Hi guys,
I am relatively new to ARs and this forum so please excuse me if this has been covered in another thread.
I am currently working on getting parts for an upper and am concerned about potential accumulation of tolerances with different parts that could lead to a lesser degree of accuracy and /or reliability.
Would it be advisable to get a BCG, receiver and barrel from the same manufacturer? Sense they make all these parts to work with each other and have tolerances that compliment the other parts?, I understand that these parts are milspec and are designed to be compatible with each other but is it ideal? Can you get more bang for your buck by going with one high quality brand?
If you buy quality, you will most likely not have a problem. That said, bcm and colt pricing right now makes building quite unattractive IMO, depending on your setup.
I strongly agree with Megademic on both his points - (1) you should be fine mixing parts from quality brands (like Colt, BCM, LMT, DD), but (2) with the prices I’m seeing lately on Colt rifles and BCM uppers, it’s hard to see a reason to build from parts unless you’re looking to do something non-standard and very specific.
You will not have a problem with this from high quality manufacturers. If somehow you do end up with a lemon, any of these manufacturers will bend over to fix the issue.
What parts and brands are you looking at, specifically?
As already said if they are made correctly you shouldn’t have an issue. Right now I would buy a complete rifle, the prices are rock bottom and you have a chance to check lower to upper fit and finish and if you don’t like it you don’t have to buy it. This is harder when piecing one together. Plus a complete rifle from the same maker will be worth more than a parts gun. Just something to think about.
Hey guys,
Thanks for all the good advise, I think I will put on hold my build till the prices are more reasonable or complete uppers are available.
The upper I wanted is 14.5 mid-length with all the parts BCM, but where I live (Canada) its very difficult to get BCM stuff, so I was going to use what ever parts I could get my hands on that are still high quality.
I have critical core components made before 1963, mated with parts made in the last decade. As long as the parts aren’t from some fly-by-night place, they will at least fit together. It is very rare that AR15 parts don’t at least mate up.
Getting them to run reliably is a different story, where the materials science, metallurgy, dimensional call outs, surface treatments, testing, and quality control all come into play.