"Cheap" versus High End ARs

[Sundance]

Disclaimer, I'm not an AR expert and have never had to rely on one for personal safety. If I did, I may rethink my AR choices.

IMHO - if you are shooting 1" groups, the functions reliably and you enjoy shooting it, I see no reason to dish out a lot of money for maybe a 1/2" grouping.

I love building guns from the ground up. I do 80% lowers (I know some will scoff at that), powder coat them every color you can think of and spend my money on triggers, BCG, barrels and optics. I started with the Timney triggerr - big improvement over mil spec, then tried CMC and liked it more, then tried the Elftmann adjustable and really liked it (I have that trigger installed on 3 or 4 - 5.56 guns and one 300 BLKO). I recently got a good deal on a hyperfire trigger and installed it with the 2.5lb springs - LOVE IT!!. I just ordered 4 more - 2 for 5.56 guns and 2 for the 300 BLKO guns.
I generally run Nickel Boron BCG, they have been super reliable for me, and up to this point use mostly Chrome barrels. I'd like to try a Nitride one to see if I notice any difference.
I have yet to find the 'perfect' optic, so the search continues .

I do the same for 10/22's and 1911's. My wife says I need an intervention...

 

[titsonritz]

For example, my ideal build would be the Sionics 1 x 8 twist rate barrel, chrome lined with a WMD in nickel boron BCG

Why not use a SIONICS NP3 BCG? I never got the attraction to NiB BCG's.

 

[rjmt]

does anyone on this thread use Black Hole Weaponry barrels out of St Helens, Or?
I think they are called Columbia Arms now
they specialise in P3 target barrels, have them on all but one of my AR builds
sub MOA barrels

 

[3MTA3]

does anyone on this thread use Black Hole Weaponry barrels out of St Helens, Or?
I think they are called Columbia Arms now
they specialise in P3 target barrels, have them on all but one of my AR builds
sub MOA barrels

Here's a BH barrel on one of two identical builds. Shoots better than I do.

 

[American123]

SOME of their parts are good; some are junk. For example, over here where I live Iraqveteran8888 does these meltdown videos on Youtube. He took a PSA and the gas tube failed in 400 rounds of sustained fire. PSA does sell CHF barrels made by FN so those ARE combat barrels. Their cheap nitride barrels... not up to the abuse. You cannot get the accuracy nor the durability from an $80 rail that you can from a $200 rail. You could upgrade a little at a time as some stuff wears out, but if you knew what you put in your rifle, there would be no doubt. There are small things and PSA does buy parts from a variety of sources. I had a long talk with a guy from their tech dept. that sent me a malfunctioning upper and PSA couldn't fix it. I hated the feel of the charging handle and swapped it out for a BCM... upper problem solved.

Interesting, how many rounds of sustained fire are "battle ready" rifles good for?

Furthermore, in combat what length of time do our soldiers carrying AR varients go through 400 rounds of sustained fire? I thought that was the purpose of the SAW? Whereas the point of the Rifleman was to put more accurate rounds on target, especially since 400 rounds represents what I understand to be more than most rifleman would even carry.

On the topic of rails, I'm not quite getting that one, if the mount is solid on the rail, I'm not sure how the accuracy will be negatively affected regardless of the price of the rail.

If a company offers multiple levels of quality, at multiple price points, taking potentially the absolute lowest quality offering they have and then generalizing it to the entire brand of course then inaccurate, as it seems you volunteered that FN CHF barrels can be on the uppers they sell. It seems that since so much of an AR that sets it apart compared to the upper and lower receiver, at that point if every part of the gun can be any brand/quality, at that point how important is the roll mark on the lower?

 

[Jzaden10]

Some high end AR's you are paying for the type of material used, enhanced machining, and proprietary designs.

I have several PWS long stroke piston AR's and a lot of the parts are designed and built in house by them and they are proprietary.

I also have a couple Radian Model 1 rifles. The fit and finish could never be touched by a PSA or Anderson and they have proprietary parts like Ambi features, etc. They are also put together by one gunsmith at the factory who ensures QC.

With that said, if none of that matters, just buy cheap.

My AR15 is a DPMS ORACLE. About as cheap as you can buy. It has never failed me and its run nuthin but the cheapest ammo. Now, that being said, I don't give a ding dong about sub MOA. For me, if I can ring my 10" steel, I'm happy. Its worked out to 300 yrds, the most I've tried.

Awhile back I bought a POF REVOLUTION for my big bore desires. She's good

Personally, I wouldn't hesitate on either end. IMHO, its hard to find a modern firearm that isn't worth owning, no matter the price.

YMMV

I've also bought pof revolution and am suprised at how accurate and reliable it is, besides that I have bought a over the counter and built a a all aero 300 blackout with no problems till this day and now I am building a 10.3 in. Mk18 "inspirational build/Franken" and i have ordered colt socom barrwl i believe to be over priced i guess ill find out when I take it out to the range but I went with a AO Precision bcg from what I have reserved is a top company that sells to other big name brand companies for a great price high pressure test and magnetic particle inspected also went with good mil spec parts although I am wondering if I should get a quality trigger or just use mil spec and get the better springs dunno yet but. I am planning and taking it everywhere I go (truck gun)

 

[The Resister]

Why not use a SIONICS NP3 BCG? I never got the attraction to NiB BCG's.

No personal experience with them. If I had one to examine and then run some rounds through, I'd probably recommend it. I'm only writing about things I've witnessed being tortured or done it myself.

 

[rjmt]

Simo has/had over 500 confirmed kills.

I have a signed copy of the book "Rifles of the White Death"
many of Simo's kills were with a 9mm submachine gun, not his Mosin M28/31
he had such a target rich environment that he could have shot with his eyes closed and still killed 8 Russians a day
all his kills were within 90 days of combat
but, that for another thread

 

[turbo_vanner]

lol, AR's are incredibly easy to build, for whatever you are trying to achieve, assuming you get good parts and are a handy person. They're also easy to buy if that floats your boat. There are thousands of options to consider.

I milled a complete upper and glock mag 9mm lower from solid blocks of aluminum as one of my first CNC milling projects, then revised it a bit with recessed surfaces, beefed up areas, and engravings. I've since moved on to some 1911 milling and glock slide stuff, nothing commercial though.

From my experience making personal AR parts, and from being a machinist by trade, I put a soft limit on the premium added to some of the fancy pants AR parts manufacturers out there.... I've seen some massive mark ups for 30 minutes of CAD work, and maybe an extra couple tool passes. Once the program is done, and fixtures are made, the fancy stuff generally doesn't cost much more than the regular stuff. Generally, there's always exceptions.

A big one is the Larue MBT2S and the Geissele SSA/SSA-E. You would be hard pressed to tell the difference blindfolded, and when the MBT came out, it cost as much as the G, but has since dropped to less than half the G, and they're still apparently making money.

Another would be the newest gen of micro dots for pistols. Holosun knocked it out of the park with the 507k, and the Trijicon RMRcc looks like it might be DOA, since its basically a 20 year old optic riding on a name.

 

[Kruel J]

I think AR's suck. But I got a bunch of 'em.

 

[The Resister]

Interesting, how many rounds of sustained fire are "battle ready" rifles good for?

Furthermore, in combat what length of time do our soldiers carrying AR varients go through 400 rounds of sustained fire? I thought that was the purpose of the SAW? Whereas the point of the Rifleman was to put more accurate rounds on target, especially since 400 rounds represents what I understand to be more than most rifleman would even carry.

On the topic of rails, I'm not quite getting that one, if the mount is solid on the rail, I'm not sure how the accuracy will be negatively affected regardless of the price of the rail.

If a company offers multiple levels of quality, at multiple price points, taking potentially the absolute lowest quality offering they have and then generalizing it to the entire brand of course then inaccurate, as it seems you volunteered that FN CHF barrels can be on the uppers they sell. It seems that since so much of an AR that sets it apart compared to the upper and lower receiver, at that point if every part of the gun can be any brand/quality, at that point how important is the roll mark on the lower?

I read some unkind remarks by a poster and went off all defensive and sacrifice a lot info for the sake of brevity. With so much stuff on the market I am not an AR 15 expert. I'm just dumbfounded that anyone believes that a quality AR that will do what a service rifle will do cannot be made by a mechanically inclined AR builder with some experience.

Since most of the military LBE / LBV stuff I've seen goes beyond half a dozen magazines, one would think that if you could engage a man sized target and shoot under 3 inches at a hundred yards consistently no matter how hot or cold your barrel with 150 rounds, that should constitute combat ready. But, I've never been in that kind of situation, so I don't know what their realistic expectation is. Whether factory or build, I can only parrot what I'm taught. Reid Henrichs at Valor Ridge in Tennessee (who has a tremendously great training facility) advises that you shoot your weapon under all conditions and have plenty of rounds through it before trusting your life to it.

Insofar as rails, I pondered for months what could be justification for paying $400 for a rail system when we had two Chinese guys showing up at gun shows here peddling $40 rails. I've never owned a $400 rail system, but I did pay over $100 for a Troy. A friend of mine and I built our first ARs years ago and he went with all cheap stuff save of his BCG. We tried to use a scope on his rail, but both of us failed to be able to get it right. Then a screw that holds the scope mount on stripped out the rail. When it comes to rails a lot of stuff comes into play: fit, finish, even the holes that are drilled for screws have to meet a certain standard. The type of aluminum is relevant (the cheaper stuff using 6061 T 6 Aircraft grade aluminum).

Everybody here has their standards. I'm just not swayed by the rollmark on a receiver since most of these companies buy their forgings from a limited number of companies. This is true for both the upper and lower. Here is a list of where many AR lower forgings are coming from:

List of AR15 lower manufacturers - 2aHawaii

Here is a list of the AR-15 lowers manufacturers with the names they manufacture lowers under. The list was compiled by Falcon from the

2ahawaii.com

Factories usually get all their parts from a finite number of vendors, but the reality is I know, for a fact that PSA, uses parts for several vendors... which is why you pay a premium (but cheaper than most other vendors) for their FN barrels (and they are worth it, IF you can deal with the crappiest customer service in America). See this as an example of what I've been referring to with parts:

 

[ScottInPDX]

Furthermore, in combat what length of time do our soldiers carrying AR varients go through 400 rounds of sustained fire?

I'm too out of the loop to weigh in on the overall discussion, but I can tell you that hundreds of rounds of sustained fire definitely happens through M16s/M4s. I didn't have it in country, but did experience it many times in training. It generally wasn't dumping 400 rounds as fast as you can on three-round burst, but we sometimes went through many more than that in a single day running live-fire exercises. There certainly wasn't enough time throughout the day for the barrels to properly cool. And if a training day is done but there's ammo left over? We were instructed to do mag dump after mag dump.

 

[spider]

Barrel, BCG and Trigger assembly are what you need to invest in when looking into a AR variant. These are the items that are going to get you copper, steel and lead down range in a great manner.

The lowers are mostly the same and are usually cut and made from the same handful of manufacturers in the U.S. Now the prices would be up for certain lowers that have very unique features that most of us don't really need but want. Such as, ambidextrous abilities for all the controls.

I have owned factory built Noveske, LWRC, Barrett, Colt, Smith & Wesson. They are nice, but I always wanted to do something different with them, remove or add something to them. Then I held a AXTS/Radian Model 1, damn the Model 1 is a perfect firearm.

I ended up swapping the trigger out of the model 1 for a Geissele Super Dynamic-Enhanced and I am eyeing a rounder and shorter handguard. So, yeah even the high end stuff you end up wanting to upgrade/downgrade to something you feel comfortable with.

But still, when it comes down to it, really the parts that matter are Barrel, BCG and Trigger. Everything else is for looks and feels.

 

[American123]

I'm too out of the loop to weigh in on the overall discussion, but I can tell you that hundreds of rounds of sustained fire definitely happens through M16s/M4s. I didn't have it in country, but did experience it many times in training. It generally wasn't dumping 400 rounds as fast as you can on three-round burst, but we sometimes went through many more than that in a single day running live-fire exercises. There certainly wasn't enough time throughout the day for the barrels to properly cool. And if a training day is done but there's ammo left over? We were instructed to do mag dump after mag dump.

Thanks for the info - the reason I asked is because for example in one video a Palmetto rifle had the gas tube give out / melt after about 400 rounds of full auto with back to back mags. So my question was about how many does a "battle rifle" have to be able to do. Having never been in combat, I can't speak from experience, but it personally seemed to me that 400 rounds on full auto out of an AR15 was a unrealistic use of the rifle and I didn't know if that was even a realistic combat experience since it seemed there were other weaponry more specifically designed for that role, like the SAW.

 

[wired]

Ive drooped Colt tubes down to the barrel whilst in the Army with 400-500 rounds of full auto.

You get issued the ammo you have to use it up.

 

[American123]

Ive drooped Colt tubes down to the barrel whilst in the Army with 400-500 rounds of full auto.

You get issued the ammo you have to use it up.

What a problem to have! Thanks for the feedback. I've read that iconel (I believe) gas tubes are much more resilient, but again, will I ever do 400 rounds on full auto, no - so whether that matters to me or not, time will tell.

 

[rjmt]

how many of you remember the old Milazzo 2 stage trigger for the AR?
I heard about it back in '91 from one of the Army shooter at a competition - was a game changer for those of use shooting Mouse Guns back then
at that time, they made a large hole trigger for the Colt Sporter, I got one of the first 500 made
still have it in my Colt, but use Geissele trigger today

Milazzo-Krieger M-K IIA2 Two Stage Match Trigger (AR15) by Wisconsin Trigger Company

Milazzo-Krieger M-K II Two Stage Match Trigger (AR15) by Wisconsin Trigger Company

bravocompanyusa.com

.
I consider the trigger to be second only to the barrel for an AR build

 

[Boboclown]

So what if a person gets a colt lower and put a diemaco upper on it. Is that not good?

 

[Diamondback]

So what if a person gets a colt lower and put a diemaco upper on it. Is that not good?

Have you SEEN the prices on Diemaco parts lately? A Colt-Diemaco mix would be solid if both halves are factory-assembled, if they come as parts-kit it comes down to the assembler.

Problem is finding Diemacos because of the import ban closing the market and us cloners seeing demand surges...

 

[Boboclown]

Have you SEEN the prices on Diemaco parts lately? A Colt-Diemaco mix would be solid if both halves are factory-assembled, if they come as parts-kit it comes down to the assembler.

Problem is finding Diemacos because of the import ban closing the market and us cloners seeing demand surges...

I'm aware. A buddy of mine got a few diemaco uppers and even managed to get a colt canada lower.