I am a long time shooter but have never owned an AR type rifle. After looking around on this forum for a few days I’ve come across several negative remarks about rifles that I have been led to believe are of high quality. Now I‘m really confused…… What brands and configuration of out of the box rifle would you folks recommend for the first time buyer. Intended uses are recreational and defense.
Might depend on how much you want to spend.
If you have the money- most on this sight will tell you “buy a Colt”.
Go with LMT and you wont be disappointed.
What kind of shooting do you want to do? Are you looking for a carbine or a rifle? What’s your budget?
Basically, we need more information from you in order to make a recomendation that’s worth anything.
I am able to buy guns from a local dealer for $25.00 over his cost. That equates to about $40.00 over the listed dealer prices in most cased by the time shipping is paid. I intend to use it for recreational shooting primarily 100-200 yards. Since I may carry it in the truck upon occasion for ranch rifle duty I think a carbine would best suit my needs but I am open to recommendation and suggestions by the “experts” here.
Do you intend to mount optics of any kind (magnified, Aimpoint, etc.)?
I assume you are referring to Bushmaster as “high quality”.
When they build one properly, it works pretty good. My personal Bushmaster has been great.
If I had it to do over again, however, I would buy from one of these three:
Colt
LMT
BCM
For defensive use I would select an M4/Carbine configuration. (16" OAL barrel)
For under $1000 i would recommend Rock River Arms
ENTRY TACTICAL A4
ELITE CAR A4
MID LENGTH A4
they shoot great plus they have one of the best feeling triggers right out of the box. The only bad thing is that they can take some time to get.
I Love the Colts and LMT but they are over the budget you mentioned, another brand to look into is Stag Arms they are good rifles and very well priced.
You may or may not find this helpful
Do civilian colts have the same features as the Colt 6920 in the table? If not, kind of misleading to use the table to say “buy colt”. Instead it should be “buy colt 6920”, or buy “colt LE/Mil”.
i have a colt 6920 and am very happy with it, and would recomend one. they are more than you may want to spend though, about $1,400. cmmg makes pretty good rifles that are much closer to what you want to spend, and have specs closer to a colt than bushmaster and rock river. http://cmmginc.secure-mall.com/shop/
The 6920 is available to civilians through various distributors.
G&R Tactical stocks Colt 6920s and I’m sure Grant would hook you up…
You might also want to look at buying an upper and lower separately, as it lets you spread the cost out a bit and you can still put together a good rifle…
Oh ok thanks for the info.
Ya could always get one of each!! JK…
On a more serious note>
I think my 3rd AR will probably be an LMT…
I was never happy with my Bushmaster, accept the day I bought it (new gun euphoria)… It’s true, sometimes a good one will sneak through with out them noticing!!
Colt will usually demand a higher value on the resale market…
They are overpriced, but ya get what ya pay for…
I have a RRA Entry Tactical and have not had any problems with it… It’s only got a couple thousand rounds in it in the last few months I’ve owned it…
The listed complaints about RRA seem to be true, as mine has poor staking on the gas key, and bare M4 feed ramps. But like I said, not one problem yet… J
This is a pretty good thread. Nice chart ROb. Here’s my 2 cents
I had a bushy compete during the ban and put 3000 rounds through it during the ban. It ran good but would jam occasionally. It didn’t really matter because I was using it for plinking only…
I was happy with it, but I started to read the stuff on the net posted by guys that put a lot more lead down range than I can even dream of. To my surprise, there was a big difference in the brand names. The most reliable seems to be Colt and LMT. The rest are far behind and this includes bushmaster. From what I gather the only reason you hear Bushmaster is so good is because of their immense popularity. Every other gun store sells them so of-course they’re pushed pretty hard.
The short version is if you want a plinker then save some money and buy a bushy or the like, but if you ever plan on using it as a defensive tool, spring for the Colt or LMT.
Stay safe buddy!
Ants
Rob,
That’s a great chart! Maybe the moderator would post it as a sticky??
That would be a nice sticky, but it would need to have more manufacturers added to it: CMMG, BCM, Sabre, etc.
Becareful of the $XYZ over my cost game that some FFL’s place. If the guy is a personal friend then nevermind my warning. It still doesn’t hurt to price check around though.
A lot of the brands that are “popular” on other AR15 forums are not here. The reason is that you have a lot of professional shooters, instructors and civy’s that train a lot. They know good parts from bad parts and is why the popular AR manufacturers aren’t so popular on here.
For what you want to do, LMT, Colt or even Stag Arms (with some minor fixes) are a good choice. You can get into a complete LMT for under $1K. Stag complete AR’s run in the low $800 range.
C4