Just kissed the postman for delivering my new M1A1 and M1A2, one's from Academy the other from Dragon. There was a huge price difference between the two kits (resp. €8,- vs €20,- on tanxheaven) but man... what a diffrence in detail!! Though I really like the one from Academy from which I'm allready building one and is allmost #:-) finished... I was amazed by the looks of the Dragon's M1A2...
Well, just wanted to share my happy moment with you guys, I'm off modeling...
Greetings Jurgen

The Academy kit is a copy of the original Tamiya M1A1 that Tamiya cut corners on. Tamiya went back and fixed the undersized turret, whereas Academy left their's as is.

Here in the States, I've seen Academy Abrams on the shelf for between $12-18. DML Abrams kits run about $15-24 depending on the boxings and variant.

Both are very buildable kits. DML's is better and more accurate but Academy's is easier to build.

Thanks to Rob's advice, I got the DML kit a couple months ago. It sure is a beauty.

I don't know if you noticed it or not - but on the Academy kit there is a AWFULL big gap between the upper manlet and the turret top side . It will take a bit of plastic strip to fix this , good luck - toad -13 out