ill tell you what i find HILARIOUS......
ive owned the cheapest AR lowers money can buy, and ive owned the most expensive money ca buy....you know what i found?.....99.9% of them are virtually identical, and the quality on them is generally virtually identical. as long as the receiver is forged for strength, and everything is correct as far as fit and finish goes, what difference does it make what names on it?...my brother in law is a sergent major in the army, and a ranger. when i spoke to him about it, he told me that his guys over in iraq have a variety of different lowers on their guns, and very rarely have any issues, and they use the chit out of them as im sure you can imagine. be more attentive to the barrel and upper you buy. those are the parts that take the abuse. ive got a couple of ARs i built cheapo, one ive only got around $250 bucks in, lock stock and barrel, and believe it or not, its one of the best shooters ive got. if you want to put alot of money into something, thats up to you, but if you can put a rifle together for pennies and have it be reliable and accurate, *** is the difference?....ive seen DPMS,stag,colt and others go to ****, sometimes faster than the cheapies. if the parts you put in fit good and tight like their supposed to, and everything mates up nice and tight, i dont worry much about "brand name" stuff,cause most of the time, your paying for a name. i was a firearms dealer and gunsmith for 17 years, and theres alot of stuff as far as guns go that the publics not aware of.
as an example, (i wont mention names) there are something like 7 different brands of 1911 45 acp handguns built in the same exact factory, from the same exact parts, same quality control,ect....only difference is the name on the slide. you can put all 7 of them side by side, leave the grips off and c over the names, and you literally cant tell one from another, until you look at the price tag, and those range from around $350 bucks all the way up to near $800+, for the exact same gun........
when it comes to AR-15 rifles, like i said, as long as everything mates up and works like its supposed to, whats in a name?......also,how much are you actually going to SHOOT the gun? there was a survey done about 10 years ago ( ill see if i can find it) that discussed how many actual rounds the average civilian ran thru their AR style rifles. it showed that generally when the users got them, they were sort of a "novelty" and the average shooter put between 500 and 1500 rounds thru their AR, and then it went into the safe, closet,ect. they said that the average lifetime rounds fired the the average persons AR rifle was between 3000 and 5000 rounds ( ive been known to run 500+ thru mine at a sitting)
also, i see mention of anarchy situation, and SHTF. well, if it did, do you figure your gona be out in the middle of it, or are you going to do your damnest to get your family out of harms way? do you have the balls to be shot at and return fire?...to shoot another human being?.....believe it or not,even though most reading this will be saying to themselves, "yea, i could do it", fact is, when presented with a situation like that, a very VERY small percentage of people can actually pull the trigger. also, you see guys hording ammo, sometimes hundreds of thousands of rounds.....let me ask you this. if SHTF, what would you do with it if the bad guy landed, say 20 miles from your house and headed your way? you couldnt move it, and when you EVAC youd be leaving all that ammo for the enemy troops to use against US. alot of the time, invading forces will use the same caliber ammunition they would find in the country they are invading...why?...so they can collect ammunition and use it up on the battlefield. 223 and 308 are the most common, as well as 9mm, 40S&W and 45 acp.
put yourself together a good reliable accurate AR with a decent upper and barrel,get yourself a dozen or so good quality 20rd and/or 30rd mags ( the less ammo in the mag, the least chance of malfunctions...most magazines sold with guns, even high $$$ guns are crap) and change the followers and springs to something decent, and about 1000 rounds of good ammo thats reliable thru YOUR gun. that way, if SHTF, you can throw it all in your rig and bail. if something did happen and we were invaded, the regular joe by himself couldnt stand up and have a firefight with combat trained military personel anyway, so your be stupid to try. youd have them up your arse in one hot second with alot bigger guns than you have. believe me, i know where your coming from, and i know you want to protect your family, but some of these guys go completely overboard out there.
my advise like i said is built yourself a nice accurate rifle, get the mags and ammo, some general supplies,ectand keep them all where your can access them in a hurry if you had to bail. also, look around your area and join up with the local militia, and get some training.
