started with a PSA kit WHAT upgrades would you do?

Which kit did you buy? PSA has different levels of quality at different price points. Was it a premium, PTAC or Freedom kit?

$1250? I would buy an extra Colt LE6920 for $850 or at least the upper for $650 and put it on the PSA lower of your choice. LOL

For that money I would buy CHF barreled upper, fancy rail of your choice, selected components like a maybe a premium NiB BCG, Geiselle trigger group, etc. You could probably spend it all with PSA if you tried hard enough.

I have built several PSA kits and when I order I make sure to include a 7075T aluminum buffer tube. I think most cheaper kits come with an inferior 6061 that is half the tensile strength and susceptible to stripping if torqued sideways.

Good Luck

M

IMHO I'd do an 80/20 split and priority goes like this:

80% = Barrel, Trigger Group, Optic

20% = Everything else.

SuperNaut said:

IMHO I'd do an 80/20 split and priority goes like this:

80% = Barrel, Trigger Group, Optic

20% = Everything else.

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This!!

Barrel: WOA 18" SPR for around $300
Trigger: Geissele SSA-E (or similar) for $200
Optic: Primary Arms has very good budget glass options for under $300, but with your available budget you could get into something like a Vortex. (Glass shouldn't really count towards the $1700 though right?)

And for the "everything else" I'd do a new rail, Midwest Industries has some solid options under $200. And maybe a nice brake like the Lantac Dragon for $130.


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$175? For what? You'll have to list all the specifics of that rifle in order to know what needs to be met or exceeded

What do you already have?

I'd start by simply buying a Colt, or a complete BCM upper, or maybe a Spikes upper, but that's just me

What's a "better" rifle? When your buddy spends $1,700 on an AR, is he really going to use it? Or worry about it getting indigestion from steel cased ammo and scuffed when he holds it against a post for better aim? Expensive rifles are damn near useless, as their owners baby them so much.

With $1250, add an Acog and a sling and call it good.

I don't believe that spending $1700 can get you a "better" rifle than anything in the $1100 range. Honestly i've never found a use for any of the parts that would make one all that expensive at all. A good trigger and a decent free floating grip over a quality(read: good material machined by competent company and QC checked) barrel and you're good. Note i said quality, not expensive. There are a lot of ways to waste money in life, but AR15s shouldn't be one of them. Just my opinion though.

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Better in what way?

If you just want to define "better" as more accurate, buy a high-end scope and a good barrel, then challenge him to shoot with his irons. You won't have much trouble winning that one.

There's no winning the argument. It's not whether your rifle can actually do it, it's about social status. He bought a Brand Name gun and spent $1,700 for social status and got it.

Daniel Defense. Done.

Regardless of whether your rifle can actually outshoot his, DD always wins in the social pecking game over PSA. You might as well be trying to prove your Seike Orange Monster Dive rated watch accurized in 6 different positions and good for a second a month is better than a Rolex Submariner - which can't do that per the Chronograph certification and isn't a tested Dive Rated case.

Rolex is always "better." It's not about actual performance - people buy status and then cling to the fantasy that because they own something like that they are superior and different from the plebian masses.

Try to prove it and you will likely spend another $1,000 in barrels and triggers and stuff, but effectively it will make a 2moa a .5moa gun but not a better combat gun. Only your skill will do that.

A great shooter can use a run of the mill gun and get results. A poor shooter with the most expensive gun he can afford is just a poor shooter with expensive habits.

Go to the range and see who's the better shooter with nothing more than what you have and using the same lot of ammo. Ten shot groups side by side iron sights. There's your baseline comparison and then you know if you even need to try harder or spend money for nothing.

You have to be a top ten percent shooter to start having the gun hinder your performance.

To get to the DD quality level as far as internals, you would probably need to upgrade the: LPK, BCG, Barrel (and tools to swap the barrel out) and receiver extension. Then, add quality rail and furniture. Could you do it for under $1250? Sure, but it would be much more efficient to just start with a new rifle.

You and your friend also have to drill down to specifics on exactly how "better" is defined...

For "better" meaning combat/defense; you could start with a Colt 6920 MOE and add Aimpoint PRO, 2pt quick adjust sling and light for about $1500-1600 total and have a complete rifle ready to fight for $100-$200 under the DD base price.

No doubt your friend got a fine rifle. The name Daniel Defense pretty much guarantees that. Is it the right AR for him? We don't know. Is your PSA kit good? We don't know that either, you didn't describe it.

Don't get in a game to one-up him, just finish your build the way you want it. Doing otherwise will cost you a friend.

On the more budget kits, I usually start with a good trigger and work out from there.

Let the purpose of the rifle drive the other upgrades.

'this one is for shooting distance... gonna need a scope.'
'This one sits in the closet until i absolutely need it... maybe a flashlight and/or red dot'

YMMV

If it was me with $1250 to spend in AR-Land, rather getting in a pointless whizzing contest with some schlub, I think I'd just go buy TWO of the S&W M&P Sport II's (@ $507 delivered, in just one recent ad) and spend the rest on ammo.

You will be fine with any of the psa products. It is fun to observe the uncomfortable emotions of those who pay a lot more than they have to because they do not know what is good enough and what is not. As another poster said, shoot it and see what you want to change. I have lots of high end AR's and the PSA kits are very close and just as good in most areas. That is just a fact.

Robert said:

Some people have said they would never trust a home built rifle for defense purposes calling them nothing more than range toys.

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Those people are either totally unfamiliar with the AR platform or incapable of putting something more complex than a PB&J sandwich together

The following is comparing apples to apples as much as possible.

In late 2010 Daniel Defense and a single vendor had great pricing on DD parts, even their stripped lower receiver. This was a one time offer IIRC. I bought a 16" CHF pencil barrelled upper with a DD BCG and charging handle. Fixed A2 front sight, midlength gas, no handguards. The vendor took the order but the upper was shipped from DD.

A year later I bought a BCM upper/BCM BCG that was a twin except the barrel wasn't hammer forged.

And a couple years later I bought a premium PSA upper/PSA BCG. Same configuration as the BCM (not hammer forged). The barrel is made by FN.

All receivers happened to have the square forge mark (Brass Aluminum Forge). The DD finishing was by far the best, the BCM was slightly better than the PSA. All were perfectly functional and fit various lowers well (S&W, Colt, ArmaLite, Valkyrie, Spikes, Quentin Defense).

The BCM BCG seems the best, slightly better than the DD (but again the DD finish was better). Main difference, the BCM has the best staking. The PSA has the weakest staking but it works fine. I have a later BCM BCG with rougher finish but again strong staking, better than my single DD. I've seen four other PSA BCGs of varying quality, pretty good to marginal. Some were HPT/MPI, some were MPI, and one unmarked.

All three uppers are reliable. I like the DD best because it's better finished and the barrel is an ounce or so lighter and CHF. The BCM is better than the PSA but if you put a BCM BCG in a PSA upper with FN barrel I think that's as good as it gets for the money.

Of course the sample size is too small and things have changed since 2010/2012/2014. Your mileage will vary.

If your talking about building a rifle with better parts than the DD, a 450 dollars PSA is going to need a lot. First the barrel, the DD is cold hammerforged. To get a chf barrel whether from psa, bcm, spikes, or dd thats 300 dollars. Then comes the handguard, can you get a good handguard for less than a dd. Sure you can, i have a bcm kmr i paid 200 dollars for. Its not going to be as strong and durable as the DD keymod under abuse. Every part is like that. You can't compare a 6061 buffer tube to a 7075. You'll probably never know the difference in the two, but there is a price difference and a material diiference. So if your saying your going to build a better rifle for less you would have to use the same type and quality of parts.

If you need a place to start, I agree with looking at an upgraded trigger. You can look at barrel and bolt carrier group after that. I wouldn't worry about the stock or hand guard until later unless there is some functionality that you want based on use. BCM and DD both make good looking stocks.

If you want to match up with a DD rifle, look at what it would take to replace all the common parts and pieces discussed above with DD parts and see where that gets you.

I have a PSA rifle kit, but I haven't put it together yet.

I did put together a PSA AR-10 clone with the free float bull barrel. It now has a Geissle match trigger. It started out shooting 1.5" groups which I thought was excellent for an inexpensive semi-auto 308. I haven't done much more with it to further test the accuracy. I might look at a premium barrel in the future.

A Geissele SSA or SSA-E trigger; a properly staked MPI NiB BCG; a light- or standard- profile .223 Wylde, 1:8 polygonal rifled stainless steel barrel from Black Hole Weaponry; and an adjustable gas block.