped out my polymer lower, I had been using a Plum Crazy polymer lower on this rifle since day one. The only issue I had with the polymer lower was that it had a polymer trigger and hammer which caused light primer strikes with the cheap ammo I like, but I decided to swap it out just in case. And because everybody likes pictures, and the rifle has changed slightly since the first picture, here's a current one. I no longer use this rifle for hunting and am currently putting together and AR in 6.5 Grendel for deer.

B5Ben · Jan 18, 2019

Good to hear a long term follow up. I also have some stuff from hardened and like their stuff. Much better finish on the receivers than PSA or Anderson. I did notice PSA has improved theirs recently and it looks an awefull lot like what hardened has been doing for quite a while. I am waiting on their stingray pinned and welded suppressed upper. Hopefully the dem's come to the table soon and get the gov't running again so the ATF can get back to work.