The million dollar question: I'm looking for an AR, which brand?

[geophysicishooter]

I have the DPMS AP4. I think I gave ~820 for it. Seems to shoot well, cycles well, tight fit, nothing wrong with 1000+ down range since I got it in the spring..

others know more but I have liked my panther rifle. I'm looking for an optics option at this point. I'm pushing the limit of iron sights. I am shooting three and four inch groups of 10 or more pretty routinely at 100 yds, outdoors with wind with it. It would be interesting to see how tight it will shoot if I could actually see what I was shooting at!

 

[3pairs12]

Remington R 15. Haven't shot one yet nor talked to anybody who has, but what the heck the camo looks cool and I think they are piston operated. But really I like RRA and Model 1 isn't bad.

 

[IndianaBoy]

Unless you have a registered lower receiver, a lightning link, or a DIAS...you will never be able to tell if your barrel is made of 4140 or 4150 steel.

I have run my built AR pretty hard. The one time it has jammed was a combination of 400+ rounds with excessive lubricant followed by a couple of hours in 20 degree weather. After that it failed to strip a round off the top of a full 30 round mag.

I used an upper from J&T Distributing (i think they use mega/doublestar uppers and lowers), an ER Shaw barrel, CMT MP bolt carrier group.. and a *gasp* dpms stripped lower and LPK. I bought the STAG 6-position stock for the mil-spec buffer tube.

Everyone... COLT, FN, STAG, DPMS, Bushmaster... they all get their raw forgings from a handful of places. Alcoa, Anchor Harvey, Cerro Forge... maybe a couple of others.

MPI internals are worth it... but they arent guaranteed not to fail.


Barrel twist is a matter of stabilization... 1:7 is not automatically better than 1:9. If you want to shoot varmints with frangible bullets, 1:7 is a poor choice. If you want to shoot 600 yards with 77gr SMK ammo, it is an excellent choice.


99% of AR shooters will be just as well served with a DPMS as they would with a Colt 6920.

If you plan to trust your life to a rifle like so many Colt fans espouse.... you should be inspecting and testing the staking/internals and shooting a lot of rounds. Relying on Colt to QC for you is not the only way to get yourself a reliable AR.

 

[ugaarguy]

Everyone... COLT, FN, STAG, DPMS, Bushmaster... they all get their raw forgings from a handful of places. Alcoa, Anchor Harvey, Cerro Forge... maybe a couple of others.

Yes, but Colt, FN, LMT, and a handful of others do better final machining on those 80 % forgings than most others do.

Remington R 15. Haven't shot one yet nor talked to anybody who has, but what the heck the camo looks cool and I think they are piston operated. But really I like RRA and Model 1 isn't bad.

They're direct gas impingement operated, and they're nothing more than rebadged Bushmaster parts assembled at Remington in Ilion, NY. The few I've handled seemed to be pretty well assembled, and, while they aren't Colt parts, Bushmaster parts are still pretty good.

 

[atlanticfire]

RRA and if you have the money Noveske