Guns: Assembling an AR

I'm thankful that I built Mabel exactly the opposite from how this guy put together his AR-15. I assembled my own lower and bought a custom upper from a reputable manufacturer/assembler. It is my opinion that unless you intend to build a lot of AR-15s, or do a lot of customizing on a single one, you are better off going my route.

You are only going to make a profit of a couple hundred dollars by building your own gun instead of just buying one. Half of that is in the lower and half is in the upper. Now the lower doesn't require expensive tools. You need a hammer, a pin punch or two, and a wrench most stock-manufacturers throw in for free. I had all that stuff lying around my apartment. On the other hand building an upper requires a vice, a sturdy work table to clamp it to, a receiver block, a barrel wrench, and some other odds and ends. You can easily blow that hundred dollars you "saved" on tools you may never use again.

Also keep in mind that the upper is where the accuracy is or isn't. Building an accurate AR is just putting a quality barrel into the upper and a good trigger into the lower. The latter is easy. The former is trickier. If you put too much torque on something (or not enough) it will show in how your gun shoots. Why risk it? Just buy the darn thing assembled.