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!