AR-15 or AR-10 why buy one or the other?

I'd be looking at the Remington R25's in .243 7-08 and .308.

Howa 1500 is a great gun with out all the fancy wood at 1/3 rd. of the price of the other guns

The AR15 is much more common and has better and higher QC for the most part. Hard to beat it.

I'd go 5.56/223. It's cheaper, easier shooting, plenty accurate.

For what the OP described, the 5.56 will do. Shooting a crate of ammo won't break the bank.

Alternative calibers are good for the extra power or precision they can deliver, when paper and dirt are primary, then expense is the overriding priority. At that point it's either reload or suffer the cost. NONE of the alternate calibers shoot cheap milsurp ammo - they aren't and probably won't ever be for decades anyway. So, it doesn't help at all to fanbois the flames for one or the other - as the OP noted, .22 got the job done for awhile, and commercial priced ammo doesn't seem to be his focus.

The AR15 is the better choice for now because it's primarily available in a cheap caliber. It's other advantages do play well, you get a widely accepted set of dimensions, most optional parts literally drop in or screw on, improvements in different sub categories have a lot of depth, and it's still the issue weapon and caliber. AR10, not at all. I helped make sure the surplus .308 is all gone, the AR10 actions aren't all the same, which means they become single suppliers with no competition to keep prices down. The market reflects that, a run of the mill AR10 is double the cost. Not to forget, more recoil - .308 is not a fast firing round, the history of the full auto M14 shines there, and weighs three pounds more. Reason enough I sold my .308 self loader of German origins and built an AR15.

If, later on, an alternate caliber is attractive, the ones that fit the intermediate receiver of the AR15 are literally drop in, and assembling them yourself is done more easily than changing a water pump on a pickup truck. Or, buy a complete upper and just push pins, voila, new gun. The joy of the AR is that you can do that.

For what the OP has in mind, I'd go with a conventional fixed stock 20" barrel, something with full rifle handguards and sight length. The A3/4 flattop will let any optic mount, and beyond that, leave it be.

Get both....

308, great for shooting and hunting

556, great for shooting and defense

My MA-TEN 308 is setup for hunting and long range shooting, my AR15 is setup for defense and target shooting.

Get both!

Go with the .223 ar15 cheap ammo for general purpose target shooting and accurate too. when you want to shoot targets at longer distance get an upper in 6.5 grendel.
If you just want to plink a little or shoot squirrels get a 22lr conversion for the .223 upper and have fun. the AR15 is certainly the most flexible platform I can think of.

on a side note:
6.8 SPC is massively overhyped and its range is poor even compared to 5.56/.223. Yes close in it has better stopping power but its poor rang3e is why they had to introduce the 6.8mm SPC2 (or SPCII).

The weight of the ar-10 will depend partly on the legnth of the barrel (same for ar-15, but more pronounced with ar-10 becuase it's already several pounds heavier).

I have both, and I use my ar-10 for hunting deer in the trees where I won't be shooting that far. I have it zeroed for 300 yards, and know the path of the bullet the whole way there and after, so if I see some deer across a clearing or what-not, they're fair game.

My ar-10 has a 16" barrel, and it's lighter than my 30'06 hunting bolt that I haven't ever complained about carrying all day. I held the ar-10s with 20" and longer barrels and they would only be a truck gun for me, I'd likely not carry it around long distances, but they were cool.

Also, if you get an Armalite ar-10 you get a lifetime warranty with it.

I don't think it's that expensive to shoot either. I can get federal ammo for $13 bucks for 20 rounds, and I'm not doing mag dumps on this rifle (that's for the ar-15). This rifle was so I could shoot a heavy bullet without having to wear out the barrel on my nice 30'06 bolt rifle. This chrome lined barrel on the ar-10 should give me 15k rounds of good performance (less if you shoot a lot of rapid fire and heat it up, but I rarely shoot rapid fire with it).

This being said, I really also want to get a 6.8 upper for my ar-15! If I could only have one, I'd take my ar-10. Best of luck deciding!

The simple facts are that 30 cal high power semi autos are cool to fire and look at, but unless your actually going to be using it for actual combat duty, it makes no real sense to own one. Most of them end up in the safe as a dust collector.

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Does eliminating hogs in Texas count as combat duty? Because the .30 cal semi's are great for it

I had an ar10. Man, was it fun to shoot. I loved having a relatively soft kicking 308 carbine. You could also use it for hunting critters larger than varmint. I just flat out loved shooting it. Times got tough and I traded it away...I just couldn't justify the high ammo prices (even for wolf).

The 223 AR-15 round is pretty cheap and plentiful. Makes for fun plinking sessions and of course it works for defense. I keep two of them around and enjoy shooting them very much, one carbine and one scoped with a 24" target crowned barrel. Next up will be 9mm upper for the carbine for even cheaper plinking.

Boanerges57 said:

on a side note:
6.8 SPC is massively overhyped and its range is poor even compared to 5.56/.223. Yes close in it has better stopping power but its poor rang3e is why they had to introduce the 6.8mm SPC2 (or SPCII).

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Misinformation. I will leave it at that. This poster or the OP may PM me if he/she questions my concern as I don't want the OP's question to be derailed by a .223 v/s 6.* debate.

Can anyone give me a heads up how I should break in my brand new armalite 16" barrel assembly. Just hobbled together a Dpms lr308 coupled with a armalite barrel assembly and handrail..please advise

First of all, on the break-in, don't worry about it. Maybe a little bit for the first ten rounds. Shoot one, clean, etc. The difference it makes is debatable, and your 16" setup isn't super-high precision anyway. The idea of break-in is to lap the burrs in the throat and rifling left over from the machining process. There isn't going to be much left after ten rounds, if there was much to begin with.

As for which platform, I'm going with both. AR-15s for varminting, an M-4 for general defensive use, (I'm building a matching one for a friend of mine,) and a .22 for cheap practice. The main reason for three different rifles instead of just uppers id the trigger. I want a dream trigger on the varmint rifle, an ok one on the defensive rifle, and a mil-spec crappy one on the .22.

For the AR-10, I'm going with DPMS pattern. Since the DOD picked the M110, it seems to have standardized it a little bit more. And Magpul is making pmags for it. I'm making a lightweight .243 upper, and a heavyweight in .308 for distance shooting. I'll probably also eventually build one in 7mm-08. that's the thing about building them. When you do it the first time, you will smack yourself for not doing it sooner, and you realize there is no end to the possibilities.

Just for the pure joy of shooting I'd reccomend an AR15 platform. If you want something with more thump, and still reasonably priced to shoot look at the 7.62x39 uppers ... I've found that with C-Products mags they are reliable.

If you are retired army ... is ammo cost even a concern for you?

You don't say how old you are but, as I approached 50 I found myself shooting the larger caliburs less ... now that I'm well past 50, its been 2-3 years and getting to where I'm considering selling off all but 2 of my 308's as I hope to pass them down.

Personally I'd stay away from 6.5 and 6.8 ... at roughly $1.25 a round its expensive and you can't pick it up just anywhere.

I've thought about it, and I long ago decided that if I could only own one, I'd choose an AR-10. The .308 round is so much more versatile, even though it's a lot more expensive. Especially if you're planning to hunt (and not just varmint shoot), get the AR-10.

If you only get one go with the AR15 platform. If you can, get one of each.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

What Mags said sums it up for me.

Not sure about Texas but I think most states don't allow hunting (except varmints) with a 22 calibur ... for instance Kansas requires 24 calibur like 243 or larger

... but thats the great thing about the AR ... there are so many caliburs available for it!

I had an opportunity to put 160 rounds through today and the Dpms lr308 with armalite barrel assembly worked great. I heard something about the headspace not matching,it was perfect however an armalite upper won't go on a panther lower or vice/versa. I did put 2 pmag worth of moly ammo through first. It also has the noveske k-9 barricade system on the bottom rail on the handguard. When I get a chance to use the k-9 I will let you all know if It's cool..

Ahem ...

how can i post pictures?

I'm down to post pictures!

buy both. The AR15 in .223 and in .308 a FAL. Modern classics!

devoeski said:

I'm down to post pictures!

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download your images at photobucket or other image hosting site ... then copy the code that starts and ends with