Considering my first AR... Thoughts?

[ditcherman]

Bcm complete uppers and lowers have been in and out of stock regularly. Lowers were v available this week. And bcm isn't really a Ferrari, they are more of a gmc pick up. Ferrari you're really looking at hodge and knight's. Bcm makes utility rifles, sons of liberty gun works makes an equal of not slightly better rifle than bcm. Then there is a group slightly above those geissele, Adm, radian

Would you care to explain the differences in those brands? It seems like a lot of very fine divisions for something that uses standardized parts. I’m sure the hand fitted and perfectly color matched Cerakote feels and looks excellent, but what makes them a better shooter considering that over time a person could upgrade parts?
I definitely understand there is going to be a difference between a $700 rifle and a $1500 rifle, but what gets better after you go above a certain level?

 

[Ggreen]

Would you care to explain the differences in those brands? It seems like a lot of very fine divisions for something that uses standardized parts. I’m sure the hand fitted and perfectly color matched Cerakote feels and looks excellent, but what makes them a better shooter considering that over time a person could upgrade parts?
I definitely understand there is going to be a difference between a $700 rifle and a $1500 rifle, but what gets better after you go above a certain level?

I don't care about finish look. Hardcoat ano is preferred.

The myth is "standardized parts."
First and most noticeable is a true to spec receiver set. An upper that has a true barrel extension mating surface, properly torqued and correct moly lube on the threads. A lower that is true with a staked buffer tube, a proper buffer/spring combo, true trigger pin holes (improper machining leads to pins walking out and is common on cheaper guns) misdrilled holes can even cause problems with trigger function increasing pull weights by over 1lb, a proper lpk cheaper options use soft steels for detents that get soupy and mushy and can eventually gall together and lock up, properly tapped grip threads, cleanly sintered magwell.

Nicer lowers have other features like a dac, ambi controls, some have qd's built in.


Bolts and carriers are also not standard. Higher end bolts use harder steel, better components and truer machining.

Barrels matter a lot. But most people get it wrong. A utility rifle is going to use a chf chrome lined barrel, this isn't the best combo for accuracy. 1.5 Moa is acceptable from a quality duty rifle. If you want accuracy you pay in durability by going for a stainless barrel. Most people won't run a stainless being it's service life though.

The meat and potato in quality barrels come from quality manufacturing. It starts at the extension being to spec when combined with an upper, tolerance stacking matters and quality manufacturers will fit barrels to uppers. Then you need a spec gas port, most cheaper brands get the port size wrong. See sotar videos.

Then you get into peripherals. It's all additive. A mil spec trigger from an Anderson lpk is definitely not going to be as nice as a bcm or Alg. I've been given cheap triggers to polish and found the sears to not be hardened, that's an immediate throw out.

When you get down to it and look at what makes a gun function reliably and predictably you save money by not going with budget brands.

 

[Ggreen]

Another interesting little find on a cheaper ar I think it was Davidson or something, like that was the rail on the upper was not true. The optic would zero, then all the sudden it had shifted left or right a bit, pretty noticeable at 100 yards with shifts in the area of 1/4". The optic mount was a single rail 3" or so long that would tighten on the Pic rail. The combination of the two were just incompatible. He put a red dot on it that locked at a single point so the dimensions being off no longer effected the optic.