I'm building an AR15

[colonel lingus]

So I've decided to build an ar15 and my head is spinning looking at all the options for parts. Could someone give me some advice on choosing parts and warn me about mix matching parts? I don't want to buy inferior parts or get a combination that doesn't work together.

[dpd3672]

If it's your first build, I wouldn't recommend getting too fancy...stay with something close to a "stock" rifle, either an A2 rifle with 20" barrel, or one of the M4 clones with a 16" barrel and folding stock. You might choose to upgrade some of the furniture a bit, but building something exotic the first time out might prove a bit frustrating.

You'll get a LOT of opinions on what manufacturers to choose from, everyone has their favorites. That being said, I've been very happy with Palmetto State Armory and AIM Surplus as my main "suppliers." PSA carries great quality stuff and very reasonable prices (especially their sale prices, they've had some very reasonable kits recently, and their "blemished" items are usually a steal), although their shipping can be frustratingly slow (expect to wait a month, and you'll likely be pleasantly surprised after about 2-3 weeks). AIM carries a few different brands, from high end to mid-level gear, but the brands they carry are all good quality, and they stand by their products.

I've got a limited amount of experience myself...4 complete builds and 5 more rifles in progress...but I've been very happy with these two companies so far.

[colonel lingus]

I was actually considering PSA as one supplier. Most becauee they are owned and operated inSC and I believe in supporti g local business

[p246]

You will get lots of opinions. I've built many rifles for myself and others. PSA is a good supplier and should do you well. I'll add that STAG arms has always impressed me with their internals. As far as barrells my chrome moly barrels are more accurate than chrome lined, plus my rifles are not subjected to harsh environments like military chrome lines barrells, chrome lined has a higher round count life generally but are a little more money.....just food for thought on barrells. AR rifles are like leggos for adults the combinations are endless.

[p246]

I should add the chrome moly barrels I've used are 4150. I should also state to be fair it takes a little longer to clean one than chrome lined. If your just building a plinker go chrome lined. If you want a benchrest gun chrome moly, guisselle trigger, good free float tube (this recipe is pricey) Good luck have a blast

[da gimp]

Rock River makes & sells as good as made upper & lower receivers...... John H. of WhiteOak Precision in Illinois, bases his completion rifles on them & he is widely regarded to be the very best AR service rifle gunsmith/match rifle builder in the USA...........Last I knew John was also building M4 clones too on the same..........The prospect of saving $10.00 or $20.00 buying some off brand parts in building a rifle I might need to feed my family, or even to defend them never seemed to make good sense..............

Kreiger, Wilson, & a bunch of others too all make exc. quality barrels............... the caliber, rate of barrel twist & length of your barrel you need is based on what you intend to do with it.

The sliding adjustable stocks are nice & the CAR15/M4 clones are very handy to use getting in & out of vehicles/ buildings & to hunt with.................


hope this helps.

[tanker trash]

I just put together a Palmetto lower and their lower kit together this week. 20 minutes tops. functions as advertised.

[BlitzKrieg]

Rock River makes & sells as good as made upper & lower receivers...... John H. of WhiteOak Precision in Illinois, bases his completion rifles on them & he is widely regarded to be the very best AR service rifle gunsmith/match rifle builder in the USA...........Last I knew John was also building M4 clones too on the same..........The prospect of saving $10.00 or $20.00 buying some off brand parts in building a rifle I might need to feed my family, or even to defend them never seemed to make good sense..............
Kreiger, Wilson, & a bunch of others too all make exc. quality barrels............... the caliber, rate of barrel twist & length of your barrel you need is based on what you intend to do with it.
The sliding adjustable stocks are nice & the CAR15/M4 clones are very handy to use getting in & out of vehicles/ buildings & to hunt with.................hope this helps.

Sage advice . Bargain parts can save you money but in the end: do you own a pile of bargain parts or do you own a weapon that is absolutely right as rain and can depend on with no alibi.
Buy the best quality parts you can find . Buy right once. :icon_bounce:

[p246]

The only thing I do not like are the Rock River two stage trigger. The center stem is not built heavy enough and I've seen three broken off. One low mileage and the other two had decent round counts before trigger failed. Other than that RR does make a very fine rifle. We just R&D'ed a Windham Arms AR it shot 1.25 @ 100 average with 55 grain commercial and right at 1 inch groups with 64 grain Winchester. The fit and finish was good. Gas key was stacked very well, I would buy one.

As far as the OP's question I guess we should know exactly what you want to do with it. Plinker advice will be different then prepper gun.

[da gimp]

Plus if you ever need to sell that rifle.....it'll be harder than heck to get rid of an off brand rifle with components from Palmetto or one of the other lesser known ones. & you'll take a real beating on the price too.....

[p246]

I don't know gimp just like the last scare there will be some real trash selling on gunbroker for 1500.00

[da gimp]

right now, new brand name AR's in various styles are going for $1000.00 & less NIB here..........I'd be hard pressed to go over $250.00 for a parts gun right now............

[joem]

The only thing I do not like are the Rock River two stage trigger. The center stem is not built heavy enough and I've seen three broken off. One low mileage and the other two had decent round counts before trigger failed. Other than that RR does make a very fine rifle. We just R&D'ed a Windham Arms AR it shot 1.25 @ 100 average with 55 grain commercial and right at 1 inch groups with 64 grain Winchester. The fit and finish was good. Gas key was stacked very well, I would buy one.

As far as the OP's question I guess we should know exactly what you want to do with it. Plinker advice will be different then prepper gun.

I've got a couple of RR's and haven't had any problems. I guess I'm used to a two stage trigger.

[da gimp]

I've got a couple of RR's and haven't had any problems. I guess I'm used to a two stage trigger.

The WhiteOak Precision Service rifle that John built for our then 15 yr old daughter several yrs (2002 if I'm not too senile tonight) ago, uses all Rock River parts, except for the Kreiger barrel,weights & I think a few USGI parts ........ the trigger & sear, disconnector are definitely Rock River's that John mates & works on to produce an extremely clean 4 1/2 lb trigger break............. NRA /CMP service rifle legal.............my apologies to John if my Can't Remember Chit (CRS disease) is acting up again..........

[p246]

I've got a couple of RR's and haven't had any problems. I guess I'm used to a two stage trigger.

Nothing wrong with triggers feel just have saw some broken ones in customers guns. Guisselle makes a trigger like RR's but the center stem is much thicker and I've never saw one broken. Of course they are three times the price.

[da gimp]

I've heard of several Guisselle's that got label to be known as at best overpriced, delicate & "finicky", your reports of supposed malfunctioning RR's is the first I've seen.............

[p246]

I've heard of several Guisselle's that got label to be known as at best overpriced, delicate & "finicky", your reports of supposed malfunctioning RR's is the first I've seen.............
If your a member of AR15.com their is a very well respected moderator named sulley that can confirm rock river two stage trigger stems can break and have. I,ve only saw three personally and he showed me one. Rock river makes a fine rifle but I do not think(my opinion) that the trigger stem is thick enough in that particular trigger. I think the Guisselles two stage trigger is more robust and a better albeit more expensive design. I will grant you some of guisselles match triggers are overpriced and finicky but there is a big difference between a sealed match unit and a mechanical two staged trigger. Personally unless it is a bench rest gun or an expensive competition gun the standard single stage trigger is hard to beat.

[da gimp]

I wonder if those failures are from a short run of mis-tempered/hardened triggers? For a long time, RR trigger, sear/disconnectors had very deep heat treating.......... as opposed to some governmental/US military parts suppliers that had (as one retired USMC master gunnery sgt. put it) only shallow surface heat treating...... with any stone work on them would produce an exc. trigger, that quickly went to chit (200 rounds or so)...........

[p246]

I wonder if those failures are from a short run of mis-tempered/hardened triggers? For a long time, RR trigger, sear/disconnectors had very deep heat treating.......... as opposed to some governmental/US military parts suppliers that had (as one retired USMC master gunnery sgt. put it) only shallow surface heat treating...... with any stone work on them would produce an exc. trigger, that quickly went to chit (200 rounds or so)...........
The trigger I saw from Sulley was last year but I do not know when he pulled it out of the rifle. I think I fixed the two I saw in 2010 but one might have been in 2009. The first gun I fixed customer said it broke under 500 rd mark. The second gun reportedly had 2 to three thousand. You could be right and its an issue that has been resolved. I was surfing around looking at AR specific sights and nothing recent posted.

[da gimp]

I appreciate your candor sir............... and dearly hope that the issue has been resolved...................

[p246]

Actually gimp this is one of the few boards I post on. Maybe its because as a group we are a LITTLE older but you can have a discussion genererally with respect. As to the OP please let us know what you build and how how it shoots that's how we learn. If you run into any issues in the build we'd be glad to help.

[da gimp]

built/assembled 2............. Master guns Gus Fisher allowed that I must have been born under the right stars............... & still got lucky........ I had no problems in using Colt factory components ( only had the 2 part sets, no extras)....... everything went together as smooth as silk back in the mid 1980's.............. I crushed no receivers......... upper or lower & needed very lil fitting for the internals..........From what he & Ted Brown tell me, I was luckier than anyone had any reason to hope to be...... & to never assume that it ,might happen again in another 100 or maybe even 1000 yrs.....

[leemozoid]

I've built all of mine on Aero Precision and Spikes lowers. LPKs are all about the same. I do use RRA 2 stage match triggers just because I prefer that due to my years of M1 shooting. I have one Colt M4(gery) with a 6921 14.5" upper on a 6920 lower. For all the hoopla I don't find Colt to be that much more impressive. I do have one RRA 9mm and as far as the single stage triggers go it's the best. I've Form 1'd all of my lowers but one. I like 'em short 'n sassy!

[leemozoid]

If your a member of AR15.com their is a very well respected moderator named sulley that can confirm rock river two stage trigger stems can break and have. I,ve only saw three personally and he showed me one. Rock river makes a fine rifle but I do not think(my opinion) that the trigger stem is thick enough in that particular trigger. I think the Guisselles two stage trigger is more robust and a better albeit more expensive design. I will grant you some of guisselles match triggers are overpriced and finicky but there is a big difference between a sealed match unit and a mechanical two staged trigger. Personally unless it is a bench rest gun or an expensive competition gun the standard single stage trigger is hard to beat.

I'm leemozoid on ARFCOM. Bronze team member and frequent contributor to the OKHTF. I have RRA 2 stages in all of my builds except my RRA 9mm and Colt 14.5" M4. My first build was a 9" AAC .300 Blackout. I have run a crapload of suppressed sub sonic and supersonic through it without issue. I wonder if there weren't other issues involved in the manufacture of the ones that failed.

[p246]

I can't comment on sullys as I don't know background of rifle. The two I fixed both came off Rock River factory guns not home builds. Searching the internet I'm not seeing any bitching about it. As many rifles as they have sold I would assume if it was still an issue someone would post something. I think gimp was right about a Harding issue as all I saw broken were at the very base of the stem.

[Poetheraven1]

I to am a novice at building an AR. I am working on my first complete build, and I picked a very hard one. Parts are difficult to find and when I do, they sometimes take a long time to get. Demand for AR parts is very high, and suppliers inventories are very low, one of the reasons for the spike in parts costs. It depends on exactly what type of AR you plan to build. I purchased a complete DPMS Panther 223-5.56 and I think that got me hooked. The first thing I started to do was look at it and thinking what I could do with it. At first I just wanted to add some parts to it to accommodate scope, etc. but then I looked at the collapsible stock and wondered if I could change that out. After that, I just decided to build a whole new one. Anyway, Until I get my lower from NoDak Spud, I've been using the Panther lower. Bottom line is that I decided to build an XM16E1/M16a1 (603) look alike using AR15 parts, as depending on where you live, some M16 parts are against the law. My first M16 was issued to me in 1966 and I carried it to Vietnam, so its always carried a special place for me, getting the right parts can really be difficult. I use many suppliers depending on what part and what color finish I need and what they supply. Research is probably your best friend. The weapon I'm building is parkerized, while the later M16's were black. Also, the butt stocks were a lot different for the early M16's and are hard to come by these days. The website AR15.com is one of the best sites I've found for information and resources for building your weapon and obtaining parts.

[Former Cav]

This months NRA magazine (American Rifleman) has an article on building an AR-15 with sources listed.
I just ordered out a PSA lower complete for only $199.
Interestingly, in my "service rifle" (for NRA highpower shooting) I have a J&P brand trigger in it and it is awesome and has not given me any problems in a couple of thousand rounds at least.

[lucky dog]

Palmetto's barrels are made by FN USA. I have one of their 16 inch mid-lengths and I don't think you can go wrong with their uppers. My son's middy is a BCM and cost almost twice as much. The lowers I assembled from PSA parts and Aero Precision receivers. Unless you are planning on a trip to The Sand Box or other two way range use the savings on ammo or mags.

[bd1]

As many complete M4 semi-auto kits less lower I got sold for PSA while the special was on, I feel like I deserve a commission. There's NO FLIES on PSA's stuff. Spike's and LRB's stripped lowers are as good as anybody's for a DIY build.