I made a mistake and bought a Dpms upper, looking for some input on a larue tactical upper, and possible lower as well.
Just shoot the DPMS until something breaks than replace it with something better in my opinion, you did make a mistake.
LaRue Tactical is well liked for many reasons, the first that comes to mind is customer support and service. I own about 3 of their mounting systems and they are built extremely well. I’m not a scientist, so I cannot comment on the exact specifics of barrel steel and the like, but LaRue doesn’t sell anything with a chrome lined barrel.
Im almost ashamed to own anything that is made by dpms after reading all that I have read about it. But thanks for the input.
Don’t be too ashamed and don’t believe everything you read on the internet. Sure DPMS isn’t the latest and greatest but I’m sure your rifle will serve you well.
Shoot your DPMS for 5-10k rounds and then you will learn what you are looking for in your next AR.
Do the simple upgrades to the DPMS to insure reliability and invest in the training needed to learn how to run your gun properly. By investing in YOU and proper training, it will allow you to see what YOU need in a rifle instead of just browsing brands…
Larue makes excellent rifles, however if you don’t know how to run a rifle to begin with you will not benefit from the quality that you will be getting with Larue…
Agreed. You gotta learn for yourself WHY you want something better. The end reward is much sweeter. Recently on TOS, a kid’s first AR was a new Noveske. While that’s great, he’ll never get to experience, to the same extent, why most of us love and cherish our Noveske rifles. 
This. I bought a Stag before I knew whats up. I’ve put around 7000 thru it.It runs Wolf type ammo well too. I know better now, but the gun works.
Let me deviate. I don’t need to eat a shit sandwich to know I don’t like them. In your case I would sell the upper and get something better. You could start by getting a good BCM upper which will serve you just fine.
I was considering getting a Larue upper/lower for my next build. I have always been impressed with the quality of Larue stuff.
Does the BAD lever work with their upper? With the increased thickness of the upper receiver, does the bad have enough clearance?
Larue gets their barrels from Lothar Walther if memory serves. LW50 is a propriety stainless. No chrome lining is needed, and the OBRs have amazing accuracy, so I’m sure the barrels are good to go.
Yes, you bought a plinker.
Do you want a precision rifle like an SPR or do you want a battle rifle?
If you want a precision rifle, then Larue makes a good one. So does Noveske. BCM has a SS barrel on some of its uppers, which is a precision rig. Centurion Arms duplicates the military SPR (or whatever it is called). Or KAC if you want to spend the money.
Or did you want a battle rifle? Colt, BCM, Daniel Defense, LMT, Noveske, KAC with a chrome lined barrel
Don’t worry about having made a mistake on the DPMS. Personally I have bought dozens of crappy guns over the years, but I don’t make that mistake as often now.
No offense, but why do I need to break down in a Renault Le Car or a Yugo in order to appreciate a Toyota Corolla?
I think the fellow should dump the upper he bought, take a small loss, and get something good. What if he keeps the DPMS, the zombie hoard attacks, and his gun breaks? Always be prepared. (sort of)
i did something similar i bought a rra but i was also very limited for cash. but i dont really regret it, ive shot a nice colt ar15 before, and sure it was nicer, but some people have to think how nice these guns are in the first place, but yes if you want something nicer shoot the piss outta urs first, ive heard bad things about dpms and seen it first hand. guy named scott has one, payed 1200 bucks for the whole package and if he shot anything steel casing through it for the first 500 rounds they got stuck and he had to get em out with a ram rod. because the gun was too tight and needed to be shot in. that was the only time i have ever heard of that prob in an
AR and i dont think i will ever purchase a dpms. but so far i love my rra entry tactical.
Devildog0311,
Yes, you made a mistake buying the DPMS. I am sure almost everyone on this forum has done the same. We buy stuff, and then take the time to learn more about our new product, only to realize we have made a mistake in judgment.
I think if we were all more like my wife, in that she does exhaustive amounts of research before buying a product, companies like DPMS would go out of business. The flip side to that coin is it would take everyone 6 months to pick the tool of their dreams and another 14 months to find it on sale. Only to find out something better came along in the mean time.
At any rate, some have said just shoot what you have, spend the money on training. Others have said don’t eat that shit sandwich, buy something better, either BCM, DD, Noveske, etc. It sounds like you are past the point of keeping the upper, and that is fine. I would say buy an upper from BCM, or Daniel Defense. They are very good quality for a reasonable price.
If on the other hand you bought an complete DPMS rifle, sell the whole rifle and just buy a whole new one of a better brand. Colt, BCM, and Daniel Defense can all be had for around $1100 to $1300 depending on features and furniture. If cost is an issue, just fix the little things that will make a big difference with your rifle. Get a BCM BCG, and the correct weight buffer and shoot it as is. When things break or wear out, replace them with top quality parts. This by the way is what I am doing. I built my first rifle from scratch before I knew what brands were better than others. I’ve got some where aound 7000 rounds or so, maybe a few more than that through my M4-gery. I have not had one bit of trouble, but when things start to wear out or when they break I’ll replace them with BCM parts. I am hoping that when the time comes for a new barrel I will be able to find a Cold Hammer Forged (CHF) Medium Contour with a Mid-length gas system, because I do not like the M203 cut on the M4 profile barrels.
In the end, what we say here on this forum is to be taken as a grain of salt. Do what makes you happy. That is all that maters.
My general rule of thumb is stainless for lower rates of fire and accuracy. 4150/CHF for doing drills and general use.
With that said Im on my 2nd Stealth upper, and they have both shot great. Just as reliable as anything else I own (over 15k between the two and only one failure of any type due to a bad mag).
If you just want a general purpose and training with then Id get a regular 4150 barrel (DD/BCM/Colt) or a CHF if you plan on shooting a lot. Noveske and Centurion make really good CHF barrels and uppers.
If it makes you feel better, I have heard DPMS makes some very nice .308 rifles. Not EVERYTHING they make sucks. Just their 5.56 stuff…
I would say depends what you are using it for. I would not keep it as a serious SHTF gun, my personal opinion.
Another idea - there is little to no stress placed on the lower, if you wanted to avoid the paperwork headache, you could sell the DPMS upper, and replace it with an upper of your choice. LaRue makes great stuff, I always have to plug for BCM too.
If you really wanted, you could swap out the trigger too, either way…
Yeah man I’m there right now. I put Model 1 Sales parts (yes, that Model 1) on a Mega lower, and I get some kind of malfunction about every 100 rounds. Just yesterday I decided I’d had enough and took it apart so that I could trash it. I actually managed to sell the Model 1 upper for $100! 
But hey, we were all young and stupid once. I bought it 5 years ago when I didn’t know my butt from a hole in the ground.
So now I will rebuild that poor Mega lower. Faster. Stronger. Better.
Shoot it. It’s just an upper. Not much difference between them all except barrel. If she is accurate and feeds then why change or sell. Way too much propaganda here always this maker or you have trash.
I would not want a cheap lower, BCG, springs, trigger, etc. though. The lower and BCG is where all the movement is and you need or even want reliability. Nothing is worse than a trip to the range and having your rifle malfunction. FTE/FTF??? WTF???
If it bothers you than sell it and get another. For $250 more (I am assuming you can sell the upper for $400) you can get something of excellent quality.
Hey, it could be worse. You could have SBRd a DPMS lower like I did and then found yourself with the problem of walking trigger pins due to either undersized pins or oversized holes.
Either way, DPMS is usually a beginners rifle. You generally learn from that and move up the ladder to something better.
Thanks for this input, I was looking at cm and there actually priced pretty modestly. That is what I am going to do .I have shot quality in the marines, I just didnt know the difference until ive owned it.
This actually happened to me a couple of times. I have a RRA lower and it serves it’s purpose.