question(s) about building an AR lower..

[Detritus]

Greetings,

just got back froma gunshow in Houston, now i have questions, some of which i kinda want to get an answer to before NEXT weekend when the Houston Gun Collector's Show is going on.

been looking at AR lowers, both complete and stripped. and one of the vendors at teh show had some pretty good deals, including one that got me thinking that i MIGHT want to buy two stripped lowers and build em up myself.

but i've never done that before and i don't know if it would be worth it to "do it myself". how much of a PITA is assembling a completed lower from a stripped receiver??


just in case it makes a difference, one, if not both, of these lowers will wind up with A1 furniture as soon after the inital purchase as i can manage it. and other than the outward pieces (grip and buttstock) i don't know if that changes the parts needed. such as does having an A1 buttstock mean i need a different buffer tube?

anyway, any and all of you who've done this before please let me know how difficult it is and what tools are needed to do this right.

or should i just suck it up and buy the complete (Rock River) lowers at $250 adn be done with it??

as always thank you for you time.

 

[nakanakanunu]

it is simple and straight foward man. I put my first 2 lowers together when I was 17 in my bedroom with a leather man, a nail , some electircal tape and a hammer. The first one took about 20 minutes, the second one took about 10 if that. I found directions on AR15.com

 

[DMK]

Go for it!

It's pretty simple. It takes me about an hour, taking my time and savering a cold beer while I'm doing it. The biggest gotcha is small parts and little springs. I've been lucky, only dropped one part and haven't launched a spring yet.

Here's an outstanding lower reciever assembly guide:

http://www.ar15.com/content/guides/assembly/lower/

Concerning the A1 stock, you can use the same buffer tube for either an A1 or an A2 stock. The A2 uses a spacer on the end of the tube (sonetimes, mine was missing) and about a 5/8" longer screw. If you try to use the longer screw it will interfere with proper buffer operation.

I swapped my A2 stocks for Cavalry Arms A1 length stocks and it was a direct replacement. I just cut the screws down.

Once you tackle a lower, try an upper. It's even easier but requires two special tools.

 

[Bartholomew Roberts]

Assembling a lower is pretty easy, the only common mistake I see is failing to seat the ends of the hammer spring in the trigger pins. If you don't do that, the trigger pins will walk out.

 

[Thumper]

How much were you seeing unassembled lowers for, D? I didn't get to go today.

 

[4v50 Gary]

The AR is the first gun since the blackpowder era that the common man can easily assemble himself. Go for it.

 

[Detritus]

How much were you seeing unassembled lowers for, D? I didn't get to go today.

Some of them were down in the 99-150 range, but those were not RRA lowers, and now i can't remember how much the stripped Rock River units were.

same folks are going to be at the HGCA Show at Reliant center next weekend, they're the one's witht he 1911 parts and AR uppers and Lowers under the big, beat up blue, Wilson Combat banner.

not gonna make a call on what to do re: complete Vs Stripped till next saturday. but at least now i have some idea of what i'd have to look forward to if i went with a "DIY parts bag"

thanks for the input so far guys

 

[nakanakanunu]

There was people on the EE on Ar15.com selling stripped DPMS and RRA lowers for like 100 bucks. I think the business is called legal transfers