What is your AR-15 quality list?

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So all of mine are excellent.

Troy XM177 E2
Windham carbine
FN DMR
Fulton Armory Retro
Grendel Hunter upper on Spikes lower with a Aero BCG.

I carried the M-16 and an M-4
 
According to that chart my only AR is at the poverty level. Back in the Obama years I bought a blemished M4 profile rifle kit from PSA. Then I ordered a blemished lower from them & put it all together (there was a small scuff on the barrel, I could not find a blemish on the lower). Later when they came out with their EPT trigger I bought the kit & put it in. If I recall correctly the trigger kit came with a lower power hammer spring. I did not use it but left the original stock spring in. I don't know what the pull on the trigger would measure but it feels a pound lighter than it was originally just because of the smoother trigger parts. The only problem I have ever had it was caused by a dummy (me) installing the hammer spring backwards but at least it was easily remedied. Interesting that the kit I bought back then would be considered Premium Cold Hammer Forged & cost twice as much now. Here is a link to the current version PSA 16" Carbine Length CHF M4 5.56 1:7 Rifle Kit - 505097 | Palmetto State Armory
 
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My RRA feels very nice in terms of fit and finish compared to a friend’s PSA or a DPMS. I suspect all of them would go bang every time and hit minute of man if carried in a battle. I also have a friend who bought a Knight’s and it had issues right out of the box. Brand reputation means something but these days most are going to be “good enough” -with extra fit and finish, accuracy, or even-better-than-standard-durability the advantages of laying out more cash.
 
I knew a guy that made (actually assembled) BCG’s. Something like 300,000 per year. He sold the exact same ones to every tier of manufacturers. He couldn’t say who due to non-disclosure, but he said it was very well known names

In reality, there are a few manufacturers of AR parts that supply to the majority of builders, including uppers, lowers, and barrels. The field expanded a bit since the last big run (during the First Dark Age,) but by and large, it's a pretty small core.
 
The beauty of the AR, is that the lower does nothing, and the upper forging almost does nothing.

As long as the lower doesn't snap apart at the stock, and the upper can hold a barrel in place, you're good to go. I switched to billet uppers though, for my serious AR's.

If you can get your upper assembly perfected, you can go as cheap as you want on the lower. Any lower you can find, with a BCM upper is almost assuredly going to be really good.
 
This and similar always make me laugh but I will share it anyway.

View attachment 978996

The sad part is nearly all my AR are built on DPMS and Bushmaster Uppers/Lowers and the majority of the internals. The thing is that I would rather have my destitute based guns that I built myself than anything in the top two tiers.



Nice.
 
It seems like nobody can agree on what should be a pretty straightforward thing. One man thinks his AR-15 is the Sword In The Stone, and the other man thinks it's a piece of flaming pile of rubbish. I'm sure there might be some debate back and forth but -- generally speaking -- what are the quality of ARs from worst to best?

I've always seen DPMS (Panther Arms) understood to be low quality ARs. Much more recently, I'm reading people arguing back and forth that they're "not so bad" or even on par with Rock River! To me that personally sounds insane, but I'm wondering how much objectivity we can bring into this conversation.

As an aside, I know that what might be "good" expectations for a $500 rifle might be ridiculous for a $2,000 rifle. I'm just kind of curious if this is a conversation we can have.

For instance, I've seen the Smith & Wesson M&P Sport II under stress tests and, while they're often disputed as being an "entry rifle" or a "budget rifle," they seem to actually run pretty well relative to other firearms of much higher price -- leading me to believe they're a higher quality firearm (although definitely not the best things money can buy). Moreover, as someone who was in the Army with Colt M4s, I think Colt makes a great weapon but actually feel like the S&W is more reliable / accurate.

So what do you guys say? Do you have a list? Do you think I'm nuts?
The fact that you started with DPMS and Rock River, I had to check the date on the post, making sure this wasn't like 2009
 
As a few have pointed out, ARs are a lot like store bought PC- there are dozens if not hundreds of brands, but crack the case and the all the components come from a few manufacturers and are just assembled from bins of off-the-shelf parts. A few boutique makers are making at least some parts in house and rare few make everything but that's pretty uncommon. A fairly small number of companies are making the lowers, and an even smaller pool is making barrels. Very often if you drill down into the fine print you'll find companies saying that the parts are "made to our exacting specifications" ie made for us by someone else.

Any list of the "best brands" would have to be revisited often. To consider a Remington or Colt firearm you'd have to look at eras, between which periods of bankruptcy and under which hedge fund or holding group. At various points Winchesters or Marlins were considered fine guns but at any given time who's making those guns?

I suppose we can try to rely on "milspec" as a baseline; that should guarantee a certain level of product & specs...but of course, nearly everything in the military is farmed out to the lowest bidder. Holding up an item for veneration because the military uses it is comical on several levels. At least you can be sure it was made as cheaply as humanly possible and still conform to the RFP!
 
My first AR15 is a DPMS A1 carbine.

I quite literally beat that little carbine over the almost 2 decades of use. Had to replace the hand guards after a 308 ricochet smashed em and gouged the barrel, fired 1k of tracer through her at a night shoot and shot till the barrel was red, left on the bed of the truck and forgot about her and then proceeded to drag her about 1 mile by the sling caught on the ball hitch before I realized. Thousands of inert grenade and golf ball/soda can launches.

Stock/extension replaced after the sling broke and it tumbled into a wash breaking the release mechanism off and most of the bottom of the stock . (have a colt 6920 that did almost the exact same thing years ago, it just bounced and then javelin-ed into a dirt mound and filled the barrel about 6" with dirt and broke the toe off the stock. The aim point pro stayed on and still works but the lenses are scratched to hell. )

3-4 inch carbine then and still a 4 inch carbine now, just with a lot of wear and tear on her. And she still keeps ticking.
 
I look for chrome lined 4150 barrels and cold hammer forged is good.
High quality bcg, proper steel and hpt/mpi marked. Well-staked gas key.
Taper pinned fsb.
Quality of fit and finish. Controls and detents all snap into place like they should.
Good quality M4 feed ramps.
 
Upgrade furniture to something nice and tight fitting.
Check lower for plastic parts, there’s parts kits floating around with lots of plastic in them.
Put a good trigger in it. Rock river national match.

seems uppers and lowers and barrels and BcG are all pretty dang good. An old timer told me one time a DPMS Oracle was better than what he had in Vietnam. I’m not sure if that’s true or not, but someone here would know.

I like them all, I’ll shoot the crap out of a poly delton even. Seems about $900 buys you a pretty descent gun. Spend it all up front or spend $600 on a good bones gun and upgrade what’s rough. I’m not sure if I’d ever buy one of the over $1000 AR15’s, I’ve fondled them and I can’t see/feel the value.
I have an off brand AR10 I probably have $1000 in that gets cleaned less than yearly, shoots MOA at 800 yards, rides in the pickup. I’ve emptied a magazine several times hunting with it, but I’ve never done a real mag dump.

I saw a kid at the range onetime that had just got a bump stock. He had a cheap PSA and he ran ammo through it until he had mowed down the 2 telephone poles we had set with plywood across them for targets. I don’t know how much money he spent, but he shot like he was getting a divorce and the wife got all the ammo that was left in an hour. I was pretty impressed with the PSA, we were pretty pissed about the poles though.
 
One really great thing about an AR, all dimensions are referred off the datum line of the chamber. That means if their manufacturing meets certain specs, (assuming quality workmanship) any bolt should be able to drop Into any carrier & put into any upper w no issues. Quite an achievement when you think about it.
 
Thanks for everyone's replies! These have definitely been very helpful.


I’ve got 2 ARs, one a factory DPMS, the highest priced one they sold some 10 or so years ago. Mostly the reason I bought it was because our local PD and Co. Sheriff dept. did a bit of research before they equipped both departments with them. They had 2 each Colt H-bar, Bushmaster, DPMS, and one other less common higher end brand I don’t recall this second. After a half dozen cops and deputies ran them through their paces for many thousands of rounds in a couple months, each officer voted the DPMS head and shoulders above the closest competitor, the one they expected to be the winner, the Colt H-bar. Mine isn’t a target rifle but it shoots cheap bullets to mimute of golf ball an 100 yd. My other one is a self build. I got a custom built lower from a gun club in Virginia where my son used to be a member. The actual manufacturer makes upper and lowers for several of the big name gun manufacturers. I bought a very heavy DPMS Match upper, has no forward assist, and put a Kreiger stainless 20” match 7.7” twist barrel on it. A JP adjustable gas block, M-16 full auto bolt carrier and Brownell’s private label bolt, yada, yada. The lower has the $75 kit with exception of the $250 Giesselle trigger. A Magpul telescope stock with the latch lock lever on it. Now this is a target/match rifle. 68 and 69 gr Hornady, Barnes, and Sierra bullets drift 5 shots into a dime to penny sized, sometimes smaller, hole at 100 yd with boring regularity. They aren’t tricked out with fancy forearm and rails etc, just a nice round tube with fish scale grips on them. I’ve probably got about $1,200 each in them. High end, top quality, fancy brand name, (Ever hear of Lafayette Gun Club?) they aren’t, but they do everything I want done. Oh yes, I also have a complete JP 22LR upper that I occasionally stick on one of the lowers. Haven’t got enough bullets through it yet to settle it down, but it shoots as well as my heavy barrel 10-22, but not up to my CZ 452 American standard yet. I’m holding out hope though. They aren’t impressive, but shoot as well as those that are.

It really depends on what you expect out of your AR. If you are a bench shooter, well, anything will shoot. If you are a weekend mag dumper, cheap is better because you spend all your money on cases of Wolf ammo for the dumps. If you are a mall ninja, or COD Operator, nothing matters more than the rollmark, and the amount of crap hanging off it. If you actually use an AR as a tool, professional or otherwise, things change a bit... I suspect make and components are chosen more for assembly and parts quality.

I've had a box stock DPMS Oracle (cheapo entry level, no sights.) I pumped a case of ammo through it in 2 days... not necessarily abusing it, but I'm not kind to my service weapons. Not one hiccup. Oh, yea, the barrel was a spaghetti noodle, for sure, but everything else seemed to work well enough, and the build itself wasn't bad. I gave it to my brother for Christmas.

I have an RRA upper that is my standard weapon when I'm out and about... it HAS been abused, and I rarely clean it... a squirt of CLP on the bolt and it's good to go. I trust it with my life.

My original AR is a Gen-u-wine Colt H-bar. While I'm sure it has quality parts, it is not All That and a bag of chips. It has, flat out, the worst trigger in the safe... and it's a 'target' rifle? Add in the Big Pins, and some sloppy fit... and you have a mediocre AR. I'd take my RRA over the Colt.

Honestly part of the reason I asked this is because I was talking to someone about buying a used HBAR and he was insisting selling it for $1300. He bleated endlessly about the quality of Colt AR-15, and I didn't mention that I was in the military and was actually issued two different Colts while in service. I'm probably going to catch a lot of crap for this, but I really found the S&W M&P Sport to be much more accurate and generally higher quality than both weapons I was issued in military service. I don't know if it was stress or what, but my performance with this rifle I borrowed is superior to the ones I had in the army

Still, everyone talks about Colt like they're God's Gift to shooters. I do like Colt, but I'm just not seeing the shock and awe because a Rock River National Match LAR-15 A2 literally shoots sub MOA with all the holes touching at 100 meters with open sights from a kneeling position. I have no experienced that accuracy with colts.

Some of the best ARs I've worked with were (some of) the old Bushmasters one of my employers issued -- we beat the crap out of them, and they kept ticking. Current employer issues Colt M4s (same carbine I was issued in the military 'cept sans fun-switch), I'm totally good with them, own two as personal weapons. I even like the Springfield Armory Saint I bought last year, super-accurate. Have owned the S&W M&P-15 and it was worthy. Goes without saying my Daniel Defense rifles are superb. I've shot a lot of BCM and Larues, all good. I've seen the Rugers perform well and the one SIG I tried seemed darn good as well.

May I asked where you worked where you were issued a Bushmaster AR-15?


To me there are 3 basic "levels" of quality in a factory AR15. Full disclosure- I mostly build my own. That said, examples of the "higher tier" would be offerings from Larue, Barnes Precision, Geisselle, and the like. The "middle level" would include things like most S&W models, most DPMS, Ruger, and the other typical GI M4 clone types- and even the standard issue M4. Then the lowest level - those various cheap guns made in Washington state in the 80's and 80's, and the obscure brands sold at gun shows with cheap barrels, poorly assembled and with low quality parts, junky gas blocks held on with little screws, etc. To me, the most important parts on an AR are a decent barrel and trigger, with DECENT quality parts, properly assembled. This is sufficient for use for most people, and generally describes the typical M4 in use with conventional US mil personnel, minus accessories- which is a completely different conversation.

I agree with this almost wholeheartedly.


I’ve seen Lambos, Ferrari’s, and Bentley’s break after 40k miles. I’ve seen a Chevy Suburban and Nissan Frontier go over a million miles. It’s a crap shoot.

Honestly I really believe this is a very important point. I've brought this up in other posts before (usually resulting in an angry mob trying to crucify me), but I've owned 3 Ruger weapons in my entire life. Each one had a catastrophic failures. I sold every one of them. Not saying Ruger is a bad company (I carried a Ruger for years). I just really think that even good companies sometimes turn out a lemon.

You will not find a better factory trigger on anything as good as this one and a polishing stone makes it even better.

Dude I agree with this 100%. Which is why nobody is talking about Rock River. Like why does nobody cares.


I kind of like the old AR15.com list better, the one that compared the carbines to the M4 TDP as that actually graphically portrayed the difference in tiers .

Do you have this graphic?

Once upon a time, there were just a few makers gunning for GI contracts. These were all high end makers. Somebody came up w a casting blank & before you knew it there were dozens of lower end makers. They sourced parts from each other sometimes. Some startups improved there quality in production, some high end brands get bought out by a board of cheapasses & quality suffers. Variation in quality is huge. That really shakes my buyer confidence in ARs. I'd much rather have a 800$ AK then an 800$ AR.

Honestly I'm seeing this to be a pretty common assessment -- particularly for SHTF rifles. Even WASR AKMs are selling for more than Mid-Quality ARs at this point.

I knew a guy that made (actually assembled) BCG’s. Something like 300,000 per year. He sold the exact same ones to every tier of manufacturers. He couldn’t say who due to non-disclosure, but he said it was very well known names

In reality, there are a few manufacturers of AR parts that supply to the majority of builders, including uppers, lowers, and barrels. The field expanded a bit since the last big run (during the First Dark Age,) but by and large, it's a pretty small core.

The forged upper and lower receivers are mostly made by just a few manufacturers.

I've heard this before too.


The fact that you started with DPMS and Rock River, I had to check the date on the post, making sure this wasn't like 2009

Why do you say this? Just curious because the Rock River I shot was back in 2009. :rofl:

As a few have pointed out, ARs are a lot like store bought PC- there are dozens if not hundreds of brands, but crack the case and the all the components come from a few manufacturers and are just assembled from bins of off-the-shelf parts. A few boutique makers are making at least some parts in house and rare few make everything but that's pretty uncommon. A fairly small number of companies are making the lowers, and an even smaller pool is making barrels. Very often if you drill down into the fine print you'll find companies saying that the parts are "made to our exacting specifications" ie made for us by someone else.

Any list of the "best brands" would have to be revisited often. To consider a Remington or Colt firearm you'd have to look at eras, between which periods of bankruptcy and under which hedge fund or holding group. At various points Winchesters or Marlins were considered fine guns but at any given time who's making those guns?

I suppose we can try to rely on "milspec" as a baseline; that should guarantee a certain level of product & specs...but of course, nearly everything in the military is farmed out to the lowest bidder. Holding up an item for veneration because the military uses it is comical on several levels. At least you can be sure it was made as cheaply as humanly possible and still conform to the RFP!

I've always wanted to bring this up. It seems like a lot of civilians flex on the concept of "Milspec" when I sincerely believe civilian firearms are manufactured to higher quality. Like I said in this post (and expect people will want to start a fight over), I really honestly feel like I got better performance out of the S&W M&P 15 I shot a few months ago than either the Colt M16A2 or Colt M4 I was issued in the military.

For the record, I think "Milspec" is a starting point. As in, There are plenty of AR-15s that do not meet military specifications because they're not accurate enough. When someone tells me a weapon is "milspec," I expect at least 1 MOA performance..

My first AR15 is a DPMS A1 carbine.

I quite literally beat that little carbine over the almost 2 decades of use. Had to replace the hand guards after a 308 ricochet smashed em and gouged the barrel, fired 1k of tracer through her at a night shoot and shot till the barrel was red, left on the bed of the truck and forgot about her and then proceeded to drag her about 1 mile by the sling caught on the ball hitch before I realized. Thousands of inert grenade and golf ball/soda can launches.

Stock/extension replaced after the sling broke and it tumbled into a wash breaking the release mechanism off and most of the bottom of the stock . (have a colt 6920 that did almost the exact same thing years ago, it just bounced and then javelin-ed into a dirt mound and filled the barrel about 6" with dirt and broke the toe off the stock. The aim point pro stayed on and still works but the lenses are scratched to hell. )

3-4 inch carbine then and still a 4 inch carbine now, just with a lot of wear and tear on her. And she still keeps ticking.

Holy cow dude you beat those rifles to death! I baby all my firearms. If they sit for a few weeks without being cleaned after firing I feel bad!

Upgrade furniture to something nice and tight fitting.
Check lower for plastic parts, there’s parts kits floating around with lots of plastic in them.
Put a good trigger in it. Rock river national match.

seems uppers and lowers and barrels and BcG are all pretty dang good. An old timer told me one time a DPMS Oracle was better than what he had in Vietnam. I’m not sure if that’s true or not, but someone here would know.

I like them all, I’ll shoot the crap out of a poly delton even. Seems about $900 buys you a pretty descent gun. Spend it all up front or spend $600 on a good bones gun and upgrade what’s rough. I’m not sure if I’d ever buy one of the over $1000 AR15’s, I’ve fondled them and I can’t see/feel the value.
I have an off brand AR10 I probably have $1000 in that gets cleaned less than yearly, shoots MOA at 800 yards, rides in the pickup. I’ve emptied a magazine several times hunting with it, but I’ve never done a real mag dump.

I saw a kid at the range onetime that had just got a bump stock. He had a cheap PSA and he ran ammo through it until he had mowed down the 2 telephone poles we had set with plywood across them for targets. I don’t know how much money he spent, but he shot like he was getting a divorce and the wife got all the ammo that was left in an hour. I was pretty impressed with the PSA, we were pretty pissed about the poles though.


I'm beginning to think that this is the answer. That is, the consumer market in the US has created such a high demand for reliable ARs at this point that you can basically expect pretty awesome performance from even "low" quality AR-15s. More money usually means you'll get a better product, but the accuracy and reliability from most of those is probably more than sufficient.
 
One really great thing about an AR, all dimensions are referred off the datum line of the chamber. That means if their manufacturing meets certain specs, (assuming quality workmanship) any bolt should be able to drop Into any carrier & put into any upper w no issues. Quite an achievement when you think about it.

Can anybody vouch for this? If I'm buying spare parts it would be easier to just buy a few general bolt carriers.
 
The AR is the only one I'm aware of that has that level of interchangability. FALs were close, but you still had to breach them & get a locking shoulder. If you built an AK in a non-communist country, it would almost surely cost as much, perhaps more then a good AR. FN under bid Colt for the original M16a2 @ 112$ per. (Circa 1985) That's it. The rest of the cost is license, fees, tax, etc.
 
I don't know of any low quality AR's per se, generally you pay more for certain features and premium upgrades. Not always though, in some cases you can expect to pay $400-$500 more just for a logo....

Budget/entry level:
Ruger AR556
S&W Sport
PSA freedom
Delton
BCA
Anderson


Duty grade/mid tier
COLT
BCM
FN
PSA Premium
Windham
Bushmaster
Spikes
AERO

Gucci grade/top tier
KAC
Daniel Defense
Rock River
LMT
Geissele
LaRue
Noveske


There are many others. Can't list them all. People have different opinions about this but I think my list reflects a general consensus. Some of them may go +/- in grade depending on features of a given model but generally speaking....

I had a hard time placing the Aero. They are (were) affordable enough to belong to budget/entry level but could easily be considered mid tier by some.
 
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"Colt firearms" is the elcheapo knockoff of the real "Colt defense". Two different production lines. Likely a civilian model produced w dated & worn production equipment when Colt defense got new tooling for GI contracts. Colt defense is a true top tier. Gotta be careful w brand names.
 
FN under bid Colt for the original M16a2 @ 112$ per. (Circa 1985) That's it. The rest of the cost is license, fees, tax, etc.

This blows my mind. Almost to the point that I would question your accuracy. Heck, the M1 Garand was $86 in WWII, 50 years prior. I mean, $112 is still less than $300 in 2021 inflation adjusted currency.
 
Does FN still have the mil contract?
Where do Wilson Combat weapons fall in here?
 
This blows my mind. Almost to the point that I would question your accuracy. Heck, the M1 Garand was $86 in WWII, 50 years prior. I mean, $112 is still less than $300 in 2021 inflation adjusted currency.
This blows my mind. Almost to the point that I would question your accuracy. Heck, the M1 Garand was $86 in WWII, 50 years prior. I mean, $112 is still less than $300 in 2021 inflation adjusted currency.
Remember the AR15 is all about modern manufacturing. If you are pumping out multipules 10,000 @ a time, you realize a big savings. Nobody but large govt contractors have that capacity. A small producer could never get his costs that low.
 
Remember the AR15 is all about modern manufacturing. If you are pumping out multipules 10,000 @ a time, you realize a big savings. Nobody but large govt contractors have that capacity. A small producer could never get his costs that low.

Further, the M1, and the following M14, were very expensive to produce, requiring extensive machining... an AR/M16 does not.
 
For the record, I think "Milspec" is a starting point. As in, There are plenty of AR-15s that do not meet military specifications because they're not accurate enough.

I rank the phrase 'MilSpec' right up there with 'the check is in the mail,' along with a few others that I won't enumerate here. MilSpec is probably one of the most abused terms in all of Firearmdom. What is MilSpec?
 
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