One of my lifelong dreams is being fulfilled: I am going to help my good friend, Slarti, build an AR-15. While I love guns, I've never had the opportunity to build one from the ground up. Well, recently, Slarti contacted me and wanted me to help him research and build one.
From Slarti:
"I am a lifetime gun owner and user, but have never had much experience with AR's--much less BUILT one. So...I came up with the hairbrained scheme that I want to build one for various reasons. I am really pretty ignorant on the subject so I turned to Straight Shooter for help."
One of the benefits of the AR platform is that it is completely modular. So you can basically order parts as you are able to afford them, and put them together while you save for the next piece! That's Slarti's plan, so I am going to chronicle my attempts to help him with this AR-15 project. Hence, the Slarti & Straight Project (S&S).
The first piece to order is what they call the "lower receiver." This is the part that has the serial number on it and is regulated by the BATF (Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms). When you buy the lower, you have purchased an "assault rifle," whether or not it has a barrel, trigger, grip, buttstock, etc. So it's one of the best parts to start with since you can get all the paperwork out of the way, and it’s not that expensive (typically $100-$200). It is also the only part that has to be shipped to an FFL dealer (basically your local gun store). The rest of the parts can be shipped straight to your home.
After some careful research, Slarti and I decided that the best price to value lower receiver was the Spike’s Tactical lower receiver. Not only was it an awesome-looking piece of equipment (Spike’s has one of the coolest roll marks ever! Love that spider!), but it was a tremendous value. In all of my research, I could not find one person who had something bad to say about their product. He ended up ordering the complete lower (with buttstock and lower parts [ie. trigger, grip, etc.]) since it was such an awesome deal. We plan to assemble it when received (if it’s already assembled, we will tear it apart and put it back together).
I know I’m looking forward to this adventure, and we will keep you posted on our progress, as well as reviews of the parts we order and use, so stay tuned! Next up will be the upper receiver and bolt group, but still much to research there as well as money to be saved. Until then….
- Straight
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are you going to post the costs as you go so we can have an idea of what it would cost to assemble an AR 15 of our own?
ReplyDeleteYes, I plan to do that with Slarti's permission.
ReplyDeleteSittin' on GO, baby!
ReplyDelete