I'm running a bit behind schedule with updates, classwork and VA Hospital visits and little hellions keep me pretty busy. However I did get a chance to test fire that previously mentioned AR 15. I just dropped a scope on to it from another AR 15 to see how it shot, so I was not doing more than a testing of it. 25 yards, solid bench leadsled rest had five shots all touching each other. 100 yards, and using a bit of Kentucky windage had four shots in a one inch cluster with one called flyer. This was shot with 10 stamped Lake City 55 grain Ball ammo.
My general impressions on it is it is flawless in operation. The Surplus Ammo upper bolt, bolt carrier, upper receiver and lower receiver are more than acceptable for the task at hand. For those that have not done a lot of this work those parts are -tight- fitting. And putting the upper receiver on my rock river arms lower is even tighter still. And it takes a good covering of lubrication on the bolt and other internals and a few minutes of manually cycling the action to break the parts in properly. However at the range there was not a hitch. I fired 25 rounds though it and everything operated as it should. My one complaint about the parts from Surplus Ammo was the firing pin retaining pin (cotter pin) bent up on me a bit and due to the newness of the whole assembly I found it difficult to put in to position. However an order to Brownells.com had replacements for a few years on hand. It is actually something I would suggest to anyone that has an AR. Replacement bolts? Firing pins? If you have anything made in the last 20 years your wasting money. Get the firing pin retaining pin, a few extractor springs and the extractor retaining pins for a replacement repair kit.
Other impressions are the DPMS basic trigger/lower kit is rough. While it is to be expected with any basic single stage trigger, I will be taking it apart to do a bit of polishing to take up the gritty feel to the trigger. This rifle shows great potential which is not unusual for most AR 15's. Here is a hint, generally speaking unless you really have some slop between the upper and lower receivers the name brand does not matter. So long as the upper and lower are in the specs needed you have all the basics that you should care about. The barrel and trigger are the most important things for a high accuracy rifle.
Because I was asked I will give the approximate price for the items and the retailer I went with for each part.
Midwayusa.com provided the following:
Gas tube roll pin 2.00
DPMS Barrel 200.00
DPMS gas tube 12.00
Model 1 Free float handguard 35.00
Model 1 Buttstock Assembly A2 style 55.00
Shipping approximate on these items 20.00
SurplusAmmo.com parts:
Lower Receiver Parts Kit (I got mine on sale for 105.00 each, currently 120.00)
Upper Receiver assembly assembled, with Bolt and Bolt Carrier group 170.00 (A steal. More on this later)
Shipping approximate 25.00
Transfer fee for lower 25.00.
Comes up to 649.00 for the approximate cost to build for me. Pricing is a bit closer to 700.00 now. Again this is a very basic heavy barreled rifle. If I make any adjustments it will be a new fire control group, and the addition of buttstock weight to help balance the rifle more. I would also look at a ventilated free float tube if I was planning on this being a prairie dog /high volume shooting rifle. Also a sling swivel in the hand guard would allow the use of normal slings. (Or I could drill and tap it for inclusion of one)
The bottom line is if you want a plain fun plinking rifle its hard to beat the manufactured ones out there by various companies. They will do your three gun shoots, basic pest control, target shooting and anything else just fine. It would be hard to build your own cheaper due to shipping, but you can do it. However if you want to customize something out or do a heavy hunting rig or anything else it is possible to do it cheaper, generally than what others offer. The catch is the investment in to the proper tools to do it. Tools are never cheap but I have been fortunate enough to accumulate everything over the past few years.
I had mentioned the steal of a deal for the upper receiver and bolt assemblies. First of all assembled uppers range from under 100 to 150 depending on the brand. That is just the receiver shell. And you get to pick from several different caliber options. Their lower receiver prices are not bad either, very competitive with anything else you will find. That is once again http://www.surplusammo.com
Their prices are as competitive with ammunition out there as you will find, stellar service. Fast shipping, but keep in mind for those of us in flyover country and the east cost, this stuff is coming from Washington so shipping transit times are a bit longer than most of us are used to. However give them a look.
Disclaimers:
1. All links posted are property of the respective websites.
2. I have not received any compensation for any of the reviews or links provided, this is strictly my opinion and my opinion alone.
3. I am not legally liable for any damages to anyone's respective firearms or responsible in anyway for someone screwing something up. What I provided was a list of what I did, not how I did it. If in doubt seek a competent gunsmith.
4. If you do not like seeing/reading about/are offended by the graphic depiction of real life firearms and the citizens that use them reach down, clean the sand out of your bits and suck it up and move on. Go find a tree to save.
My general impressions on it is it is flawless in operation. The Surplus Ammo upper bolt, bolt carrier, upper receiver and lower receiver are more than acceptable for the task at hand. For those that have not done a lot of this work those parts are -tight- fitting. And putting the upper receiver on my rock river arms lower is even tighter still. And it takes a good covering of lubrication on the bolt and other internals and a few minutes of manually cycling the action to break the parts in properly. However at the range there was not a hitch. I fired 25 rounds though it and everything operated as it should. My one complaint about the parts from Surplus Ammo was the firing pin retaining pin (cotter pin) bent up on me a bit and due to the newness of the whole assembly I found it difficult to put in to position. However an order to Brownells.com had replacements for a few years on hand. It is actually something I would suggest to anyone that has an AR. Replacement bolts? Firing pins? If you have anything made in the last 20 years your wasting money. Get the firing pin retaining pin, a few extractor springs and the extractor retaining pins for a replacement repair kit.
Other impressions are the DPMS basic trigger/lower kit is rough. While it is to be expected with any basic single stage trigger, I will be taking it apart to do a bit of polishing to take up the gritty feel to the trigger. This rifle shows great potential which is not unusual for most AR 15's. Here is a hint, generally speaking unless you really have some slop between the upper and lower receivers the name brand does not matter. So long as the upper and lower are in the specs needed you have all the basics that you should care about. The barrel and trigger are the most important things for a high accuracy rifle.
Because I was asked I will give the approximate price for the items and the retailer I went with for each part.
Midwayusa.com provided the following:
Gas tube roll pin 2.00
DPMS Barrel 200.00
DPMS gas tube 12.00
Model 1 Free float handguard 35.00
Model 1 Buttstock Assembly A2 style 55.00
Shipping approximate on these items 20.00
SurplusAmmo.com parts:
Lower Receiver Parts Kit (I got mine on sale for 105.00 each, currently 120.00)
Upper Receiver assembly assembled, with Bolt and Bolt Carrier group 170.00 (A steal. More on this later)
Shipping approximate 25.00
Transfer fee for lower 25.00.
Comes up to 649.00 for the approximate cost to build for me. Pricing is a bit closer to 700.00 now. Again this is a very basic heavy barreled rifle. If I make any adjustments it will be a new fire control group, and the addition of buttstock weight to help balance the rifle more. I would also look at a ventilated free float tube if I was planning on this being a prairie dog /high volume shooting rifle. Also a sling swivel in the hand guard would allow the use of normal slings. (Or I could drill and tap it for inclusion of one)
The bottom line is if you want a plain fun plinking rifle its hard to beat the manufactured ones out there by various companies. They will do your three gun shoots, basic pest control, target shooting and anything else just fine. It would be hard to build your own cheaper due to shipping, but you can do it. However if you want to customize something out or do a heavy hunting rig or anything else it is possible to do it cheaper, generally than what others offer. The catch is the investment in to the proper tools to do it. Tools are never cheap but I have been fortunate enough to accumulate everything over the past few years.
I had mentioned the steal of a deal for the upper receiver and bolt assemblies. First of all assembled uppers range from under 100 to 150 depending on the brand. That is just the receiver shell. And you get to pick from several different caliber options. Their lower receiver prices are not bad either, very competitive with anything else you will find. That is once again http://www.surplusammo.com
Their prices are as competitive with ammunition out there as you will find, stellar service. Fast shipping, but keep in mind for those of us in flyover country and the east cost, this stuff is coming from Washington so shipping transit times are a bit longer than most of us are used to. However give them a look.
Disclaimers:
1. All links posted are property of the respective websites.
2. I have not received any compensation for any of the reviews or links provided, this is strictly my opinion and my opinion alone.
3. I am not legally liable for any damages to anyone's respective firearms or responsible in anyway for someone screwing something up. What I provided was a list of what I did, not how I did it. If in doubt seek a competent gunsmith.
4. If you do not like seeing/reading about/are offended by the graphic depiction of real life firearms and the citizens that use them reach down, clean the sand out of your bits and suck it up and move on. Go find a tree to save.
Very informative post. I never really thought about the cost for tools. I really don't have anything beyond a ratchet set, screwdrivers and a hammer. Buying all the stuff to put the other stuff together would definitely be a major cost.
ReplyDeleteI think I decided to get an m&p sport. The thing that clinched it for me was the $599 (before shipping/transfer) pricetag and the lifetime service policy. Being my first AR, I'll get one professionally put together and mess around with it until I know it well enough to build my own or get different uppers.
Now, just to figure out if I want that or a Sig 2022 first... Or if the lawsuit against IL pans out and we get CCW, maybe I'll want a revolver first... Or...
Maybe I should worry about actually saving the money up first. :)
The S&W is a great deal for general plinking and will do minute of bad guy with appropriate optics out quite a distance. It probably will not win you any long distance accuracy contests on the bench rest circuit however. But it is about the same (at least as close as the civilians get) to what the military uses, and Army generally has a fixed four power ACOG for the sharp shooter roll on the M4 (Stock issue, 14.5 inch thin barrel) I wish that model was around when I bought my carbine. I got close to dealer price and still paid 900 for my rock river. Granted its a heavy contour barrel under the handguard, and insanely accurate if I do my part but for the price difference, and to do it all over I would go the S&W route. I would have saved in customization later on in most situations, but I went with a gap filling carbine, something that if I ever get my lazy ass in gear could be a 3 gun comp firearm, and something that would be suitable for pest control of various sorts.
ReplyDeleteTools, yes. The suggested armorer's multitool wrench is about fifty bucks at Brownells. you can find other versions of it, but that is the tool that saves lots of frustration with AR 15's Then there is the punches you need.. if your doing a carbine the castle nut tool.. And if you are doing the true to spec instead of hamhanding torque specs the torque wrench with the 30 to 40 foot pound capability in its range..
Go out and buy something that is set up and you can toss whatever optics on it you could want. It is far easier to have something like that to do the Magpul add on upgrades on your own timeframe if you so choose (or any other company) than it is to build from scratch and start from scratch for tools.
However that being said, if you know someone that can do it and has the tools you can explore things later on to do more tinkering or custom builds.
Enjoy!