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Posted: 5/7/2011 3:50:36 PM EDT
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I am starting a build up of my first AR15. I am a newbie and have minimal mechanical skills, I need some advise on what to avoid during my build up (to minimize or eliminate any mistake).
Like what material or brands that I should avoid in my build up. To give you an idea, my budget is about $1,200 and I prefer a piston system with option for additional upgrade in the future and shall maintain its value for resale. any help will be appreciated. |
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Good Parts Brands
BCM LMT CMMG SPIKES Double Star Good Dealers Bravo Company (BCM) "They sell other brands also" PK Firearms J&T distributing Avoid Model 1 Sales Do youself a favor and skip the piston, I owned one for about a month and got rid of it. The AR was never designed to be a piston system, and they are not one bit more reliable than a quality DI gun that is properly maintained. A "solution looking for a problem" if you will. And if anything breaks, parts for a DI gun can be found at any funshow or gunshop. While the piston parts are proprietary and for the most part are brand specific. Don't let the "cool factor" make you spend twice for something that's cost outways the benifit. For the 1200 dollar budgit you can have a damn fine DI gun, or a basic piston gun. Trust me I have owned both |
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As stated above don't mess with the piston upper. Mainly because the advantages aren't worth the money spent. It won't be any more accurate than the DI system.
Buy a J&T/ Doublestar kit. You will also need a stripped lower (most any quality lower will work fine, I'd go with the cheapest of quality I could find.). If you need to transfer get the NDS A-2, quality can't be beat for the price. I buy my lowers at funshows without paying transfer from $75-100. Tools. I'd buy a roll pin punch set (I use a Lyman for $20). A decent mallet should be $10-15. and a 6" screwdriver ($1-2) for pg srew and buttstock screw. A cheap drill bit index will be fine for chasing the holes in lower. I recommend a take down pin install tool also for $6 (makes install a snap and no looking for springs and detents). If buying a carbine I'd get a carbine stock wrench ($3-10). A DPMS delrin punch is also nice as it's plastic and won't scratch anything up. Mine is seldom if ever used though. Get some CLP, q-tips and a couple rags. I use old socks and drawers. Buying a kit will come supplied with an assembled upper so you won't have to worry about this on your first build. You will probably build more than one if you like it and if you don't you can sell it and get most your money back. Buy a military technical manual and read it. You can easilly follow the build it yourself instructions with pics posted on this forum. Brownells also has a tutorial. Take your time. Lay out and clean your parts and chase holes in lower. Be careful installing bolt catch not to scratch (use electrical tape). Tutorial will cover this. Support trigger guard when installing roll pin to eliminate chance of breaking off ears. Pay attention when installing hammer and trigger springs and pins. Function test FCG. Follow firearms safety. Always make sure it is unloaded when you do any work on it. Make sure it's not loaded. Don't point it at anything you don't want to shoot. Buy a few quality USGI mags and some ammo. Shoot it and have fun. This should put you in the $700 range for a quality plinker that you built. Get used to it, the parts and their operation. Then come back and we will get you up to speed on an upper. You will need some more tools for this. Since your mechanical skills are limited I think this is the way I'd go initially as to slowly bring you up to speed. You can always sell your assembled upper to finance your upper build at a later date. With $1200 to spend you should easily be able to build a lower and have two quality different uppers. Have fun and good luck! Being in Cali check your gun laws as you have restrictions we don't have here. J&T can supply the right stuff and you will thank me later. |
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What they said, skip the piston system.
For 1200 you can do very well. As far as I see, any mil-spec lower would be fine. I have Aero Precision and Spikes. The only difference, IMHO, is the price and one has a big dopey spider. LPK, any decent brand other than DPMS. I don't care for their triggers. Stock is personal preference, but go with a mil-spec receiver extention (more options). Everything else, again IMHO, Bravo Co. Get an assembled upper, just for convienience. Tools for lower: I use a tack hammer, swiss army knife, punches from Home Depot, and electrical tape. Oh yea,a small vice grip in case you need to squeeze one end of the roll pins. The most important thing is to have fun building your rifle. |
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TheMercenary
Avoid Model 1 Sales What the hell? I have a few different rifles built from parts purchased from Model 1. They are all good rifles. the parts are all good.The guy has even replaced a charging handle for me at a gun show that I was not happy with. I can say nothing bad about Model 1. Happy_Gopher |
I have two Double Star Lowers and my 20" HBAR 1x9 CL and 16" 1x7 HBAR CL Mid Length kits are on the BBT, passed through Memphis, Tn. this morning , coming from Del-Ton. Ordered on 04/22/11 Kits were $525 ea with my upgrades and lowers were $79 ea. Green M4 stock on back order though.
Govtman |
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Quoted:
TheMercenary
Avoid Model 1 Sales What the hell? I have a few different rifles built from parts purchased from Model 1. They are all good rifles. the parts are all good.The guy has even replaced a charging handle for me at a gun show that I was not happy with. I can say nothing bad about Model 1. Happy_Gopher Do a Google search, there have been quite a few cases of CC fraud from Model 1 Sales If you are buying FTF at a gunshow then you are GTG |
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Quoted:
Good Parts Brands BCM LMT CMMG SPIKES Double Star Good Dealers Bravo Company (BCM) "They sell other brands also" PK Firearms J&T distributing Avoid Model 1 Sales Do youself a favor and skip the piston, I owned one for about a month and got rid of it. The AR was never designed to be a piston system, and they are not one bit more reliable than a quality DI gun that is properly maintained. A "solution looking for a problem" if you will. And if anything breaks, parts for a DI gun can be found at any funshow or gunshop. While the piston parts are proprietary and for the most part are brand specific. Don't let the "cool factor" make you spend twice for something that's cost outways the benifit. For the 1200 dollar budgit you can have a damn fine DI gun, or a basic piston gun. Trust me I have owned both +1 this post nails it |
| I have bought a few kits from Mod 1 sales, and have had no problems! They did dick me around on custom 607 parts, and the HG's were a tad too short! Other than that one minor issue, they have been GTG! Even used a credit card with no prob! For some reason the parts always get a bad wrap! |
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I can't believe I'm the first one to say - Avoid anything named Blackthorne or akpartskits.com, they're a crap shoot on quality with a reputation for bad customer service if they ship you something that turns out to be NFG.
ETA There is a good selection of free downloadable manuals and info in the Arfcom Information Library especially this one if you're building your own but don't let the huge number of specialized tooling deter you. It's an Army manual and that's what they do. Searching Arfcom will nearly always find a way to do a task with ordinary hand tools. |
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Del-ton is a good company to buy a kit from. Thats the one I use for all my recent builds. I have used Model 1 sales with success. They are right about the Blackthorn. I my first build was one of those. What a mistake the money I saved on the purchase was money I spent on a gunsmith. This is before I knew how to work on the AR's myself. For the lowers I usually stick to a name brand just because I can. Things to watch out when assembling is to support the ears on the lowers when putting on the trigger guard. I have built many AR's with no problem until I was in a hurry and did not support the ear properly and knock it off. I covered the mistake with a Stark pistol grip. I is an ugly grip but it actully feels good on my new .22 lower. Good luck
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Though this is a bit down the road for your build, I can't say good things about HSGear. I ordered a SOP sling and waited, and waited, and waited. After a month I sent a polite e-mail asking for status. I wasn't asking them to "ship it now, dammit!", I was simply asking for status. Nothing.
A week later I again asked for status, then Googled their name which turned up a few unhappy people (complaints about slow service.) Based on that I sent another e-mail canceling the order and explaining they'd lost me as a costomer because they wouldn't reply and didn't keep me up to date. The only thing I got was a "cancelled order" e-mail. No "we're sorry", no "how can we make this right", nothing. Small businesss wonder why it's hard to succeed. It's not rocket science... |
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Rifles: Colt, BCM, Daniel Defense, LMT, Noveske, J&T Distributing/Double Star, and Larue Tactical
Accessories: Larue Tactical, BCM, Noveske, LMT, Magpul, Troy Industries, and Daniel Defense Optics: Leupold, Trijicon, Aimpoint, and Eotech Just to name a few good companies I'm not sure about all the bad companies other then Blackthorne/Hesse/Vulcan or what ever their calling themselves today I built my first AR using this guide click here I built my J&T kit rifle about 4 years ago and haven't had the first complaint, I suggest getting a J&T Dist. kit and a stripper Double Star lower. J&T Distributing has great parts for the price and their customer service is one of the best, can't go wrong with J&T Dist / Double Star |
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