Food 4 Thought Friday: Defensive AR’s

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It's interesting to think about, but I'd be interested to hear what people would say if you switched the format of the question to Handguns as opposed to AR's. I.E. For defensive purposes would you rather have 2 $300 budget pistols or 1 quality $600 pistol. Or something like that. 2 tuarus' handguns or 1 glock? That'd be interesting. I'd rather have 1 glock than 5 Hi points.....just sayin
 
Skylerbone said:
It’s fine to have nice things and feel inspired with the confidence that they’ll work every time. I recall more than one thread that devolved into “would you go to war with it?” Well, sure, why not? The counter argument is would you stare down the business end of a $350 or $400 AR and bask in the confidence that it couldn’t possibly work.
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I agree. And it is silly to me when I think, the AR is designed to be reliable and durable in its lowest military specification meeting form, but if I was needing it I would want whatever little bit better that extra buys me, over another separate rifle to locate, upkeep and load out.
If having two means you have one in the shop and one in the house, then there is a time, way out in the sticks, when you don’t have a firearm on you.

(In this scenario, that’s dangerous. For some reason I keep imagining this remote location is a Sapphire Mine. Instead of an idyllic cabin in some peaceful glen.)

For me, with only one to bring anywhere, I’ll bring it everywhere.

(Especially with all these murderous jewel bandits about...:D)
 
In this day an age, I don't know a lot of people who wouldn't be able to afford a quality AR-15. Me, like a lot of gun people, tend to go quantity over quality because we're not boxed in a corner having to fight our way out.

A lot of people, myself included, have little respect for the higher prices of a Colt, Daniel Defense, Wilson Combat, etc. but if you were a soldier about to be deployed, would you want a Colt 6920 carbine or a "just as good as" $350 carbine? From another angle, a lot of servicemen have been killed by an adversary with a $200 AK47.

The biggest thing I see is you hand someone a rifle, whatever brand they choose, and tell them they have 3 seconds to shoot a 12" target at 50 yards. I bet 90% of then can't make the shot.
 
DustyGmt said:
It's interesting to think about, but I'd be interested to hear what people would say if you switched the format of the question to Handguns as opposed to AR's. I.E. For defensive purposes would you rather have 2 $300 budget pistols or 1 quality $600 pistol. Or something like that. 2 tuarus' handguns or 1 glock? That'd be interesting. I'd rather have 1 glock than 5 Hi points.....just sayin
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I'd have a lot more faith in a $350 handgun than a $350 AR. I carry a $300 Ruger LC9 every day. Bump it to $600 and I think you have a much more even playing field.


MarshallDodge said:
In this day an age, I don't know a lot of people who wouldn't be able to afford a quality AR-15. Me, like a lot of gun people, tend to go quantity over quality because we're not boxed in a corner having to fight our way out.

A lot of people, myself included, have little respect for the higher prices of a Colt, Daniel Defense, Wilson Combat, etc. but if you were a soldier about to be deployed, would you want a Colt 6920 carbine or a "just as good as" $350 carbine? From another angle, a lot of servicemen have been killed by an adversary with a $200 AK47.

The biggest thing I see is you hand someone a rifle, whatever brand they choose, and tell them they have 3 seconds to shoot a 12" target at 50 yards. I bet 90% of then can't make the shot.
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Yeah but they've also killed a lot more than they've lost. The question is, would you rather be an American rifleman with an M4/M16/MK18 or a conscript with an AK?
 
CraigC said:
I'd have a lot more faith in a $350 handgun than a $350 AR.
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Faith isn't the problem for me it's interest in a budget AR.
I've built a bunch of ARs and basic budget mil spec parts function great, but I want a floating handguard and a better trigger or I'm not interested.
 
The problem is that a lot of the budget builds are not running all that great. Some not at all.

Whenever one of my friends or coworkers asks me to look at an AR that’s having problems never once have I had it be a Colt, a Daniel Defense, a Noveske, a BCM or even a RRA or one of the older Bushmasters. Those all tend to run very well. When they have an issue it’s almost always a part you expect to wear ... gas rings, extractors and springs.

The problem child is almost always an Anderson or PSA lower with cheap, bottom of the barrel parts installed. Basically whatever is on sale at the time.

To highlight the issues just Anderson has decent manufacturers don’t have issues like this ...



https://www.reddit.com/r/ar15/comments/6gwhfc/anderson_hammer_not_disconnecting/

D5D44AA1-B440-49EB-8209-6C26F98AA668.jpeg

For a little while I actually believed that they were okay. Not great, but okay. However the number of builds I did at that time was limited and the amount of issues was too. Then as the years went by and the calls kept gradually coming here and there and I kept seeing more and more parts breakages my opinion changed.

Also I’m just a guy that knows a lot of people. I’m a flunky EMS guy that’s employed by an ambulance company that works out of a Fire Dept and who once apprenticed for a gunsmith at a gun shop. I’ve been trained to a certain degree in what to look for and I know a lot of people and those people all tend to be armed, but I’m no gunsmith. I’ve talked to those guys. The amount of junk builds they see is even more. It keeps their doors open to an extent though.

Pre-Corona I was finding decent AR’s for about $500.

CFD1A77C-0DC1-4E43-98FD-10D485080991.jpeg

The top one is an older Bushmaster. It’s nothing special. It used to be a patrol rifle for North Richland Hills police dept and I found it at GT Distributors for less that $500 and it came with an older Surefire M951 which I upgraded with an LED Malkoff device for better output. Nothing special, but reliable. I’ve put cases of ammo through it. So much that I don’t even really know how much. It’s my beater training rifle.

Unless I could actually take a look at and fire a $350 AR I’d view it as little better than a prop that may or may not scare someone and might put out one rd (before the trigger didn’t reset).
 
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If people are happy with Pinto’s, who am I to say they don’t perform like Audi’s ... even if I’m familiar with both, have worked on both and own both. :thumbup: :Shrug

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I have assembled a bunch of different AR15’s, most of which get shot a fair bit before putting them away. The first, and only, hard failure or breakage that I’ve experienced in the last decade or so was a snapped bolt lug – on a BCM MPI’ed/shot peened bolt, no less. A decade ago or more ago, the most common failure was the extractor / spring or cracked feed lips on clapped-out surplus USGI magazines. Those aren’t generally issues these days.

I don’t think that anyone will dispute that higher quality components are a better choice for guns that will see a reasonable round count. I think the question was really around budget buyers, and my experience has been that they are not likely to put many rounds through the rifle - at that point, simply having the rifle and knowing that it will go bang if pressed into SD service is probably good enough.
 
If you believe a cheap A.R. cannot run with a expensive AR then you don’t know what makes an AR work. The man operating the weapon is a lot more important than whether it cost a lot or not. There are many people that have a home built AR that runs great, that they know how to repair for a fraction of the cost of someone with an expensive one who doesn’t know how to repair theirs when it does malfunction. But when you spend more you have to believe that your rifle is better than the fellow that spent less. Human nature I guess.
When I found out some of my hand built with inexpensive parts rifles ran better or as good as my more expensive factory rifles I realized I was paying for something that did not exist for me. It depends on Desires and abilities.
 
Casefull said:
If you believe a cheap A.R. cannot run with a expensive AR then you don’t know what makes an AR work. The man operating the weapon is a lot more important than whether it cost a lot or not. There are many people that have a home built AR that runs great, that they know how to repair for a fraction of the cost of someone with an expensive one who doesn’t know how to repair theirs when it does malfunction. But when you spend more you have to believe that your rifle is better than the fellow that spent less. Human nature I guess.
When I found out some of my hand built with inexpensive parts rifles ran better or as good as my more expensive factory rifles I realized I was paying for something that did not exist for me. It depends on Desires and abilities.
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I have a more expensive AR because I went the cheap route and had too many failures. Gas port on a DPMS carbine eroded in less than 800 rounds, ejection port door pin on Bushmaster bent because it was soft, carrier keys coming loose because of soft bolts and no staking, barrel chambers tight because they used a dull reamer.

Today I think PSA makes a pretty good product for the dollar spent, but they even sell things at different pricing tiers, and the reason isn't just looks.
 
MarshallDodge said:
I have a more expensive AR because I went the cheap route and had too many failures. Gas port on a DPMS carbine eroded in less than 800 rounds, ejection port door pin on Bushmaster bent because it was soft, carrier keys coming loose because of soft bolts and no staking, barrel chambers tight because they used a dull reamer.
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I don’t mean to stir things up too much but as you bring these points up in a personal anecdote I’ll ask: did you inspect the gas port and measure it before you noticed the gas cutting? What lead you to strip the barrel and examine the gas port at 800 rounds? How on earth does one bend a pin that is supported nearly its entire length? Were the bolts soft or were they not staked? If they weren’t staked, why did you not stake them before running enough rounds through to shoot them loose? And finally, when you cast the chamber, what were the dimensions?

My apologies but the contradictions seem to abound. If an owner is savvy enough to know what to look for and how to disassemble an AR, how do some of these glaring deficiencies escape round 1.

MarshallDodge said:
Today I think PSA makes a pretty good product for the dollar spent, but they even sell things at different pricing tiers, and the reason isn't just looks.
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I agree, but not based on the implications. Why are their CHF barrels more expensive? They aren’t produced in-house. Why is a chrome lined barrel more expensive? Because it’s a more complicated process than Melonite and because if you aren’t set up for plating EPA shows up at your door and shuts you down. Why are fancy rails more expensive than injection molded handguards? Materials cost and machining. Destructive and non-destructive testing costs money. Say you won’t own one that isn’t MPI/shot peened then throw away all of your Glocks and non-military rifles.

In the end we find value added with certain upgrades beyond the “cool” factor but I’d be fooling myself believing a $375 Geissele MLOK rail is a reliability upgrade. And I’ll state this again if people missed it in my previous post: I am guilty of spending too much money on parts I want rather than on parts I believe to be bulletproof. Despite that fact, all of mine still function fine.

I won’t likely ever own a $350 AR (again I priced things out to verify it could be had) but not because I don’t trust them, it’s because when I finish dressing them up, my $350 ARs cost double.
 
Skylerbone said:
I don’t mean to stir things up too much but as you bring these points up in a personal anecdote I’ll ask: did you inspect the gas port and measure it before you noticed the gas cutting? What lead you to strip the barrel and examine the gas port at 800 rounds? How on earth does one bend a pin that is supported nearly its entire length? Were the bolts soft or were they not staked? If they weren’t staked, why did you not stake them before running enough rounds through to shoot them loose? And finally, when you cast the chamber, what were the dimensions?

My apologies but the contradictions seem to abound. If an owner is savvy enough to know what to look for and how to disassemble an AR, how do some of these glaring deficiencies escape round 1.
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Please state where I am contradicting.

On the DPMS gas port, I pulled the factory pinned FSB off and could see the port was oblong in shape. It could have been this way from day one but the gun ran until around the 800 round mark, then started ripping the rims of cases. I spent so much time going back and forth to the range troubleshooting that lost all the money I saved and then some.

I have no idea how the factory installed port door shaft bent but I can tell you that it was so soft that I could bend it with my fingers after I took it off. The BCM replacement was much harder and would not bend. The door does add some extra rigidity but they are only supported at each end.

I see poorly machined chambers on cheap kits and even complete rifles. As a range officer on a public range, we keep a piece of steel rod handy so people can knock the stuck cases- both brass and steel, out of their barrels. This could be a couple issues but again, why should I take the time to troubleshoot someone's gun when I have to keep my eyes on the others in the best interest of safety.

One of the range officers owns a local gunshop and while he said there is money to be saved on some components, he is tired of people bringing him guns that won't run, troubleshooting, and then they get angry when he tells them it needs $150 in parts and labor to fix it.

As far as high end components from Geissele, Larue, etc, buy whatever you want. Most of their stuff would be an upgrade, but still provide a quality product for those that find it necessary.
 
A while back, in a different thread, I posted a pic of a 'bargain' AR charging handle that was bent beyond (re)use while clearing a stuck round from the chamber (ammo was out of spec). Clearly, the part was not made to the same quality as a BCM (or even a proper USGI-spec example). There is clearly a difference between good and acceptable and marginal parts.

But the premise of the thread was to discuss WHY some folk would want a $350 AR15 instead of a $700 AR15, or not. Folk that understand what they're buying (and intend to use it) will probably gravitate towards the $700+ solution. Folk that just want a gun sitting around for use only in case of emergency probably don't care if the receiver extension is 7075-T6 or 6061.
 
MarshallDodge said:
I see poorly machined chambers on cheap kits and even complete rifles.
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As a counter-point, having operated a business of building and rebuilding AR’s off and on for the last 20 years (9 on my bench as of this morning), I’ve had literally around a thousand AR’s cross my bench, relatively well balanced between what most would consider “too expensive” and others being “cheap,” with everything in between. I gauge and test fire all of them.

I have not observed any trend of poorly cut chambers, especially have not observed a trend of undersized chambers.
 
I said I’d get the two cheaper rifles. but in all actuality, I’d probably shop on the used market for better quality at a lower price point, then repair them as needed. I’m the same way with cars.
being patient yet picky can yield a lot more than paying new prices for something that may not work right, even though you spent more on it.
 
I’m honestly surprised we made it this far. But I realized I hadn’t shared my own perspective.

The question, naturally, is really a poll about the perception of quality first, and then a study of the problem-management style, with a pinch of spice for risk management and response planning logic, aka, is it really possible to access your spare within the context of the failure mode?

As I mentioned earlier, I REALLY didn’t expect the logical bias (loophole, really) of favoring two weapons with the opportunity for multiple, proximal stashes. That does tip the odds.

I haven’t tallied the responses, maybe I should do so, but I’m surprised at how this is going. I certainly wouldn’t have thought the perception would support a $350 AR to be the reliability equivalent of a $700 AR. Picking those price points forced certain concessions in the parts selections and eliminated a comparison of a $600 S&W or Ruger against a $900 Colt - a far less interesting consideration. Really forcing what I believe to be a true quality difference - not many of the major AR components are < $50, and it doesn’t take many $50 price tags to push a build over $350. A $350 AR could have been built in around 2/3 of the years of the last 20yrs, with the current market as an example of the exceptions - but it has NEVER been easy to do so without conceding on brand reputation and perceived quality. Almost always possible, but never easy.

I posted this question, at least in part, because I’m not quite sure how I would answer it myself. In the meeting which spurred the thought experiment, and those like it, I have an obligation to business risk, so spare parts are financially justified quite easily. A balancing act of inventory costs versus delivery times and perceived failure rates - with real world, operational data in hand to demonstrate ACTUAL reliability standards for various equipment and components (a stark differentiation from this particular discussion). The consequence of an AR going down in a “fight for my life” is pretty bleak, but so is the prospect/burden of seeking a replacement during the event.

Equally, as I have often said here and elsewhere, I really don’t have interest in the conventional AR-15, Mil-spec-ish 16” Carbine. There are enough low cost barrels in different configurations these days that maybe a $350 AR isn’t so strongly painted into that 16” corner, but that’s largely what I have pictured in my mind throughout this experiment.

I struggle to commit to either side, but wearing my emergency response planning hat, I would tend towards only one $700 AR. Not necessarily for any feature, quality, or reliability advantage, but largely because my perception is that only ONE rifle will be of use during the event.

Or I suppose I could cheat my own Kobiashi Maru, taking a financial perspective and using the same logic: I’d build two at $350, and sell one (or simply only buy ONE). I’d have the ONE rifle of which I could make use, and then be money ahead of the alternative scenario. :evil:
 
For me, it simply comes down to this:

Would the people that chose "2 for the price of 1" follow up on that with their own money?

Would the people that chose "1 for the price of 1" follow up on that with their own money?

Varminterror said:
Or I suppose I could cheat my own Kobiashi Maru, taking a financial perspective and using the same logic: I’d build two at $350, and sell one (or simply only buy ONE). I’d have the ONE rifle of which I could make use, and then be money ahead of the alternative scenario. :evil:
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That right there might be closer to reality when choosing two less expensive guns. Or simply just buy one cheap gun to begin with, while never considering buying two. :)
 
chicharrones said:
For me, it simply comes down to this:

Would the people that chose "2 for the price of 1" follow up on that with their own money?

Would the people that chose "1 for the price of 1" follow up on that with their own money?
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Yes.

Actually most are over (sometimes WAY over), but I have a couple $700 builds in there. There’s not a question of if they’ll run, or if they’ll be accurate, they just run and they hit the target if I do my part. That’s what’s important to me. Cost is less of a factor.

Why have some trash build that you’ll end up attempting to upgrade at some point when you can have something nice from the get go, that will actually function well without issue and that will retain its value?

Thinking that the nature of the man behind the weapon is going to change metallurgy is beyond absurd. Badly made parts are badly made parts.
 
Browning said:
Why have some trash build that you’ll end up attempting to upgrade at some point when you can have something nice from the get go, that will actually function well without issue and that will retain its value?

[...]

Badly made parts are badly made parts.
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Do you have reliability data to evidence the premise that lower cost parts are “badly made,” or that rifles in a $350 price point will not reliably function, but a $700 price point will?
 
Varminterror said:
Do you have reliability data to evidence the premise that lower cost parts are “badly made,” or that rifles in a $350 price point will not reliably function, but a $700 price point will?
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You mean like a nicely drawn out list of statistics cataloging their failure to produce a decent AR and AR parts rather than my own experience and long standing threads on the net full of pictures of parts breakages and parts? Of articles and YouTube reviews talking about parts breaking and weapons failing?

I’m not sure such a thing exists. Such a thing would benefit the consumer rather than the industry as a whole and who cares about us?
 
Browning said:
You mean like a nicely drawn out list of statistics cataloging their failure to produce a decent AR and AR parts rather than my own experience and long standing threads on the net full of pictures of parts breakages and parts? Of articles and YouTube reviews talking about parts breaking and weapons failing?
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Yes, exactly that. A proper catalog of reliability data. It’s not so uncommon for many, many industries. But a lot of folks like to claim one thing is “badly made” while something else is top shelf, and frequently, I find that I can search for and find any photo or thread or video of anything my keyboard could desire (seek, and ye shall find), but I have never found an unbiased, substantiated list of reliability data.


But ultimately, it doesn’t appear you have actual evidence to support a definition of “badly made”?

This is effectively the premise for my question - how are folks building their individual perspectives to determine whether a $350 rifle is really of lesser quality, durability, or reliability than a $700 rifle? Or frankly, even a $1050 rifle (3x)?
 
Varminterror said:
Yes, exactly that. A proper catalog of reliability data. It’s not so uncommon for many, many industries. But a lot of folks like to claim one thing is “badly made” while something else is top shelf, and frequently, I find that I can search for and find any photo or thread or video of anything my keyboard could desire (seek, and ye shall find), but I have never found an unbiased, substantiated list of reliability data.
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Cool. Do you know of a study on the matter made by anyone since it’s so common?

But ultimately, it doesn’t appear you have actual evidence to support a definition of “badly made”?
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I don’t have to. I’ve dealt with these poorly made parts and manufacturers myself. I’ve proved it to my own satisfaction and frankly that’s all that matters. First as a buyer, then in helping friends and co-workers fix theirs whenever they had issues.

I don’t see you pointing towards any study saying that any of these manufacturers are decent.

I don’t have a closet full of AR’s built as cheaply as possible. I bought or built each one with a specific goal in mind without much regard for how much it cost. We’ll just have to agree to disagree if you feel that it’s the best course of action to go as cheap as possible with something that generates at least 48,000 psi that close to your face.
 
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