AR-15 Build on a Budget

I have been wanting an AR-15 for a long time now. I actually used to own one about 5 years ago, but it was right when ammo was getting scarce, and when you could find it, it was way more expensive than I was willing to pay as a college student. It was a cheap DPMS that I bought at Wal-Mart for about $400.00. It didn't even have iron sights, so I bought a cheap red dot, again at Wal-Mart, which couldn't stay tight on the rails, and therefore couldn't hold a zero.

With my frustrations with the red dot, and the ever increasing cost of ammunition, I decided just to sell the rifle.

It is also good to mention that I am left-eye dominant, so I shoot left handed. That DPMS didn't have a brass deflector on it. See below if you don't know what I'm talking about. (picture borrowed from the internet)

The brass deflector keeps the spent casings from flying straight back at the shooter when the round is ejected.

So since my body is to the right of the gun because I shoot left handed, The hot brass would fly back and hit me in the neck (and sometimes go right down my shirt!!). Every time I'd go shooting, I'd come back with red marks all over my neck. 

That gun also had no forward assist (which many experienced shooters would say you don't need anyway). But I like having one just in case. The forward assist looks like a button, angled towards the chamber, located right behind the brass deflector. The reason I like forward assists is, as many of you know, most AR-15s operate on a direct gas impingement system. Meaning when you pull the trigger, the bullet goes zipping down the barrel, and at a certain point there is a tube attached to the barrel that captures some of the gas produced by the gunpowder as the bullet goes by. That gas is directed down the small tube back towards the chamber and hits the bolt, which causes the action to open, so the bolt can eject the spent round, and chamber a new one from the magazine. But there are particulates in that gas, that after shooting many rounds will build up and can cause the bolt to not slide as smoothly as it did before. When that is the case, then it is good to have that forward assist to be able to make sure the action is closed all the way before firing the next round.

Now obviously if you clean your gun after every range visit, and only shoot a couple hundred rounds every time you go to the range, then you probably won't ever need to use it. But (Insert your grandpa's voice here)"like my grandfather used to say: Better to have it and not need it, than to need it and not have it." 

So this round going into getting a rifle, I had 2 criteria that were mandatory for me:

1. It has to have a forward assist 

2. It has to have a brass deflector

These are pretty common on all ARs, even on the least expensive ones these days. You almost have to actually be in the market for a gun that specifically does not have them to find one.

So my birthday was getting close, and my dad wanted to get a rifle for me as my gift. We went to our local gun shop, and I picked out a Ruger AR556. This is about as entry level as you can get, and still meet the criteria I had set for it. I was also pleasantly surprised to see that it does come with iron sights. It has the fixed "A-frame" front sight that we all associate with an AR, and a flip-up rear sight, which is very good to have. You can get a red dot sight and have that rear sight flipped down so it is out of your way when using the red dot, and if the red dot dies you can flip it up and still be able to shoot. It is also nice if you want to have a scope mounted on your rifle, it can lay flat under the scope. Of course to use it, you'd have to remove the scope. There are other options as well like red dot with a flip up magnifier, that will allow you to have a red dot, keep the backup flip-up iron sight, and use the magnifier on the red dot when you need to go for a bit longer range shots.

After doing some more research on the gun we chose, I found that it is definitely one of those guns that you really get a good deal for all that the gun has to offer. Below is a link to the spec sheet if you're interested. You can also check out YouTube videos of people's impressions of the gun. They're all very positive reviews. 

https://www.ruger.com/products/ar556/specSheets/8500.html

If I remember right, we got that gun for around $600.00. So for and AR that is a pretty good price. You can easily spend upwards of $2,000.00 on a high end rifle. So that kind of shows you what end of the spectrum I'm working on. I don't plan to take this gun to any competitions anytime soon, so I'm pretty happy to have a plinker that doesn't break the bank. Below is the stock picture of what it looks like on the website. Mine looked no different when I bought it. I was also happy to see it came with a Magpul magazine, and not a cheapo metal magazine, or no magazine at all.

Since then I have added a few things to it, but nothing major. I decided to do a poor man's tactical rifle with this one, just to see what kind of results I can get out of a cheap build. Not only that but I am poor, so that is the budget I have to work with anyway. 

The first thing I bought for the rifle was a Magpul hand guard (about $30.00 on magpul.com), and (I forget the brand name) a cheap vertical grip, also called a broom handle by some (maybe $12.00). I also bought a few more Magpul magazines for it ($18.00 each on Magpul.com). Nothing I've bought so far has cost more than $30.00. I plan to not buy anything for this rifle that costs more that $100.00. Which shouldn't be too hard. Yes, you can buy much nicer things for your rifle for way more money. Like I said, I am trying to stay on one end of the spectrum here and see if I can still build a solid rifle. Below is a picture of my rifle after adding the hand guard, vertical grip, and a windowed Magpul magazine.

I take these pictures with my cell phone, so please don't be mad about the picture quality. It's the best I can do (poor, remember).

After his 3rd deployment to the middle-east, my dad got a really high-end AR-15, that came with a nice Magpul butt stock (which is actually the same one I had planned to purchase for myself). He had a much nicer one that he had bought for his deployments that he decided to put on his AR, and so I asked him for the other one he was not using. FYI the butt stock according to the Magpul website is about a $60.00 value. You could probably find it cheaper somewhere else. He was nice enough to let me have it, since he wasn't using it. So below is what my rifle currently looks like. 

Thanks again for following this blog. Please follow along as I continue buying new things for this rifle. As I go to the range, I will be testing them out to see what kind of value they have, and what I've found to look for. 

Until next time!

***Next episode*** will most likely include a red dot sight that I have researched quite extensively, and plan to do a review on. Also, it won't break the bank at around $20.00 on Amazon!

Anatomy of a Rifle

What is a rifle? What is it made up of? What are the major components? Hunting rifles and sniper rifles are generally the same basic concept. The main difference is what they are used for, and how well tuned they are. I won't really go into much detail about assault weapons, or machine guns on this blog.


Here I have attached a small diagram that I made showing the basic parts on the outside of a rifle.

#1. Most hunting rifles have scopes on them. The scope helps you to see your shot closer up, and to compensate for for windage and distance.

#2. The Muzzle is the tip of the barrel, where the bullet comes out of the gun when fired.

#3. The muzzle brake is used to help the rifle to shoot with greater accuracy. Most hunting rifles don't have muzzle brakes come standard. ( I plan to go more into detain on muzzle brakes on another post).

#4. Bipods don't generally come standard on a rifle, they are normally an after-market part that you buy. They are used to help rest the rifle when you are shooting. If you don't have a bipod, you usually need to look for something to rest your rifle on when shooting. This helps you to keep the rifle more steady, and helps you to shoot with greater accuracy.

#5. The magazine is where the ammo is held, that is waiting to be fired. There are different types of magazines, the one shown in this picture is an external magazine, which means that it can be removed, and reloaded independent of the rifle. My .243 has an internal magazine, so that means that I can't take it out of the rifle to reload. I have to open the bold and put them in into the magazine.

#6. The stock is what you put your forward hand on to help you control the rifle. The barrel gets pretty hot when you're out shooting, so its good to have something there to hold on to, that isn't a hot barrel.

#7. The butt is what you press your shoulder against when shooting. You can also rest your head on it when shooting to help you see through the scope or sights better.

#8. The trigger is what you pull on with your finger to fire the weapon.

#9. The barrel is the long metal tube that the bullet moves through before exiting the weapon.

#10. The action is where the bolt is,and where the bullet is hit with a small pin to cause it to go off.

Most rifles have a bolt in them, whether semi-auto, auto, or bolt-action. The bolt is used to load a round into the chamber, and it houses a firing pin that is thrust into the primer of the round which causes it to go off, and it's also used to eject the expended round.

So now we know the major components of a rifle. Next week we'll talk about how it all works.

What Caliber are YOU?

As you have read on previous posts of mine, I have a .243 (pronounced two forty-three) Winchester rifle. What does that even mean??? Well .243 Winchester is the caliber that my rifle shoots. It doesn't shoot any other caliber, just .243 Winchester.

The word caliber just means diameter. So my rifle shoots bullets that are .243 inches in diameter. That is the easiest way to put it. When talking to someone, you will hear them say "I have a 30 caliber." At first you might say, that's a small round, right? after all, 243 is not a big round, so 30 must be tiny!! Not so. My 243 is .243 inches in diameter, and 30 caliber is actually .30 inches in diameter. So depending on the round, you might here a 30 caliber called a "300" or a "30", it really just depends on the caliber of the gun. 

Below is a chart that shows the size of a few of the most popular hunting calibers:

There are two different measuring systems when it comes to calibers. There is the imperial system (what Americans use i.e. fractions of an inch), and the metric system. So, for example, I shoot a .243, which according to the chart is smaller than a .270 Winchester, and larger than a .223 WSSM (Winchest Super Short Magnum). Makes sense, right? Excellent, but to the right is a 7mm Remington Magnum! So what is the difference between a 7mm and a .270? Also that 7mm Mag is wedged between a .270 and a .30-06 two rounds over!! I get that the .30 means 30 caliber, but what is the -06 for?? 

There are MANY different calibers out there. And some give you more information than others in their name.

For example:

.243 Winchester - a bullet that is .243 inches in diameter, and was created by Winchester. 

A lot of times, the name of the company that created the round is in the name somewhere. 

To name a few: 

Winchester

Remington

Lapua

Federal

Springfield

Other times, the name or nickname of the round gives you more information:

7mm Remington Magnum - a bullet that is 7 millimeters in diameter, was created by Remington, and is a magnum. What is a magnum? It just means that it has more gun powder behind it that its predecessor the 7mm-08. What's the -08? See below:

.30-06: a bullet that is .30 inches in diameter. The -06 is the year in which it was created. Same for the -08 for the 7mm. So it's a 30 caliber round, and it was created in 1906, for the U.S. Army.

What about others? Like the .30/30, It wasn't adopted in 1930... See, this is yet another way to express the round's characteristics. This is also a 30 caliber round, but the second 30 in its name is how many grains of powder that it has in the casing. 

Now you can see why so many people get confused when it comes to caliber characteristics. A lot of it comes down to memorization. The larger the caliber of the bullet, does not always mean the more powerful the gun. For example a .357 Magnum might get confused for an ultra powerful rifle round. Right? It's bigger than my .243, and it says Magnum behind it. It must be a big powerful round! Nope, The .357 Magnum is a short caliber, used in lever-action rifles, and pistols. So it's a very powerful caliber for a pistol, but a pretty small caliber for a rifle. Once again, it just takes memorization. There's no real rhyme or reason to it, other than the bullet caliber telling you the diameter. So while the diameter of the .357 is larger than my .243 Win, the .243 Win is still a longer, heavier round, with much more gun powder behind it.

You will always know the caliber by what the person says. Whether its a .308, .300 Winchester Magnum (often pronounced 300 Win Mag), or a .22, just by hearing the number in the front of the name. Once you can see what the casing looks like and just remember how much more power is behind each round, you'll be fine. 

We will talk trajectories, and ballistics in a later post.

Please leave comments below if you have any questions, or need clarification on anything. I'd be happy to help you understand, or maybe we will both be able to learn something new together!

Scopes

Let's talk scopes. This is something that I have been doing quite a bit of research on recently. So for those of us that are beginners, lets talk about a scope's specs. For example, I looked at my rifle last night to see if I could figure out what kind of scope it is.

After about 10 seconds I found the information on the bottom of the scope (facing the gun butt), near the end you look through. So I saw that it's a Bushnell 4X32. What does that mean?

So Bushnell is the brand name (a good one by the way). But what about the 4X32 (4 by 32)? The 4 means it's a 4 power scope (things look 4 times closer). the 32 is the reticle size, or the size of the glass on the side facing the end of the barrel. So mine is 32 mm wide. With reticles, the bigger the better, generally. So a 32 mm reticle isn't the smallest size, but it's also not super great. Generally for deer rifles you will want anywhere from 40 mm - 50 mm. These let in more light, therefore a clearer picture of what you're looking at.

As I was doing my research, I was trying to figure out what type of scope I should get, in every sense of the word. I was trying to answer these basic questions:

1. How far of shots do I feel comfortable making with my rifle? Remember I have a .243 Winchester. (if you don't know what that means, I will do another blog soon on calibers).

2. What specs does my scope need to shoot at those distances?

3. What Brand do I want?

So for question #1, I was going to have to do some research:

1. How much energy does a bullet have to have to kill a deer?

2. How far out will my rifle produce that much energy? (this is dependent on multiple variables, but for me, as I have no plans on reloading my own bullets, the only ones I worried about is weight of the bullet, and the brand). I shoot Winchester 95gr bullets. So I'm set there.

I see that most "experts" or long-time hunters that know a lot more than me say that your bullet should have at least 1,000 lbs of force, to be effective at killing a deer. Can you kill with less than that? Yes! But I don't want to do that. I worry about making a deer suffer more than it has to.

So I looked up a ballistics chart for my rifle:
http://gundata.org/blog/post/243-ballistics-chart/

As you can see on this chart, my .243 shooting Winchester 95gr. bullets produces over 1,000 lbs of force out to 400 yards. So I plan to shoot with that range.

So I really don't need a super awesome $2,000 scope with 32 power magnification. I decide, that I need something that I can shoot with at short-to-medium range. So about 3-10 power is really all I need.

So, lets talk brands (this is by no means a comprehensive look into all brands, just the ones I looked at):

Barska:
I looked into a brand that I found on Amazon called Barska. Their scopes have AMAZING specs!!! And for relatively little money. I found what I thought was my perfect scope from them. 6-24X50, for $65!!! I though I hit the jackpot. 50mm Reticle, and it goes from 6-24 power. Not too shabby. Until I saw the ratings. While there were many 5 star ratings, there were also many 1 star ratings. And it seemed, the more I read into it, those scopes are very hit-or-miss. So I decided to stay away from them.

Bushnell:
I don't know too much about Bushnell, other than they are one of the top names in optics. Like I mentioned before, the scope on my rifle is a Bushnell, and I've never had a problem with it being off, or losing its zero.

Vortex:
Vortex is a fairly new brand to me. A lot of my friends like their stuff. Including guys that are big time into high quality optics. From what I understand, they have really great warranties.

Leupold:
My dad is in the military. Being in the military, he gets a really good discount from Leupold. So that is the brand he usually goes with. They are another high quality brand, but they don't dabble much in the lower-end scopes.

Nikon:
Nikon has been a top name in optics for a long time. They have high quality scopes, but are generally a bit more bare bones than the other higher-quality brands, at least from what I can tell.

So I had narrowed my search to just Nikon and Vortex. They were really the only two brands that I felt I could trust, and afford.

After a couple hours searching around on Amazon, and other websites, I finally found a Nikon that fit my budget, and had the specs I wanted: the Nikon Buckmaster II 3-9X40.

Nikon has three main product lines:

1. Prostaff - lower-end
2. Buckmaster - mid-grade
3. Monarch - top of the line

So I ordered the Nikon today. I feel like I got a great deal on the scope for less than $110.

Intro to My Blog

Okay, so I've created this blog due to some new interests of mine, and I figure some people would be interested in learning along with me.

I have always enjoyed hunting, and rifle hunting has always been a big deal to me, growing up. My dad has taken me hunting since I was 4 years old, and I shot my first deer at 12 years old. We went hunting almost every year when I was growing up. I got my first rifle at the age of 11 or 12. It's a .243, and to be honest, I don't even know what brand, with a 4 power magnification scope (same deal, no idea what brand).

Growing up in Texas, the style of hunting we did (box blinds with corn feeders), did not call for anything more than that gun. When your longest shot is a couple hundred yards, you really don't need any more gun than that.

A few years ago, I moved to Idaho, where the deer are bigger, and don't even get me started on the ELK, and the shots are longer. A .243 with a 4 power scope just isn't going to cut it anymore. So now, I need to figure out what I'm going to do. And that is when I realized, I KNOW VERY LITTLE ABOUT GUNS!!!

So I invite you to embark on this journey with me, as I learn about different guns, calibers, accessories, scopes...

I am very excited to get out, and learn everything I need to, to be the most effective hunter I can be here in Idaho, and I hope that you can benefit from what I am learning as well.