Cured elastomers are commonly dispersed in thermoplastics, but the reverse morphology has received little attention. The present work examines dispersions of 0.5–2 μm PA6 droplets in ethylene‐acrylic elastomer (AEM), created by melt blending. After cooling, the blends are compounded with amine curative and crosslinked. Uncrosslinked blends exhibit high bound rubber levels compared to N990 carbon black filled AEM, but similar viscosity at equal filler volume fraction. Crosslinking the blends produces strong, heat resistant vulcanizates with minimal Payne effect and good compression set resistance. These properties result from extensive AEM‐PA6 grafting, absence of filler‐filler contacts, and beneficial modification of the oxidation profile under diffusion limited conditions. The data show rubber‐filler grafting strongly influences filler reinforcing ability, but does not directly influence the Payne effect. Relative to unfilled AEM, silica and carbon black fillers accelerate oxidative degradation in proportion to their reinforcing ability, whereas PA6 has a stabilizing effect. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2016, 133, 43995.