The $500 AR: Buy or Build

I'm 57 this year. And by anyone's standards, I'm part of the older generation! My ideas and perceptions were shaped during the 60's, and that includes my thoughts on guns as well as other things.

I was born in 1960 and we moved to the United States in 1968, so obviously, the Vietnam War was a big part of it. 

And in the Psyche of a pre-teen/early teen of that ear; the most advanced infantry weapon ever was the M-16. OK..... let me start by saying, that, for today, I'm not here to argue the merit of this Eugene Stoner design. I'm discussing the basis of my fascination for it. 

When you compare it with it's immediate predecessor, the M-14, it's clearly a completely different animal. And if you compare it against the weapon of the "bad guys" (the AK47), it just looks more advanced. 

Fast forward 3-4 decades and several generations, the M-16 goes through the A1 to A3 versions and comes out the other end as the M-4 Carbine. The military has refined the old battle rifle originally designed for it's small-statured Asian allies into a modern "platform". One that can do just about anything given the wide variety of equipment that can be attached to it at will. But the best thing?

It's become that thing that Americans most love...... a standardized "open platform". What does that mean? It's the PC of the gun lovers! One can literally buy every single component from a different manufacturer, have most of it mailed directly to your house and put them together yourself with a minimum of tools. And on Black Friday, you could do it for less than $400!

After I got my handgun situation squared away, and the reloading setup running; the pressure was too much. I started looking for parts to do my own build. Maybe I should back up here. As always, I studied the market first, and found that a decently working plain-Jane AR15 could be bought for between $500-600 from one of the big-box outfits if I watched the sales. That would mean a workable (along the lines of what you see above), ..... a "smooth-top" (no rear sights or optic), plain (generic hand-guard and butt stock known as "furniture"), and pretty much bottom end everything. Don't get me wrong. These things are still Mil-spec and will shoot well all day long. But I wanted more......and I didn't want to pay more. I wanted more, for $500. How does that get done?

If you're reading me on this blog, but have read my stuff on my technology blog as well, then you already know. I research obsessively. What I found was that everything I already knew about computer buying/building applied to guns (especially the AR) as well. 

1. You don't save money by building your own gun.
2. A quality gun is an expensive gun.
3. There are no secrets in the AR world.
4. If you build your own, you can easily build a messed up gun.
5. It's fun.

So; as we've already discussed, the baseline is $500-600 (barring special sales and such). I also learned that the price for a used one isn't much better. I looked on the online listings and prowled a lot of pawn shops. Most importantly, I learned that you can get nicer parts for not much more money if you build your own. So I went in that direction. Early on, I began to see a company being commonly described as being a cut above the entry level, but at the same time, relatively inexpensive. This was Aero Precision from Tacoma, Washington. Apparently, they had been a long standing contractor that provided parts and set out on their own when the "blackgun boom" happened. 

In the midst of looking at "lowers", which is the "frame" of that which composes, officially the gun, since it has the serial number on it, I found a place in Texas that was selling a "complete lower" (one with all the parts installed) for $135. I had learned that the cheapest a "stripped lower" gets is $50, ..... and that's for a generic one. The LPK or lower parts kit which includes all the little pieces for the trigger group and safety is another $50-60. Then you have the "buffer tube" (that thing sticking out the back that the stock is mounted on), is another $25-30 or so including the buffer and spring. Then you have the grip and stock for another $15-20. So yeah, I was ahead of the game with a completely built one at a lesser price! So I bought it.....

Now, although I owned a gun, the majority of the parts to make it work didn't exist yet .... at least not on my AR! Most of the cost of building AR is connected to the "Upper" ($65-85), not the upper itself which isn't generally very expensive, but the expense is in things like the barrel, the bolt carrier group (BCG) and the front hand-guard. 

Let's start with this. What you see here is actually 3 parts: the barrel itself, the gas block, and the gas tube. A plain cheap-o one will set you back about $100 or so..... maybe $125 with the gas block and gas tube. But..... you guessed it...... I wanted something special. I didn't want either the .223 Remington or the 5.56 NATO chambering since you can't shoot the 556 in the 223, and the 223 isn't very accurate in the 556. I wanted a .223 Wylde, which is a hybrid chambering that shoots both well. On top of that, I didn't want the typical 1:7 twist rate that doesn't do a good job of stabilizing lightweight bullets (eg. anything under 55gr). I wanted a 1:8 or 1:9 which is considered a good compromise that will handle heavier 62/77gr as well as the little bullets down to 40gr. I know..... OCD, aren't I!?! It gets worse. I also wanted a "mid-length" gas port which isn't as far down as the rifle (since I wanted a 16" barrel), but not as short as the "carbine-length" which can be "over-gassed". Plus the mid-length is thought to shoot nicer. We'll see. One more thing, I'd like to have the barrel in stainless please! They tend to be more accurate!

On to the handguard. In case you didn't notice, the stock M4 style version depicted above. My thoughts on it? Uhhhh, no, that'd be a H*** NO!!! First of all; I want it to "free-float", meaning that I want it to attach at the receiver end only and not touch the barrel anywhere else. Secondly, I want it to have a continuous top rail, but none anywhere else. Thirdly, I want it to be slim instead of the bulky "quad-rails" that are the typical upgrade from the M4 stock handguard. I also wanted the modular attachment style to be the M-Lok(versus the Keymod) which is depicted on the lower of the pictures. The goal? Weight, comfort to hold and ease of attachment for anything I need/want to add. Oh yeah, these can cost anywhere from $150 to $200 depending on length. I'd prefer to 15 incher so it covers almost all the 16" carbine length barrel.

Then, there's this..... the Bolt Carrier Group (BCG), which includes the actual bolt, the bolt carrier, and the firing pin. They can run from $65 all the way up to well over $300, depending on the maker, and the coating. The basic design is the GI Phosphate coating which can be hard to clean, then it goes up to Black Nitride, Nickle-Boron that finishes out the fairly "normal" types. These are roughly $30-40 either way of $100. I wanted something a little better than the typical so that it'd be easy to clean, but I didn't want to pay big money for this.

So; how did I answer all these questions? You already know about the lower for $135. As it turns out, I actually answered the upper just about as easily. What happened is that, after I bought the lower, I started researching uppers/monitoring websites. And came across a "complete upper" (means, having all parts barring bolt carrier group and charge handle) on Gunbroker that had pretty much everything I wanted which at that point was bidding at $265. That's an Aero M4E1 upper, 16" Stainless, mid-length gas ported barrel chambered in .223 Wylde, complete with an Aero 12" free-floating handguard! Turns out, after a week and a half of watching it (while watching "Black Friday" sales), no body bid on it. So I got it for $265, plus the guy only charged $10 to ship it tome from Wisconsin! The next day, I caught a sale on an APOC Armory black-nitride BCG with charging handle for $91 shipped.  

So, meet my little $497.20 "little friend"...... OK, so I need to get some random little stuff like sights, etc., but still...... I'm pretty satisfied with how this has gone.