I’ve owned an AR 15 for close to three years now, and when it came to advice on what to buy and what to avoid, I’ve lurked these forums and others and I have never regretted a single purchase, even if I had to replace something to fit my growing experience and evolving style.
My father, however, who has only held an AR 15 once a year at his job in corrections, is assembling parts for an AR 15 and is dead set in the belief that he can get away with buying the most dirt cheap parts and furniture and still have a rifle that runs as good as any BCM, Noveske, Daniel Defense, or LWRC. That is laughably false, and I’ve said that to him countless times, but he refuses to listen to reason. I’ve told him everything I know about the AR 15. Everything from the basics that he’s heard in his training, to some of the finer details he was unaware of.
Now he wants an AR of his own; a build that he primarily wants for plinking but will also double for home defense. The problem is that he wants to spend as little as possible, and he is willing to sacrifice build quality if it will save him money. He wants a DPMS upper group, an RGuns lower kit, and Tapco furniture. I’ve told him all about the problems that people have experienced with RGuns and DPMS, and I’ve told him that he would be wasting his money on Tapco trash instead of getting Magpul products that only cost a little bit more for better polymer. But he’ll hear none of it. He somehow doesn’t see why he should spend more for one thing when he could spend less for something else that looks exactly the same. When faced with the prospect of spending money, his logic seems to take a plummeting nose-dive to the point where he doesn’t even have the patience to sit down and do research on the parts he’s ordering. And when he does, he ignores what people who have these parts have to say about them, and instead focuses completely on the item descriptions and their cost.
I’ve said and shown him everything I could think of. He refuses to read through articles and charts, and my words fall on deaf ears. Are there any other guides, written in a way that a caveman can understand, that compare AR 15 models? Or guides that specifically mention what products are to be avoided/bought?
Or maybe I should just let him have his budget AR 15 and wait for it to fall apart at the range?
Sometimes the only way people will learn is through experience.
If you’ve advised him time and time again and he still insists on buying sub-par parts to build his weapon to save a few pennies, let him. There’s not much you can do about it.
There is absolutely nothing you or we can do to change his mind. Some people refuse to listen to reason. So my advice would be to let him put his POS build together and when it takes a dump then just say “I told you so”. Then ask him if he wants to do it right the next time.
But the truth is, if he’s only taking it to the range every now and then for only a few hundred rounds a year, his budget rifle may very well do just fine.
If he is only shooting it once a year, he’ll probably never see the difference. Evidently, he doesn’t look at an AR as a self-defense “life or death” weapon. It is important he realizes this, especially, if it is a loved one’s life or death that is on the line. That’s ashame.
Try and make an analogy to something he knows about and can relate quality to?
And when it all gets down to the nut-cuttin’, you aren’t talking much money between quality and a look-alike. The least quality gun he should get is a new S&W M&P MOE for around $1000 (less for a used one). Maybe offer to pay (or get the family pitch in to help pay) the difference for Christmas??
The single most important factor in this whole scenario is this- You love your dad. Don’t put your relationship with your dad in jeopardy. Let him build his rifle without argument. Offer your opinion when asked, but don’t argue. Let him run it and encourage him to shoot it. A lot. When something goes wrong, help him fix it. Don’t “I told you so” or criticize his choices, just let events take their natural course and be there for him. Same as you wanted from him when you were going your own stubborn way. That’s what I did with my dad when he bought the El Cheapo Blue Label Generic Brand. Because when he’s gone, you’ll wish he was around still buying crap
You may also have “powdered-butt” syndrome in action.
That’s when people who change someone’s diapers when they are a baby don’t care to listen to those same people’s advice, later when they are an adult.
The only “cure” for this is to have someone your dad respects not only tell him, but to demonstrate the difference.
I used to belong to the “let sleeping dogs lie” camp, but I’ve seen the real damage that the ignorant “M16s are garbage/finicky junk” crowd, spreading reliability lies based upon rumor and their experience shooting their M1S jam-o-matic at the range, to actually take the effort to contradict these people and maybe even help them see the light.
i went through the same thing with my old man. I waited for him to call me asking me to have a look at his rifle, took it home, swapped his furniture out on one of my colts, gave it back, and told him two months later what id done.
With my dad, I lied my hindquarters off, collected up every picture of KABOOMed ARs I could find, and labeled them DPMS, Bushy, Oly, etc. Being a former Naval Aviaitor and Trade School graduate (what I call the Naval Academy), I figured the chances he’d dirty his hands backchecking my work on a par with me getting kicked to death by a mule.
Parents told every single one of us, over the course of growing up, some galactic-level falsehoods for no better reason than to get us to behave or otherwise stop doing stupid crap because we were either incapable or too dumb at the time to listen to reason.
That can be an impossible situation, definitely value the father son time above all else. If he is like my dad, this build process will take a while. Long enough to give him a quality part for Christmas, like a bcg so at least he doesn’t screw that up.
This reminds me of my dad and his ever elusive $500 gun show Colt 45 1911 that never seems to be there for him to buy after several gun shows…
Buy him a Noveske and let him shoot it while he is doing his build and by the time the build is done he will be so spoiled when the POS is done he will know the error of his ways:p
Nothing stings worse than to have a gun that’s NOT running next to a guy who’s gun is running. Let your properly-running gun speak for itself. I might even let him buy el-cheap-O mags just for kicks.
I often encounter people at the range who gasp the following, “Are you shooting STEEL CASED AMMO in your AR?!?! Why would you do that?!?!?! You know steel cased ammo is bad for your gun, right?”
I typically respond, “I shoot it because it’s cheap and my gun eats it like Rosie O’Donnell eats her first meal of the day.”
“What makes you think steel cased ammo is bad for the gun? You read that on the errornet?”
The answer to my question is usually “Yes.” and “My gun keeps jamming with it.”
Then I burn through some more of it just to make them angry.
He’ll get plenty toasty when his falls offline and yours doesn’t.
I have a friend who is the EXACT same way. I love the guy and would take a bullet for him… but he did the same damn thing on his first AR. That damn gun was the most expensive paperweight he ever bought. It never did run right. He ended up buying an LMT. Now he’s a happy camper. You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make him…
OR let him build a POS then as a bonding event sign up for an EAG course, when his rifle goes down and he has to finish the course with one of Pat’s “filthy fourteen” BCM’s he’ll see the error of his ways…
When it’s all said and done,he’s still your father. It’s his money,his project,his vision. Let him build it the way he wants to. When it’s done, take him to the range and make sure you buy him the crappiest ammo to use in his rig while you use some match grade ammo in yours. Guess what’s going to happen? The accuracy/functioning gods will be smiling on him for that day. No matter how good your groups will be,his will be half that size. His rifle will run without a hiccup while you’re doing all the clearing drills! He’s going to have an ear to ear smile that will be priceless and will tell you, “I told you so”. Because that’s what fathers do. And you’ll smile right back and tell him he was right all along. Because that’s what good sons do.
+1. If someone can’t be swayed to pick up BCM, Colt, DD, [you know the drill by now], you can USUALLY convince them to drop ~$800 on a Spike’s that will at least be superior to what they would have done on their own.
