Rolling your own AR

K

KAMPILAN

New member
i'm looking at building an AR15 from a parts kit as a pesonal project. what's the prevailing opinion on stripped lowers (brand, stripped vs forged). i'm also looking at MAYBE picking up a 80% casting. is it possible to finish one of these with just hand tools (drill press, dremel, files etc)or do you have to have access to a full mahine shop????

TIA
kampilan

PS
dunno if this would be better posted in the smithy forum, but i'll leave that to the discretion of the moderator ;)
 
check out the build it yourself forum on AR15.com.

One guy there has successfully built up a 80% lower with a drill & some files

Don't go cheap on the parts
get the internals from DPMS

dZ
 
While a machine shop with the right jigs and fixtures would be ideal, quite a few folks at ar15.com did it with home tools. Wonderful that you can "plumb" your own.
 
IF you buy an 80 % casting and you take it to a machine shop, you'll spend 45-50$ an hour to get it machined.

Otherwise , you can buy a stripped lower from Quality Parts in Maine. It is the Bushmaster lower and you can buy it for 129 $.
Personally, I like them better than Colt lowers. Bushmaster is a government contractor and if you want to get all of the parts for the lower you can but them in a kit...everything you'll need. Unless you are a machinist, I wouldnt mess with the unfinished lower.
 
In the lower, cast vs. forged is really not an issue because massive strength there is not required. Forged do look better most of the time. DPMS is cast and Bushmaster is forged. My personal preference is the Bushmaster.

As for the 80% lowers, if they were forged I would probably pick up a few of them for posterity's sake. But, they are castings so I will pass.

As for parts kits, I have used DPMS and Bushmaster to build up. No problems at all with the BM stuff. The DPMS parts I had problems with out of tolerance parts. There again, that could be a fluke. For my money though, I stick with Bushmaster. They have proven to be totally reliable and have consistent quality - except for their purple upper and lower fiasco from last year.

[This message has been edited by slickpuppy (edited September 17, 2000).]
 
The only hard part on the 80% lowers is the buffer tube threads. The hole has to be reamed out to 1.125" and tapped to 1 3/16x16t.p.i. This has to be done accurately!!! centered correctly, and perpendicular on both axes! The rest can be done with hand drill and a dremel moto-tool.
crankshaft
paranoia is just ginger-peachy when they really, really are out to get You!
 
one of the guys on AR15.com used no threads & jb welded the buffer on

not at all pretty, but the gun works!

dZ
 
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