What do you think of DPMS quality in general?

I asked about DPMS on another forum a few months back, and a member that is an armorer for the military in Iraq chimed in

Click to expand...

Why is a military armorer in Iraq working on DPMS rifles? Also, the M4 and M16 use the same extractor. It is the extractor spring and insert that are different. Don't know who your source is; but those strike me as odd parts of his story.

1858 said:

What's the difference for an AR (from an engineering standpoint) between 3,000 rounds in three days vs. 3,000 rounds in three years?

Click to expand...

Heat. Heat increases throat erosion, kills spring temper and increases forces on parts in extraction (because higher heat means brass takes longer to obturate).

Why is a military armorer in Iraq working on DPMS rifles? Also, the M4 and M16 use the same extractor. It is the extractor spring and insert that are different. Don't know who your source is; but those strike me as odd parts of his story.

Click to expand...

PMC armorer. One of the guys on M4C is the armorer for a PMC over there and has many horror stories about Bushmaster rifles that were forced on the guys he worked with. In fact I believe that may be what is begin referred to here.

The DPMS guns I worked on in Iraq weren't parts guns. They were factory purchased select-fire models. When I used a chamber reamer on them it removed quite a bit of material from the chamber.

Click to expand...

Uncle Sam's rifles all have chrome lined chambers and bores. Perhaps somebody who was an armorer can confirm whether such barrels are reamed and, if so, by unit armorers.

Heat. Heat increases throat erosion, kills spring temper and increases forces on parts in extraction (because higher heat means brass takes longer to obturate).

Click to expand...

Correct.

Think of it like a car engine. Run it slow and steady and even a crappy car will last a couple hundred thousand miles. Run it fast and hard and you start to see which engine is really made to take it.

We have 3 DPMS rifles in the family and not a problem with any of them. Mine is my coyote and prairie dog rifle, 20" SS bull barrel left hand and very accurate. We do a lot of shooting at our gun club and after watching some of my fellow shooters with their Colts, RRA's, Bushmasters and etc will stick to DPMS.

Mine has about 5000 rounds though it with no problems . The only mod was to change the trigger to a JP.

So how does SS stand up to heat compared to CL barrels?
Does DPMS use crappy springs and pins? That seems like a poor place to skimp.
I can see difference in barrels and BCG's if they are not tested to the levels of others. but even then what is the failure rate?

Anyone else notice those who love their DPMS rifles don't own M4 clones but more of a varmint hunting style rifle?

I think what's being argued here comes down to whether milspec is truly better than any other way of doing things. It may be agreed by all that our military has more combined experience with the platform than any other single entity. Therefore it stands to reason that refinements have been made to improve durability and dependability perhaps at a slight cost to absolute accuracy (though we ought to have a few head-to-head comparisons of lined vs. unlined barrels to verify).

The further from spec a given "manufacturer" chooses to be may be said to make their product more vulnerable to breakdowns under more extreme conditions. If they are indeed "sporting rifles" as advertised, those manufacturers are implying the use of said rifles is purly recreational and in no way connected to it's military brethren.

It may not necessarily mean cheaper parts (though it usually does) but rather less stringent assembly methods, testing and perhaps Q.C.

Within those parameters very few ARs may be seen as "quality" rifles, but most will satisfy the role they were purchased for. Regardless of whose logo appears on the receiver, it is ultimately the owner's responsibility to be familiar with it, inspect it frequently for problems and of course choose it based on the purpose at hand.

Some guys have a Corvette convertible in the garage but drive a beater F150 when the snow flies. Whose to say which is the better choice for the money spent.

I get a big kick out of someone who thinks an accurate rifle used to hunt with can't be used for a SHTF rifle. Obviously they don't know their history from the good old days...

^This is how I feel too. The bad guys not going to know the difference if he got shot by a DPMS or a Colt.

Many people are quite aware of the firearms used throughout history from the poorly armed militias of colonial days to the good ole boy hunting rifles fielded in SE Asia.

But if the SHTF would you rather have a Yugo or a Hummer to get out of Dodge? That's the question at hand. It's not an indictment of DPMS or any one particular brand, something I failed to understand some months earlier (just ask Azizza;-). My RRA falls squarely into the same boat as DPMS but I still have confidence in it performing those duties I purchased it for. That does not include zombies or anything that hits a fan.

Their stripped lowers are usually inexpensive and work well. That is all I have really used from them.

Azizza: Why don't you back up your arguments with some facts or notable articles! Have you actually owned or shot a DPMS made rifle. I truly believe you are just spreading dribble resulting from hanging around the gun store "Big Dogs" too long.

Loadedround I have listed my reasons for disliking DPMS before as many people on this thread can attest too.

I will give you the abridged version.

I have owned numerous DPMS rifles.
I was a Distributor for DPMS rifles.

Of the personal guns I owned 2 had bad chambers from the factory that rendered the guns incapable of firing mroe than 1 round at a time and lead to badly deformed brass.

Another had a broken FSB after an fairly low number of rounds.


As a Distributor I had more DPMS rifles come back per 100 than any other brand BY FAR!. Broken stocks in Shipping, Broken Charging handles. Out of spec parts. One that would fire once when you pulled the trigger, and another that would fire when you let off.

Thankfully the dealers caught most of these before they sold them but some issues only came up after the guns were sold to individuals then I had irate dealers calling me.

But don't take my word for it. Ask Pat Rogers, Larry Vickers, Chris Costa, Ken Hackathorn, or just about any other well known instructor what they think of DPMS quality and QC.

I have no use for Gun store (or internet) "big dogs" They spend their time talking a big talk. I prefer learning from people who actually put it into practice. That is why I spent Saturday in the cold and rain in a Vickers Shooting Method class.

So I will ask you the same thing. Give me some facts that you feel show DPMS are better quality than I say they are. Disprove me. If I am wrong I will be the first to say so. I have done so publicly here before.

Heck it is almost painful to look back at some of my old post where I made excuses for bad products and glossed over the facts out of loyalty to companies where I knew people. But I was wrong, I have learned, and will continue to learn. If DPMS come out tomorrow and started putting out a good high quality product I would go out and purchase it. If Colt started putting out crap I would not buy their stuff anymore. It is as simple as that.

But is a Yugo Hummer analogy really right? Many of these AR parts could be thrown in a box and mixed up and I doubt if the average and maybe the above average shooters could pick the difference in the parts that aren't labeled. I could tell the difference of the yugo and hummer while blind folded by smell.
Is there a place that says definitively that such and such barrels fail catastrophically or the same with bolts, extractors, trigger parts. With so many different labels but fewer real manufacturers how can we tell the difference.

Saturday I was at the range shooting my stock POS DPMS. I do not do bench shooting, I like dumping rounds in controlled 2-3 round bursts offhand. At 50 yards I am all with in a hand print.

I have never had a jam, mis-feed, mis-fire, FTF, FTE and am near 2500 rounds. I use the stock mags still, never touched the trigger. Iron sites. I did add a quad rail and a forward grip.

The parts all fit, it goes bang.

Plus my wife gave it to me for X-Mas one year. She bought it on her own without my knowledge. I love my DPMS, and I think she did a great job buying me a rifle. Her first gun purchase I might add.

FWIW- my friend bought a Spikes from Spike at a gun show here in Orlando. had to return in the next week cause the gun would not cycle. They replaced it, but his gun was out of action for a couple weeks and he prob paid 3x what I have in it.

Opinions are like butt holes, everyone has one and sometimes they stink.

Shucks Azizza you are getting mellow in your old age. hahahaha by the way good rebuttal

Sky, more flies with honey and all that.
My goal has always been to learn and pass that acquired knowledge onto others.
I don't do this just to argue with people. I feel knowledge is important and discussion and debate is important in furthering our knowledge.

We all know that anything mechanical can and will break. Especially in a high heat high friction environment like an AR. The question is how often will it fail and what is a company doing to reduce those chances.

People often seem to think that when I, or Rob, or someone else talks about DPMS quality we are saying that they will all fail and that Colt or BCM will always work. This is far from the case.

I have seen high round count DPMS rifles, and a friend of mine had a Colt 6721 a couple years ago that was abysmal from the start. What we are talking about is the averages.

Lets look at an example.

We will use Colt and DPMS as examples here. Assume that the guns are configured roughly the same. 16 inch, collapsible stock, removable CH, Etc.

Cost of the Colt is $1,150
Cost of the DPMS is $950.00

Now the colt has a few visible things the DPMS doesn't. Chrome lined barrel, M4 Feedramps, a heat guard in the handguards. It also has some less obvious advantages but we will ignore those for now.

(Now the numbers I am about to use are completely made up. So don't think I am giving actual statistics here.)

Say that out of 1,000 Colt rifles sold you have 5 with problems.
Now say that out of 1,000 DPMS rifles sold you had 50 with problems.

So for 200 Dollars we have a gun with a couple more features you can see and a lower return rate. To me this is an obvious choice. And we still haven't taken into account the better steel used in the barrels, testing done to the parts, etc.

Of the personal guns I owned 2 had bad chambers from the factory that rendered the guns incapable of firing mroe than 1 round at a time and lead to badly deformed brass.

Click to expand...

ive never seen one that can fire more than one at a time

I am wondering about the real world, competition guns will usually be heavily modified as might those of a "serious shooter".
The AR/M16 has the unusual distinction of being probably the most copied weapon in the free world with all but the worst parts being readily interchangeable with one another for the most part. There are charts and other comparisons out there but I have yet to see one that actually has failure rates or anything close to a side by side test. I think many comparisons are made based on the MIL SPEC but have heard that it doesn't necessarily mean that one out of spec has poorer quality, CL barrels would be an example.
The price of a DPMS M4gery at times hits around $800 as well as many entry level AR's but I can't say I've seen a new Colt in any configuration lately for under $1300. That leaves a much wider gap than $200.
I bought a new Colt back when they were expensive at $650. (yea I wish I would have bought a truckload). Since I have bought a couple DPMS, a BM lower with what was advertised as an FN barreled 16" upper plus 3 that I built from what I hope are good parts on Sun Devil, Spikes, and Daniel Defence reciever uppers and lowers.
I have SS, CL, and CM barrels from 14.5"-20" I can't claim much more than 5000 rds from anyone rifle but haven't had a problem with any and at times they have been heated up pretty good. I guess my question still goes back to wanting more than just anecdotal examples of failures. If there are clearly and tested parts that are better I want to get them on my "serious rifles" at the minimum but I don't want to spend money needlessly just to have what the "big dogs" have. Does that make sense?

I haven't seen new AP4s that cheap but I don't doubt you that they are out there. I do however see a lot of 6920s at 1100. And Colt is the most extreme case. If you start looking at DD, BCM, or other brands of similar quality then the price difference comes out to a couple of lunches at your local sit down restaurant.

I doubt if I will ever buy another assembled rifle unless its a real steal, I got my CL DPMS14.5 perm att. FS for $650. near new.
What I want is to make sure to get the right balance of quality vs. cost, especially if it is a build and can configure as you like.

X-Rap, for the testing you'll have to look at why certain materials and methods of assembly are used in the milspec rifles. For example:

Mild steel vs armor plating on a Humvee. No brainer as to which to use in a combat zone. Now check the chart for the specific steel used for barrels by specific vendors. They are chosen for their properties or for cost. Cheaper barrel blank means cost savings.

Assembly. Anyone ever had Sauder furniture from WalMart? Would you choose it over handmade Amish furniture at a 10% price savings? How about butt joints glued together vs. a full dovetail? Which do you know is MUCH MORE LIKELY to last?

What is anecdotal are the stories of Yugos hitting 500,000 miles with only routine maintainence or the Ford Escort that drove the Rubicon. Exceptions do not rewrite the book.

Choose by need and use it accordingly is sound advice. If lives are on the line, better safe than sorry. Ask Mr. Vickers what he says about buying cheap.