Cheapest AR you’d trust?

[babalou]

Originally Posted by outrider58

Why did I mention two brands I would not buy? Simple. I found non milspec parts in them where it mattered. I've built a few ARs in my time. You won't necessarily find fancy $300 BCGs or $500 barrels in/on them. You will find milspec(or better) parts in them where it counts. Where does it count? Back to the car analogy. Engine and drive train. Buffer/spring, bolt carrier group, fire control group, and barrel/gas block. Everything else, as long as they are within spec, is superfluous.

^^^^^^
This right here. Like others have said about engines and the best parts- You can do all star games where each think they are the one, instead of a team. Computers are the same way. As such, I have built many price levels of ARs. One was from a few years ago. Frontier full lower, Complete 1:7 16" upper. Way less than $500 a few years ago. I took it to one of Chad's classes. Some work needed to be done, as well as work needing done to others with way more expensive parts. Shoots well. I wanted to see if I could build for way cheap. I guess jack of all trade parts, master of none. Sum of all parts does it. I have not really tested it out to 100 yards or greater. If it hits a smaller plate then I am ok with it.

[MaxVO2]

Originally Posted by TheOriginalMexicanBob

I liken guns to an automobile engine. Say you have a small block Chebbie...any make will do. I've seen guys buy a bunch of high quality parts...Edelbrock...Holley...Lunati...you name it. They throw the parts together and get an engine that doesn't function well because they didn't match the parts together to meet a common, defined goal. Others will define the goal they're after and collect the parts that, once put together...will meet that goal...whether name parts or private label parts.

Guns can be the same...mix a bunch of parts that aren't well fitted or intended to meet a defined goal and you won't be happy with the results.

****This is actually a *great* analogy. I used to love building or helping to build "sleeper" cars - that is cars that look kinda plain but are actually very fast. The direct opposite were the guys who had a ton of stupid expensive, but mismatched parts that looked *awesome* but were just mismatched and slapped together by basically a shade tree mechanic.

I helped a friend shoe horn a big block Chevy (396 cu/in) into one of the smaller and more modern Malibu bodies that often came with a little 2 bbl V6 at the time. We didn't have money for a Supercharger or any of that jazz so we just put a big ass motor, massaged it (you can make very serious power with good ported heads and with a decent multi angle valve job). I had a decent eye for grinding good flowing heads with just a carbide burr set and basic finishing tools, and it was only my time which I had plenty of (I had no girlfriend at the time..or money), and we sent the heads out for the valve job - not that expensive...

We put regular steel wheels on the car with cheap ass hubcaps from the hub cap man, with some cheater slicks (M&H Racemasters), and I old school boxed in the control arms and did the math to set proper pre load for instant center, etc...

Anyway, the car was an absolute *Beast* and super quiet as we used old big block Cadillac mufflers - seriously sounded stock. A guy with clearly a lot of money but not much sense we knew at the track had a small block Chevy 350 with a stupid big tunnel ram and Holley Dominator carb, lopey high duration cam, lots of chrome, and stickers all over their car, and it was in a really nice painted Corvette.

On grudge match night our sleeper car just walked away from the nice looking car and people were all like "WTF!!!". The owner of the other car was SO upset as he had paid a LOT of money for super nice parts that were totally mismatched for his car - basically all show and no go.

Details matter in cars, guns, etc.. The whole is often more than the sum of it's parts - it doesn't take much for a few out of spec parts or mismatched parts to make for a crappy or not quite ready for action gun.