good place to buy an AR15 lower?

[Guest EasilyObsessed]

One of the guys I work with is thinking about building an AR15, and wanted to know if anyone has a recommendation for somewhere local (middle tennessee in general) to pick up the lower.

Also, any recommendations in regards to which lower to get would be welcomed as well. He is wanting to build a multi-purpose gun, good mix for range, varmit, and defense.

[Guest drewi]

In Middle Tennessee check with On Target in Murfreesboro and Franklin Gun Shop in Franklin.

As far as which brand the saying is "stick with the ABC's". Armalite, Bushmaster, and Colt. I'm pretty sure Rock River has been added to that list. too. I've been out of the AR stuff for a while so there may very well be newer manufacturers making good parts. Oh yeah, I forgot Stag Arms, they're good too.

Be careful when putting a "Frankengun" together. Make sure all of the parts you use are of good quality. Or better yet find a stock gun that fits your needs. That small amount of money you save by putting everything together yourself will seem like a bad idea if you end up with a problem gun.

[Guest EasilyObsessed]

Thanks for the info.

[Guest Shay VanVlymen]

If you plan to use the gun for defense you should have a factory-built gun. A gun that might be used on someone needs to work EVERY time.

Regardless of what you might read on the Internet (yes, I get the irony in writing this) home-built guns are not as reliable as guns from a quality manufacturer. If you build a gun yourself it might work and it might not. If it doesn't work you'll spend more time and money trying to fix it than you saved by buying parts and putting it together yourself. If you bought a gun from a good AR maker you'll be able to send it back to them and they will fix or replace it under warranty. Trust the pros who build rifles for a living to build you one that will have all the correct parts assembled correctly.

BY FAR the guns we see fail in classes are guns that people built themselves or tried to "upgrade" internal parts. Most of those rifles won't make it through the first day of class.

[Guest EasilyObsessed]

He already has one factory built AR. He is just wanting to build a second for "fun".

[Guest Shay VanVlymen]

In your first post you mentioned defense.

[molonlabetn]

It would defenitly be a good idea to buy a factory assembled mil-spec upper, with matched, headspaced bolt & carrier... But, as long as you mate it with a mil-spec lower, you'll be fine. Pieceing an AR together from component uppers and lowers is unlikely to cause any noticable problems. Problems come from cheap parts, regardless of who pushed the pins to unite the upper and lower.

Building an AR from scratch is a different matter... don't expect to get that right the first time (or first half-dozen times) without expert input and tuning, and quality parts (which won't save you any money).

[twstdstng]

check the equipment exchange on ar15.com stripped lowers can be had for the cheap on there.