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Hopefully, for your money you're getting durability and reliability in what everyone likes to call "austere conditions". Hopefully you're paying for excellent QC along with the quality. Some people buy $40 Anderson lowers and uppers and shoot maybe 1k through them in their entire ownership, as range toys and that's totally sufficient for that use. Other people, like me, put 1k through them per month at least and don't own "toys". As a lefty, the high end's full ambi stuff is very appealing. Although its proprietary, and nothing a Forward Controls mag release and a Radian safety can't fix for much cheaper than a LMT Mars lower or one of Radian's. They're extremely well built, ill give them that. Expensive doesn't always mean quality, and there's a finite number of features you can physically put on a lower/upper. Many people think "There's not enough bells and whistles in the world to make that lower worth $350". You're paying for material quality, R&D and a lot of other things that need to be developed to bring that product to market. Conversely, you could be SMOS and make NOVESKE's OEM parts while they slap their name on it. Many people like myself don't own or trust their life to something that hasn't been thoroughly vetted personally, is synonymous with "budget" or "hobby grade" or considered "range toy".
This question...in some format or variation...has been asked a million times on just about every gun forum out there...
Example: What does a Wilson Combat 1911 do for me that a Springfield Arms won't? Or what makes the Wilson worth so much more? Etc.
To which I always reply...A Porsche and a Volkswagen will both get you down the road. A Craftsman wrench and a Snap On wrench will both turn the nut/bolt. Only YOU can decide if the extra money is worth it to you. Value is very subjective.
You mentioned Daniel Defense so we'll use that as an example. With DD you get
Again, only YOU can decide if this is worth it to you and if the quality warrants the price. YMMV.
- A known and generally high and consistent level of quality. I mean this within reason. Everyone produces a dog once in awhile. And this isn't to say that other makers don't have the same level of quality...or maybe even better.
- A warranty from a generally well regarded company who has a good reputation for standing by their products
- Generally decent level of customer service if there is a problem
- One stop shop if there is a problem. In a FrankenGun you may have trouble getting service. Or the company saying that the problem isn't with their part it's with another part you used
- Generally a higher level of resale than you would get from a FrankenGun. Selling a FrankenGun can be hard because not everyone may like the combination of parts you chose and a whole lot of people are NOT willing to take the chance that you didn't "Bubba" something during the build process. But Franken guns usually sell for a whole lot less than the total cost of their parts. If you get fifty cents on the dollar you're doing well IMO. And that's purely anecdotal based on my experience. If you disagree with me, that's fine.
- I'm stating the obvious here but you get a quality weapon that is ready to go right out of the box. No assembly required. Building obviously takes time and money...and some tools which a lot of people overlook in their initial cost assessment. Don't overlook the cost of shipping either.
Every bit of this!My point here is :
Don't get all hung up on the firearm and whether or not it is high end or low end...etc...
Buy what you can afford , and what will work for your purposes....
Learn to use it well....and have the willingness to use it , when needed.
We say it depends upon what you're buying the weapon for. I only know three reasons: competition / accuracy, a rifle to use for survival / SHTF/ self defense, or one for plinking. If you want a rifle with sniper capabilities for competition, designated marksman, or accuracy, maybe a high end rifle is justified - without argument. If I'm just plinking, I would buy a S&W 22 AR and pretend. If I buy for the reason most people do: survival / SHTF / self defense, then reliability becomes paramount. When my life is what's at stake, I don't care about whether the upper and lower are off a few shades in color or if it's going to have a high resale value. And, it's a battle rifle. It don't have to be sub moa at 100 yards. If you're doing 2" groups with a rifle after the break in period, you'll do fine in a SHTF, survival or self defense situation.
My takeaway from most of the shooters here is that a quality build will do just as good as the $2000 builds. If you're using quality parts, assembled to spec (headspaced, torqued with a torque wrench to spec, and properly staked when appropriate, etc.) is there an advantage a factory weapon would have over a quality build? Youtube has a lot of videos showing that a melonite PSA barrel shows significant throat erosion after 500 rounds in rapid fire while a POF is like new after the same treatment. The jury is still out with the FN chrome lined versus the POF. And I think those things are what people really want to know about. Even factory rifles can be tricky to say they're all junk. A guy at the last gun show I went to had Bushmasters for $399 plus tax. They were mostly junk. OTOH, I traded two CZ 52 pistols once to a guy for a Bushmaster NIB that he inherited when his brother died. A call to Bushmaster revealed that it had a chrome bore and chamber.
I really appreciate the input. If I did not value my life, I'd just pay the money and take the factory rifle home because it looks cool, the company has good customer service and I can resale without losing much if anything. Like you said, to each his own. But reviews tell us how people rate factory rifles. What we really want to know is if we had to use our weapon against someone similarly armed, will our rifle perform to the point that training and practice will become the deciding factors. The difference between my average quality build and a top tier rifle is the cost of a case of ammo. That case of ammo is a lot of practice.
LOL, I won't last 6 months without meds. Rant all you want but most of us on this very forum either cannot or will not do all that. I can live my life in some sort of enjoyable fashion or spend just about all of my spare time in a futile attempt to prepare to survive a low-odds scenario the nature of which I have no chance of predicting. Guess which one I chose? Sorry to dis your hobby but I don't see it paying off.I gotta disagree with a bunch of people on this. I don't normally weigh in on these types of questions because generally it's all preference, but there's a metric crap ton of misinformation here. First of all, any Frankenstein rifle, regardless of quality, has multiple points of failure in the LONG run. I.e. the wear on the parts will be different over the course of the rifles life. Why? Because it's all from different manufacturers and made of different quality parts. However, I'm not saying an all stock rifle will outlast every single frankenstein. My answer to the question or thread is BOTH. Lower quality for general training/proficiency, and high end for Accuracy/SHTF. Buy Once, Cry once isn't just a meme or a fad, it's a legit principle. And I would trust any factory BCM or DD over anything that I, myself put together out of parts regardless of quality, because I'm not an expert. They are.
Let's paint an example, shall we? Extremely relevant in the current times if this garbage gets worse and people get more desperate/economy collapses.
In a SHTF scenario, most people, including people on this forum, aren't ready. They may THINK they are, but in reality they aren't. 30-60 minutes. If SHTF, it should take you no longer than 30-60 mins to be home, family and gear loaded in the rig, and on your way out of city limits. The people hoarding 10,000 rounds with the strategy of "bunkering down" within city limits aren't going to last long. They may last longer than A LOT of people, but ultimately that strategy is a lose/lose. If you're in city limits, the ONLY option is to get as far away from the city as possible. The REALITY is, that you can't carry the tens of thousands of rounds one might have stockpiled, and mobility is essential in survival situations. So let's look at logistics.
S is HTF...you get home (preferably the fam is grabbing essentials and having it ready by the time you get home), essentials being: stored food, blankets/sleeping bags, survival kits and medbags, water, bottle of lube/oil in the gun bag, gear/ammo/weaponry. You aren't gonna be throwing your whole safe in the truck. You'll probably have time and space to grab a couple sidearms, couple rifles, ammo. If you have a safe full of guns, which ones are you gonna grab? I guaran-f'ingTee I'm not gonna grab my Anderson or PSA, or my fancy STI or Less Bauer or my Gucci Glock unless that's all you have. No, I'm grabbing my 2 standard Glocks because they take the same mags, and I'm grabbing the factory BCMs or DDs, why? Because both guns have an impeccable wartime track record. They don't f-ing quit and they can go a looong time without cleaning in case I run out of oil or for whatever reason I didn't have any. (MAC YT channel currently has 8500 rounds through a BCM Recce without a single failure with zero lube/maintenance). I don't need my guns to be pinpoint accurate. I need them to be pretty accurate, and dependable and durable in a time of war. That's it. I know a lot of operators/contractors and US Marshals. Every single one of them runs BCM, or DD and only two run Colt just because it's what they are used to, when they get deployed. That's evidence enough for me.
I know that I can comfortably carry 2 sidearms, a rifle, and about 450-500 rounds of mixed ammo between the 2 calibers on my person. (A standard combat loadout is 3-5 spare mags of sidearm and 6-8 mags of AR. The other ammo would be stored in the rig.
So yeah, in summary, all parts/builds have their place in the industry as well as in the given situations they are needed. But in the most important situation, survival, it isn't even a second thought for me, and quality will always win over cost efficiency.
Just my .02
Well, you see, once you get up around 50,000 rounds the factory rifle will really start to outpace the home assembled one.What about a "frankenrifle" made with quality parts? realistically, if your barrel extension is quality, and you buy an inspec bcg....what other area are you really all that worried about. I highly doubt they gonna mic the bcg and barrel from the factory to get a "perfect" fit on bcm/dd/colt/etc that are supposedly "better"
100% hahahaIf you don't want to upgrade every trigger you have, don't ever shoot a nice trigger. I'm sold and I can't stand "Mil Spec" triggers anymore.
A friend of mine a week after trying one of my ARs with a Geissele trigger in it: "Damn you Flops, I just spent $600 on triggers today!"100% hahaha
For my first rifle, which also turned out to be my duty rifle, I bought a PSA lower and Spikes complete upper. It seemed people were split on the quality of Spikes. Ended up putting a Spikes lower on it so I could have a "matching" rifle. Down the road I changed the trigger (Geissele ssa), BCG (BCM), and charging hangle (BCM)
After putting in the Geissele trigger, I found out what the fuss was all about. I only own 3 AR's and 2 have Geissele SSA's and the other has an ALG QMS.
Anderson internals look like junk.