I have a skewed take on it...
My first accurized rifle was a semi-custom built accurized AR15. I built the lower receiver up from the parts I specified and then I ordered off the upper assembly that I believed I wanted at the time.
Being that it was my first accurized rifle, a lot of what my decision was based on was word of mouth as well as features that I believed I wanted or placed value in at that time.
I knew that I wanted a rifle that was virtually recoiless so I built heavy, that meant a stainless steel lower receiver mated to a bull barreled upper assembly. Now back nearly 6 years ago, there were not that many custom smiths out there making AR15s in every color of the rainbow like there are today. The notable companies that were making accurate semis in fairly large quantities were JP Enterprises, Olympic, and DPMS. Olympic raised some concerns at that time and DPMS was possibly a bit too heavy for my tastes with their super bulls. JP Enterprises certainly has a pretty exclusive price but they had some features standard that the others didn't have, the JP recoil eliminator muzzle brake being one of them.
In the end I wound up with a pretty accurate, pretty heavy, and very recoiless rifle. This gun has been great to learn the game of precision shooting because it really allows one to concentrate on the fundamentals and do it for a long time without any signs of fatigue due to recoil.
After a couple years of shooting this rifle it has managed to enlighten me a bit as to what I might like to have done differently or what I would change if I had it to do all over again.
Now that I am relatively educated on matters I can go forth and talk to a custom smith such as Hollinger or some of the other recognized smiths to have them build me exactly what I'm looking for. However, as a newbie rifle the thing has served exceptionally well and is relatively well suited as a first time rifle.
Between a box stock factory rifle which may be compromized towards all shooters and a full tilt custom rifle that you figure is perfectly suited to you and you alone, there is usually a middle ground somewhere where you took your first baby steps into the custom game.
I figure that's where these bigger name companies come in to play, they put a fair amount of research into seeing what it is that the majority of people want and then gear their rifles towards being that "first step up". Nothing makes me groan more than hearing the names Les Baer and Wilson Combat when it comes to the AR15 market, I pretty much view them as another company jumping on the AR15 bandwagon but that view was formed only after having spent a couple years owning a semi-custom AR15 from a somewhat exclusive manufacturer.
Most of my money will go to smaller scale shops from now on, likely have a lot of money go into the pockets of GA Precision with George Gardner building some of my sticks.
I have a desire to one day do it myself though provided I get a decent mill and a lathe one of these days.
