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Aero Precision 12.5-inch Upper Review
Updated
24 months ago
Good morning everyone, this is John with gun.deals, and today we’re taking a look at a very cool upper receiver from Aero Precision. This is their 12.5-inch M4 E1 upper receiver.
Full disclosure on the Aero Precision M4 E1, this 12.5-inch with the 12-inch Atlas R1 upper receiver, we did purchase this from with our own money however, we did pay a dealer price for the upper receiver. I personally have an account with Aero Precision as a dealer, I do buy a lot of their products for some of my builds, but just keep in mind that there is somewhat of a relationship there.
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Let’s go ahead and get into the specifics of this 12.5-inch Aero Precision upper receiver, if you don’t know Aero Precision isn’t necessarily like a mid-tier company, a lot of them, a lot of people look at them as sort of like the best entry-level company, they’re not quite at the price of like BCM or DD or other companies, however, they’re nor particularly cheap either, so they’re kind of a middle of the road company in that regard, they don’t produce cheap stuff, but they also don’t produce top-tier, very expensive items either.
The cost of this upper receiver, I believe retail, if you get one with the BCG and just like a mil-spec charging handle, in this case this is actually a Toolcraft Nickel Boron BCG, but I believe the cost of this upper, without the BCG and charging handle, would be around 500$, and then add an extra 100$ for your BCG and charging handle or if you have one laying around. So, again, overall, it does kind of fill that mid-tier price category.
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Toolcraft Non-Logoed Premium 5.56 Nickel Boron BCG with Carpenter 158 Bolt
$109.99
Palmetto State Armory
51655116634
051655116634
Toolcraft Logo'd Premium 5.56 Nickel Boron BCG with Carpenter 158 Bolt - 5165449729
$99.99
Palmetto State Armory
5165449729
005165449729
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If you didn’t know, Aero Precision and Ballistic Advantage are basically sister companies, so this has a 12.5-inch Ballistic Advantage barrel, though is branded as Aero Precision. So, this is a 12.5-inch carbine length barrel with 1:7 twist made out of 4150 chrome-moly vanadium steel with 1:7 twist. Overall, we will get into accuracy on the barrel, but it was not only a decent shooter in terms of its gas setting, it is a little bit over-gassed, but we’ll get into that later on, but it was also fairly accurate as well.
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This specific model comes with the 12-inch Atlas R1 handguard. Now, the Aero Precision handguards are nice handguards, they are very aesthetically pleasing, they’re fairly lightweight, they’re well thought out, they’re not necessarily the strongest, most durable handguards on the market, but, again, they’re aesthetically pleasing and they’re not too much money for the value they provide.
We have M-LOK on the 3, 6 and 9 o’clock position, we also have QD points for your sling that are anti-rotation at the back of the handguard. On top we have a continuous piece of Pucatinny rail that is scalloped out with lightning cuts and holes for ventilation as well, and the lock-up to the barrel nut and upper receiver is actually quite good, I believe they call it a taper mount, though it’s really a wedge lock system and, of course, built-in anti-rotation tabs as well.
With a 12-inch handguard you do cover up just a little bit of your muzzle device, so if you’re trying to thread on like a suppressor or something, without a booster or some device to push it out a little bit, it could be somewhat difficult on this build, but it does work well with the A2 flash hider and, again, it’s going to vary on what muzzle device you want to put on the gun, so just keep that in mind, if you’re gonna be using a brake, where the ports start, very close to the beginning of the muzzle device, you could have some issues and end up damaging your handguard if those ports are inside of the end of the handguard.
We have our standard 0.750 steel gas block as well as a stainless steel gas tube. The upper receiver itself, this is one of their M4 E1 upper receiver, basically it’s just like an enhanced mil-spec upper receiver. It’s a nice package, but it’s not specifically better in any way than like a standard mil-spec upper receiver, again, it’s just nice.
Geometry is slightly different externally, you have a threaded pin for your forward assist, which is a nice feature to have, especially in assembly, however, it’s not gonna change the function of it all that much. On top of that, you do have some material removed from your top Picatinny rail section, as well they are T-marked as well, if you care about that sort of thing. Overall, it is more aesthetically pleasing than your mil-spec forged upper receiver, but, again, in function they are, for all intents and purposes, identical.
This one did not come with a charging handle or BCG, so I threw in just a standard mil-spec charging handle and one of my Toolcraft Nickel Boron BCG’s and it has been running very well.
In terms of part selection quality, everything ranges from good to very good, so when you get one of these upper receivers out of the box there is no substandard components on the upper receiver, again, everything is either a good or a very good level of quality, so, again, out of the box you’re getting a good package that just justify the price tag. It’s not crazy expensive, but, again, it’s not also the cheapest stuff on the market.
When it comes to assembly it’s also assembled fairly well, so on the threads on your upper receiver you actually do have anti-seize applies applied, so that when you take your barrel nut off, in the future if you ever need to swap out your barrel, it is fairly easy to do so.
All the fit and finish, everything on the upper receiver was, again, to a very high level, all the machining looks very good, there were no problems in that regard. Really, the one knock that I would say on the upper receiver assembly is that Ballistic Advantage barrels, unfortunately, are not dimpled from the factory, that is something that you have to do after the fact.
The gas block is just your standard set screw style of gas block, and as far as I could tell they didn’t put any high temperature threadlocker on the set screws on the gas block either, so over time that could loosen up and it’s not a dimpled barrel at all, so when those start to loosen up, the entire gas block could move and then, of course, your system will stop running.
So, if I had to make one change I would like the gas block barrel to be dimpled and then, of course, pinned, as like a step above that, but a dimpled barrel with a gas block set screws that are torque appropriately will, of course, work just fine. Not everything needs to be pinned, but, again, it is something that we would like to see as an additive preventative step.
When it comes to performance and actually shooting the upper receiver, currently we have about 600 rounds on it, we have not experienced a single failure on it, which is good, shooting a lot of just basic ball ammunition as well as a lot of crappy steel cased ammunition.
On top of that, we were also able to take this upper receiver with, I believe we were using the Primary Arms MD25 with the ACSS reticle and a 6x magnifier, and we were able to take it all the way out to 500 yards without issue.
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Primary Arms Bikini Cover for the SLx MD-25
$2.99
Primary Arms
210103
818500016960
Primary Arms SLX MD-25 Micro Red Dot Acss-CQB
$169.99
Deguns.net
810007
818500014065
Primary Arms SLX MD-25 Rotary Knob 25mm Microdot with 2 MOA Red Dot Reticle
$149.99
Deguns.net
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Primary Arms SLx 25mm Red Dot Anti-Reflection Device - 557644
$29.99
MidwayUSA
PA-SLX-MD-25-ARD
818500015185
Primary Arms SLx Rotary Knob 25mm Microdot with 2 MOA Red Dot Reticle
$169.99
AR15Discounts
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PA-SLX-MD-25
818500014058
Primary Arms SLx MD-25 Rotary Knob 1x25mm Microdot Reflex Sight, ACSS-CQB Red Dot, Black, 810033
$199.99
Dvor
and 3 more stores
810033
818500018308
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Alright, that was a hit!
On top of that, we also did some accuracy testing on this upper with some match loads, we used some HSM 77 grain ammunition, that, again, I think 4 rounds came in at sub MOA, then I had a flyer, and then we had 5 rounds of Atomic 77 grain, and that came in right at 1MOA, which I am very happy with, and then, again, we had a 5-round group of Nosler 77 grain match ammunition, again one flyer and then 4 very good rounds.
Overall, especially if you take out those flyers, very accurate, and, again, we were able to take it out to 500 yards with just a red dot and magnifier, so, overall, the performance in terms of accuracy I would say, again, very good, I’ve had very good luck with Ballistic Advantage/Aero Precision barrels, they’ve all performed up to task.
The one thing that I would say about the barrel is it is a little bit over-gassed, so for instance, we were getting about 3 o’clock ejection with steel cased ammunition, and about 2 to 2.30 ejection with brass or M193, M855, so on and so forth, so it is a little bit over-gassed, and sometimes you’ll notice that the ejection pattern is much further back, at about 3.30 to 4 o’clock and that is when I was using an H3 buffer.
It is, again, a little over-gassed, not in a bad way, not certainly unusable, it’s still very pleasurable to shoot, but, again, just note that it is a little bit over-gassed, so you might wanna throw in a little bit of a heavier buffer, if you’re looking for the best shooting experience.
Right out of the box the performance of the upper receiver was what I would consider to be very good, it was a good shooter, a decent shooter with very good accuracy, in my opinion. The fit and finish, the assembly, everything was installed properly right out of the box, again, I didn’t touch anything on it, the only thing that I did to it was throw in a BCG and charging handle, and, again, I haven’t touched it or cleaned it for the last 6, 700 rounds, and it has, again, worked flawlessly.
When it comes to the value proposition on an out of the box Aero upper, it’s good, it’s definitely not necessarily the top-tier of terms of value to performance, but if you’re looking for an upper receiver that you don’t really want to worry about, maybe just one or two things that you change on it, eventually.
Out of the box the Aero Precision can make a lot of sense, especially if you get a good deal on them. They’re not quite as expensive as like BCM or DD or any of the other sort of higher-end builds, even though BCM isn’t necessarily all that expensive, but it’s definitely not gonna be as cheap as your Bear Creek Arsenal or your Durkin tactical, Palmetto State Armory, and hopefully have a higher level of QC assembly, all that sort of stuff.
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While it’s not necessarily the nicest, most top-tier build on the market, it does still provide a good level of value, the performance in terms of shooting is definitely there, I’d be happy to shoot many thousands of rounds through this upper receiver. Its accuracy, especially with certain match loads, was, what I consider, very good, and, again, even with just ball ammunition we were able to take it out to 500 yards consistently.
Overall, I think that the package is very good, if you get a good deal and with your handguard that you like because, of course, Aero Precision has many different barrel lengths, handguars, upper receiver combinations available, so, at the end of the day I think they are a good value, again, if you’re just looking for the cheapest upper that runs, this isn’t gonna be the cheapest upper that runs, but it is still going to be in that sort of mid-tier high-value landscape.
