Randy Luth cashed out to the tune of millions, and Freedom Group streamlined several of the different branches of operations they acquired from Remington, Bushmaster, and DPMS. You now see "Bushmaster" logo AR15's with the Serpent but no ARM, with "Ilion New York" listed as the place of manufacture (Remington), with BCG's with a "D" stamped on the left side (DPMS), using Remington barrels.
Like I said, none of those 3 companies really exists anymore if looking at them the way we were accustomed to over the years. I already went from thinking Bushmaster is best, to I won't buy one of these ever again after watching their QC and very limited quality go downhill in assembly over the early 2000's, and I would never purchase a legacy DPMS carbine in 5.56 from the Luth era anyway after running them in high volume.
To me, the GII looks nothing like the Luth era DPMS low grade aluminum, short cut at every corner carbines, because it simply isn't. That won't escape a lot of people who came to the same conclusions that I did about the Luth era DPMS, because you only get one chance to make a 1st impression, and that simple mentality drives a lot of decision making with gun customers.
I like to stay flexible and as updated as possible as to what is going on, and the GII really appears to be a new breed of AR innovation in many aspects, none of which resemble DPMS other than some of the cheap and outdated furniture, which I hope is just a way of getting rid of excess stock, and not a continuation of old designs, like the Glacier Guard, or the heavy pineapple quad rails.
Sure, eat the inventory up of those components which Joe Blow is going to rip off and replace with MI and Sampson, but don't make any new ones. The newer handguard designs that DPMS has offered on their 3-gun and more recent rifles makes a lot more sense, or they can start throwing on the MI and Sampson handguards as factory models, replacing what they are putting on the Recon, SASS, and maybe one other model.
If I were driving the boat, I would design a dedicated and updated lightweight SASS handguard, with a permanent 12 o'clock rail, tons of lightening cuts, vent holes, but a sold attachment system that doesn't rob accuracy or come loose. Nobody should have to mess about with the higher price point models, in my opinion.
