What are your favorite upper parts?

[ChimeraPrecision]

So, I'm building my first AR.

I have a s&w m&p15 stripped lower, inside of that is a palmetto state armory lower parts kit. Magpul moe pistol grip. Next I will have magpul CTR stock and mil spec buffer tube.

Next step is to start building the upper (from stripped upper)

What brand/manufacturer do you recommend for the following??

-stripped upper
-Bolt carrier group
-barrel
-gas tube
-gas block
-hand gaurd

Keep in mind this is a more or less budget setup. Trying to keep costs down but not building a shitty rifle

[gunguy]

For the Bolt carrier group I like any that are chromed, for the hand guard I really like YHM, their diamond series looks great, and for the barrel I would go with one from midway or DPMS read a few reviews and go from there.

[JohnnyC]

Keep in mind this is a more or less budget setup. Trying to keep costs down but not building a shitty rifle

Sell the parts you have now and buy a bone stock Colt 6920 from some place like G&R. This will get you the best gun for the money instead of throwing cash into the gun. Since you're asking for such general advice it seems safe to say that you don't know what you want, you just want to hear people talking about parts. Since this seems to be the case, save yourself the time, money, and aggravation and just buy the Colt or keep your lower and grab a BCM or Daniel Defense equivalent upper.

[ChimeraPrecision]

Keep in mind this is a more or less budget setup. Trying to keep costs down but not building a shitty rifle

Sell the parts you have now and buy a bone stock Colt 6920 from some place like G&R. This will get you the best gun for the money instead of throwing cash into the gun. Since you're asking for such general advice it seems safe to say that you don't know what you want, you just want to hear people talking about parts. Since this seems to be the case, save yourself the time, money, and aggravation and just buy the Colt or keep your lower and grab a BCM or Daniel Defense equivalent upper.

This is an educational exercise. I want to buil the ar from scratch. This gun isn't an spr just a plinker and home defense when the stamp comes back for my sbr.

Not to sound condescending but I asked for general parts questions for people who have been through many ar's and have found parts they like. Buying a completed upper is not what I'm looking to do. Thanks for the input though

[chrismartin]

To me, uppers are uppers. Buy from a name brand and you will be good to go. Personally I like "blemished" uppers. The come up for sale at Bravo Company and LAR mfg and you get a good upper with a little scratch on it. Other than that, check out Palmetto State.

For Bolts, again, name brands are good: Bravo Company, LMT, etc. To save a little, you can go Spikes and Palmetto State Armory. Palmetto has two levels of bolts, the cheaper one will probably do what you need. If you really want HPT/MPI, the expensive one has all that.

Barrels are whatever you want to spend really. For 5.56, go 1:7 twist, I would recommend Nitride finish for wear resistance.

Gas tubes are gas tubes, I buy whatever is in stock.

Gas blocks, I like the low profile ones. I've installed YHM on my last build and it was nice for a bolt on.

Hand guards: I'm partial to the low profile ones from Troy right now. YHM is a great, low cost option, but the Troy models were a little smaller and almost as cheap.

Shop around at bravo company, rainier arms, palmetto state armory and you'll be good to go.

[ChimeraPrecision]

To me, uppers are uppers. Buy from a name brand and you will be good to go. Personally I like "blemished" uppers. The come up for sale at Bravo Company and LAR mfg and you get a good upper with a little scratch on it. Other than that, check out Palmetto State.

For Bolts, again, name brands are good: Bravo Company, LMT, etc. To save a little, you can go Spikes and Palmetto State Armory. Palmetto has two levels of bolts, the cheaper one will probably do what you need. If you really want HPT/MPI, the expensive one has all that.

Barrels are whatever you want to spend really. For 5.56, go 1:7 twist, I would recommend Nitride finish for wear resistance.

Gas tubes are gas tubes, I buy whatever is in stock.

Gas blocks, I like the low profile ones. I've installed YHM on my last build and it was nice for a bolt on.

Hand guards: I'm partial to the low profile ones from Troy right now. YHM is a great, low cost option, but the Troy models were a little smaller and almost as cheap.

Shop around at bravo company, rainier arms, palmetto state armory and you'll be good to go.

Thank you very much my friend. As an aside is there a way to touch up scratched/blemished uppers??

[chrismartin]

Thank you very much my friend. As an aside is there a way to touch up scratched/blemished uppers??

For aluminum: birch wood Casey alumiblack
For anything else, there are several firearm blac touch up pens and such. None are perfect, but none of my guns are safe queens, so Im not looking for perfect, just a bit of protection from rust, etc.

I will also reiterate, research Palmetto State. They make good Stuff and are inexpensive. Fr everything else, go Bravo company, LMT, and such. I've been impressed with Palmetto states parts so far, however.

[JohnnyC]

Keep in mind this is a more or less budget setup. Trying to keep costs down but not building a shitty rifle

Sell the parts you have now and buy a bone stock Colt 6920 from some place like G&R. This will get you the best gun for the money instead of throwing cash into the gun. Since you're asking for such general advice it seems safe to say that you don't know what you want, you just want to hear people talking about parts. Since this seems to be the case, save yourself the time, money, and aggravation and just buy the Colt or keep your lower and grab a BCM or Daniel Defense equivalent upper.

This is an educational exercise. I want to buil the ar from scratch. This gun isn't an spr just a plinker and home defense when the stamp comes back for my sbr.

Not to sound condescending but I asked for general parts questions for people who have been through many ar's and have found parts they like. Buying a completed upper is not what I'm looking to do. Thanks for the input though

See bolded part. You're willing to bet your life on a gun that you've cobbled together yourself, from parts that may or may not have any real pedigree (see your budget line), and then put it together without having done it before? No offense but that's pretty herp derp of an idea. Even assuming you have the mechanical aptitude to do it, the knowledge gained from thousands of QC cycles at the factory, knowledge that you don't yet possess, the idea that you're willing to throw that out the window on something you're potentially going to use to protect yourself and your family is just the wrong way to go about it.

Let me save you the time, from someone who HAS built many AR's, especially since you're convinced that building one yourself is the way to go. Keep in mind none of this is really expensive, or rather much more expensive, than the "budget" parts you'd be interested in. Considering the known good quantity factor of the parts listed below, it would be a bad idea to go with budget parts simply to save a couple bucks here and there. The only real major price discrepancy will be in the rail/hand guard selection.

Upper, buy a decent upper from someone like BCM or the like. This isn't very important. Most people have a hard time screwing up upper receivers.

Buy a standard HPT/MPI chrome-lined barrel from them as well, or Daniel Defense, or the Palmetto FN barrels. Do you own the tools to install a barrel? A wrench? A barrel vise? What about specific wrenches if you decide to go with a rail system instead of hand guards that use the delta ring? What about a jig to drill a gas block for taper pins, or dimple the barrel for a set screw gas block? You'll need those. Also buy a 1:7" twist. No sense not being able to shoot the better self defense ammo because you bought a doofy 1:9".

Bolt. Anything less than an HPT/MPI'd bolt from Colt, BCM, DD, FN, etc is a stupid decision. Seriously, just a dumb thing to do. The test by itself isn't the reason, since it's been shown that dimensional accuracy is far more important than the test, or shot peening, etc. It's important because it shows the detail put into QA/QC by these companies. The document itself that describes the mil-std shot peening procedure is 23 pages long. That's just the paper that tells how to do it and the requirements, nothing to do with the bolt itself. A company that goes to those type of lengths for something so simple also goes to the same lengths to make sure the important parts are in spec. Go ahead and ask DPMS if their bolts are HPT/MPI or shot-peened. I'll wait.

Carrier. See above. Buy Colt, BCM, DD, FN, LMT, etc.

Gas blocks will probably be decided based upon your desire for a rail system or standard hand guards. If you're planning a rail, any good low profile gas block will be fine. LaRue, KAC, etc. even YHM makes an ok one. Make sure you know how to install it. If you're planning hand guards you'll probably want to go with a standard FSB, which you will need to buy already on the barrel because I'm pretty sure you don't have the tools or jigs to drill an FSB properly. I know I have neither the jigs nor the inclination to do it when good barrel makers include them with barrels anyway.

Handguards/rails. Standard M4 are great, Magpul MOE are the only other thing I would consider, especially if you're going with something like a mid-length gas system. KAC RAS uses the stock barrel nut/delta ring assembly, so do some Daniel Defense rails. Those are the only two worth considering that are two-piece slip on hand guards. For free float, you'll most likely have either a dedicated barrel nut, or will have to cut off the delta ring anyway. For free float rails go DD, LaRue, KAC, or Centurion. DO NOT buy crap rails like UTG. Stay away from YHM, they're out of spec and heavy for what they are. Btw, if you don't have IR lasers, 3 lights, a VFG, a bipod, and a dildo, rails are a pretty unnecessary idea. Considering the proliferation of tubes that allow you to place rails only where needed like the excellent Troy, Samson, DD, and JP systems, there's really no point in buying a railed hand guard. Unless of course you're hanging 60 pounds of s--t off the end of your rifle. In which case buy whatever the hell you want, it's your money to waste. Ok, that may be a little harsh, but at least buy something by a decent manufacturer. DD Lite rails, KAC URX, etc.

Lower. You've got it pretty decently covered. The PSA lower parts kits are ok. It will probably be fine for you. There's not too much to screw up on a lower as long as you have a good parts kit and a mil-spec receiver extension.

Again, you talk about wanting to build a budget gun but not a shitty gun. Those two don't really go hand-in-hand, and I'm not talking about the KAC's, Noveske's, MSTN's on the market. The budget known-good guns are like the Colt 6920, and you're really not going to get much cheaper by building it yourself and maintaining quality parts throughout. Cheaping out really just gets your sub-quality parts. Can you get good deals on stuff? Sure, but you're less likely to get good stuff than going with pedigreed parts. If you want a plinker, have at it and buy whatever parts you want from wherever. Don't think about whether or not it will be shitty, for plinking it doesn't matter in the least, and in that case by all means try to cheap out as much as you can. If you're looking for something that you might potentially pick up in a social situation, buy something made by a quality manufacturer and put a couple thousand rounds through it. Why dick around if your life is on the line? Is you life really worth saving a couple bucks?

[ChimeraPrecision]

Thanks for the awesome info Johnnyc.

For the record, by "budget" I mean sub $1500

[markm]

Now is a bad time to be in the AR parts market... with all the retards panic buying everything...

But I'd say go all BCM. They have very competetively priced assembled upper halves in about any config you could want.

[ChimeraPrecision]

Now is a bad time to be in the AR parts market... with all the retards panic buying everything...

But I'd say go all BCM. They have very competetively priced assembled upper halves in about any config you could want.

Yeah what the hell?! I cannot for the life of me find a reasonably priced mil spec buffer tube

[ChimeraPrecision]

So I've got all the lower parts.

I'm gonna buy a complete piston upper from Adams Arms.

Any thoughts on this?

[chrismartin]

A few things to remember about piston kits:

Uses proprietary parts (may not be available if company goes out of business)
Vents gas to atmosphere (louder than DI when used with a silencer)
Limits rail system (hand guards need to be proper length or modified or certain model to work with larger gas block and piston tube)
More expensive than gas tube
May produce carrier tilt that damages receiver extension, upper or lower (not a huge concern though)

These thing may or may not matter to you and may be out weighed by the positives like cleaner and cooler operation (though when used with a silencer, most fouling comes through the bore anyway)

[JohnnyC]

A few things to remember about piston kits:

Uses proprietary parts (may not be available if company goes out of business)
Vents gas to atmosphere (louder than DI when used with a silencer)
Limits rail system (hand guards need to be proper length or modified or certain model to work with larger gas block and piston tube)
More expensive than gas tube
May produce carrier tilt that damages receiver extension, upper or lower (not a huge concern though)

These thing may or may not matter to you and may be out weighed by the positives like cleaner and cooler operation (though when used with a silencer, most fouling comes through the bore anyway)

All of these are fantastic reasons not to buy into that goofy piston kool-aid.

If you want a piston gun, get one purpose designed as a piston platform such as a SCAR or ACR. They're designed from the ground up as piston guns.

[markm]

Amen....

Pistons just bring all kinds of parts and complication.. along with the mechanical failures and functional problems... And all that to solve problems that really don't exist.

You can substitute a single gas tube for all the parts in a piston system, and increase reliablility monumentally. It's a no brainer.

[ChimeraPrecision]

Ok, from the overwhelming response I'll go DI, with some sort of adjustable gas block for when I get the can