A friend I work with recently tempted me to get into AR-15's. In considering what to get for my first, I immediately dismissed Colt as an option, because I already knew from my experience with M16-A2's that Colt knew how to make them. To maximize the experience, I decided to assemble my own 16" carbine from stricly non-Colt parts, but I had to promise my Mrs. that I would keep the project cost down. I bought a very nice RRA stripped lower at Knoxville's best gun store,
Coal Creek Armory . I liked the lower receiver enough that I determined to finish it out with a lower parts kit and an A2 buttstock kit ordered through RRA's website. FWIW, the lower parts seem to be identical to those of Colt, Bushmaster, Armalite, and, for all I can tell, these may all really be made by only one or two manufacturers. For the upper half, I looked at a lot of options, and was tempted by some of the sexy, expensive ones, but kept my word to the Mrs. on the budget, because I'm not crazy
. Fortunately, I was able to make the excuse with my wife that I had to spend a LOT of time lurking at ARFCOM, and browsing lots of AR-15 industry vendor sites, in order to put together the best possible upper half within the promised budget
. It was interesting to consider all the available options, but I carefully chose a not-so-interesting option, that of a complete RRA CAR A4 upper, with mid-length gas system, and Wilson 16" stainless HBAR, with 1X8" twist and .223 Wylde chamber, which I ordered from
Legal Transfers (thanks, Pete). Effectively, I will end up with a RRA Elite CAR A4, with an A2 buttstock. I'll have to wait a couple of weeks for delivery of the upper, as barrels seem to be back-ordered at RRA, which means I'll also have to wait to find out whether the RRA carbine will prove to be the quality/performance/cost value I hope I've correctly reasoned it will be. That's OK, because I'll have to wait until I get payed again before I can buy the requisite case of M855. I'd love to do some kind of high round count torture test, but I'm going to need the money for another carbine, because watching over my shoulder has gotten my wife infected with
Teh BRD, and she now wants one of her own.