AR-15 Review and Thoughts

Back in May I bought an Aero Precision lower receiver when Aero had a sale, which kicked off my AR-15 experience. At the end of November my upper receiver arrived and I got a rear sight for it, so now it's built up and I've had time to shoot it. It's been a fun time getting it put together and thinking of even more things to buy for it. This is not as much of a review as a collection of thoughts and anecdotes from the process.

The choice of an AR-15

While some may be turned off by buying America's most popular rifle, this is the strength of the platform. Everyone makes parts for it, it's easy to find tools and spare things for cheap, and they all work the same way. If a crucial part fails it's cheap and fast to get another. If you want to change the look and feel of the rifle completely you can do that with parts that will be at your house in days. Most of the (good) stuff for the AR is made here in the US as well, which is a plus if you're like me and care about that kind of thing.

Plus it's not like everyone with an AR has the exact same rifle - it's the opposite, really. If you build one your rifle will very much be "your" rifle. Even mine, which is pretty basic with mostly Magpul and PSA parts, looks different than other basic Magpul/PSA rifles.

My rifle

Here are the specs of mine for the curious:

-Aero Precision lower receiver

-Palmetto State Armory lower parts kit and mil-spec trigger

-Magpul MOE trigger guard, stock, and pistol grip, in flat dark earth (came as a "build kit" with the LPK)

-Palmetto complete upper - 16" barrel, A2 flash hider, mid-length gas system, standard tapered clamshell handguard

-Mil-spec charging handle

-Palmetto full-auto profile blemished BCG

-Daniel Defense A1.5 fixed rear sight

Pic:

This was about $800 in all. Had I waited just a few months for some of these parts it probably would have been about $100 less.

The loop coming out of the stock is paracord, and it's intended to be a rear mount for a 2-point sling I will buy in the indeterminate future. The HK-style color fill was achieved with Testor's model paint and brake cleaner to wipe away the excess.

Magazines

Coming from a pistol where mags are like $40 a pop, the world of AR magazines is like a Wild West of low prices. I have five magazines - 2 black 30-round PMAGs, 1 flat dark earth 30-round PMAG, 1 black 20-round PMAG, and 1 30-round Lancer mag. The Lancer is cool because the mag is polymer but the feed lips are metal. PMAGs can be found for something like $12 each and they work great. It's crazy. It's almost impossible for me to justify buying more but the cheapness makes them absurdly tempting. 

An experienced friend is an invaluable asset, but be careful

Who knows what kind of rifle I'd have picked up if not for my friend. He has about 5 built-up rifles under his belt, some of which are very exotic and require multiple NFA stamps (his short-barreled, suppressed 300 blackout was a treat to shoot). Before I bought the lower I told him I was considering going for an AR and asked whether I should buy someone's used panic rifle or build my own. He enthusiastically encouraged me to build.

This friend generously offered to help me assemble the lower receiver. He'd been through this before, launching detent pins around the room and so on, and his expertise (and generous stock of extra parts and tools) ensured my build went smoothly - but I don't feel like I learned as much as I would have if I'd done it on my own. 

If I'd tried it on my own I probably would have spent several hours cursing and angrily ordering replacement springs, but I'd have more of a sense of satisfaction than I do currently. At one point I thought about a replacement endplate with a sling mount and realized that I really have no idea how the entire buffer tube assembly goes on. I was no slouch and I didn't let me friend do everything, but sometimes I wish I went through all the rage, on my own, that so many new AR builders do. 

Don't let anyone tell you aesthetics/cool factor are not important

There is a whole industry these days built around making your rifle pretty. Parts are offered in a range of colors, there are little multicolored things you can put in unused rail slots, there are free float tubes with "MOLON LABE" and such engraved into them. You can send your parts away to get coated with a durable, ceramic-based paint in a range of colors.

Extend this out to a civilian whose rifle is little more than a range plinker spending hundreds (EOtech holo sight) or even thousands (Trijicon ACOG) on optics that are designed to survive heavy use and combat. I'm not even talking about hunters or people who do 3-gun, but people like me who just like to shoot. People do all kinds of things to their rifles that are motivated by aesthetics or to feel more like a Tier 1 Operator. And this is ok!

People get huffy about this, and they'll say that their guns are tools, but don't listen to these people. A big part of owning an AR for me is this nebulous cool factor. I saw the movie "Lone Survivor" this past weekend (with the friend who helped me build my AR). Of course the SEALs in the movie use rifles based on the AR platform, in different configurations. The movie's attention to detail meant there would be things like close-ups of an actor working the safety selector switch. I watched that and thought, "I know what he's doing. I know how that works" because I have a rifle that works the same way at home. That's pretty cool. One thing I like to do at the range is after I load in a new magazine I slap the bolt catch with the pad of my thumb instead of pressing it like a button. There's no point to this other than it makes me feel cool. The characters in the movie, since they were in the middle of a firefight, reloaded the same way - again, pretty neat to watch realistic depictions of arguably the finest warriors on the planet, and they reload their guns like I do!

So don't feel weird or frivolous if you want your rifle to look cool, or you decide on one part over another because it feels more Operator, or anything like that. This is a fun hobby and the AR is a fun gun. Be proud!

The future

With unlimited funds, I'd like to do a Mk12/SPR clone build (Lone Survivor was a really great movie). This would mean an 18" floated barrel, a good 2-stage trigger (the kind that costs at least a couple hundred bucks), bipod, and scope. If I'm going all out I'd get a suppressor as well. 

However it's more likely that I'll stick with my current rifle and trick it out a little bit. I'm using iron sights now, which are fun, but I'd like an optic. Primary Arms is a top choice, or a Vortex something or other - I'm going for better than a Wal-mart BSA but not as Tier 1 as an Aimpoint or similar. I may also get a sling for no real reason other than being able to carry it on my back when I'm shooting on a friend's land or something. Eventually I'll get a free float tube to replace the handguards, which would probably require a new front sight to maintain co-witness.

ARs are fun. I think everyone should have one. If you build it you can spread out the cost and make the rifle truly your own. They shoot well, ammo is pretty easy to find again, mags are as cheap as they've ever been. Get while the getting's good and have a great time.

AR-15 vs M-16, and other definitions

AR-15: Short for "Armalite Rifle, model 15." A lightweight, semi-automatic rifle based off of Eugene Stoner's AR-10, created by Armalite in the 1950s. Colt acquired the AR-15 trademark shortly thereafter. Nowadays AR-15 is a catchall term for a semi-automatic .223/5.56 "black" rifle, usually with certain features (stock, pistol grip, detachable 30-round magazine), easily obtainable "over the counter" by civilians (where applicable), made by a wide variety of manufacturers.

M-16: An AR-15 variant; a select-fire (automatic or burst in addition to semi-auto) rifle used by the military. M-16 usually entails 20" barrel and rifle-length gas system, fixed length stock, and carry handle upper, but the modularity of the AR-15 platform means it could look different.

M-4: Another AR-15 variant, also select-fire, also military. Carbine-length gas system and shorter (14.5") barrel, so less overall length than an M16. One of the base rifles for the SOPMOD system, which means an M4 will usually have lots of rails and all kinds of tactical things attached to them.

*Note: Civilian enthusiasts will often build AR-15s as "clones" of certain military rifles. For example, it is easy for a civilian in most states to obtain an AR-15 with 14.5" barrel and carbine-length gas system and dress it up to look like an M4 (popularly called an "M4-gery") - with the exception of the inability to shoot full-auto, it will be very close in look and function. Likewise it is easy to obtain Vietnam-era parts and make an AR-15 look like an old-school M16A1, and likewise it will function more or less identically to the military's version with the exception of automatic fire.

Assault Rifle: An umbrella term that encompasses many, many rifles. Translation of the German "sturmgewehr," as in the WW2-era Sturmgewehr44 rifle. Broadly, an assault rifle is: (1) select fire (can fire automatically); (2) intermediate cartridge (bigger than a pistol cartridge, smaller than a "battle rifle" cartridge like .308 or 30-06); and (3) uses a detachable magazine. 

So an AR-15 checks two of the three assault rifle boxes - it uses detachable mags and fires an intermediate cartridge, but it is not capable of full-auto. While an AR-15 may look like an assault rifle - indeed, its owner may make a conscious effort to have it look as much like an assault rifle as possible - it is not a true assault rifle.

Assault Weapon: A legal term that means whatever the legislature who wrote the law wishes it to mean. "Assault weapon" legislation usually is intended to control the purchase, possession and use of AR-15s, but broad wording and lack of understanding sometimes result in certain .22 rifles, shotguns, or pistols legally becoming "assault weapons." Not all states define "assault weapons" and those who do often define it differently from other states.

Here's a couple more:

A clip and a magazine both hold cartridges. The difference between the two is that a magazine has things like springs and followers that move the cartridges into the chamber, and a clip does not. A clip, then, can be just a piece of metal that holds the ends of the cartridges.

A bullet is the projectile that exits the gun when you pull the trigger. A cartridge includes the bullet - it also includes the case, primer, and the explosive bits that make the bullet go. The thing you put into the gun is a cartridge, and what comes out of the barrel is the bullet.