I dropped one of my AR's with a collapsable stock from 10 feet by accident and it smacked the ground pretty darn hard. I actually really like the A1 fixed stock. The collapsable is kind of cool just because with different types of gear on you have more options. I usually don't wear my tactical ted outfit so being able to lengthen the stock one notch is nice. My friend has a Colt (I believe) collapseable stock that is all aluminum, tube stock and all. He got that in the 70's though.