Category Archives: AR Build

AR Build: The Assembly

Machined Metal Part Requiring Criminal Background Check

After anxiously awaiting the arrival of all the parts for my new AR they all finally arrived! Yes, I had to go through yet another background check for a chunk of machined metal (the lower receiver, which by itself would be no more dangerous than a large rock), even though I already own many guns, was literally openly carrying one of my guns during the check/transfer, and used my state concealed handgun permit as my second form of ID. Once I recovered from the irony of the gun control nonsense I had to wade through to take my AR parts home I could begin with the fun stuff! Continue reading


AR Build: Parts List

It seems like a right of passage to post your first AR Build’s parts list on some forum or website. All my “firearm buddies” have been bugging me to see my list from the moment I said I had made a final selection. I’ve decided to include the prices I paid so you can get an idea of what cost is involved in this endeavor. At this point I believe everything in this list will get me to the point of a fully functional firearm, I THINK I should be able to get it all assembled without any specialized tools that I don’t already have, making this a pretty close to complete AR Build list.

So here goes…

  • PSA Gadsden Stripped Lower Receiver – $89.95 +$10 shipping + $20 FFL Transfer Fee (Thanks to VCDL Member Discounts)

  • PSA MOE Lower Build Kit- $144.99 + (Shipping combined with Upper)

    • Mil-Spec MOE Stock – Black
    • MOE Grip – Black
    • MOE Trigger Guard
    • Palmetto State Armory (PSA) Classic Lower Parts Kit
    • Mil-Spec Buffer Tube Assembly
    • (Above plus the lower receiver results in a complete lower receiver)
  • PSA 16” Hammer Forged Midlength Light Weight Upper- $667.90 + $21 Shipping (Includes Lower Parts Kit above)

    The handgaurd and front sight pictured are different

    • Barrel length 16″
    • Hammer Forged Barrel
    • Machine Gun Steel
    • 5.56 Nato Chamber
    • 1 in 7″ twist
    • Double-thick Chrome-lined bore and chamber
    • Special lighter weight A2 profile
    • M4 feedramps
    • Forged upper
    • T-marks
    • Full auto bolt carrier
    • Carpenter 158 Bolt
    • Magnetic particle inspected bolt
    • Free Floating Troy Alpha 11″ Rail Package

      • Comes with three small detachable rails and all mounting hardware
      • Machined from 6061-T6 hardened aircraft aluminum and finished in MIL-SPEC Type III Hard Coat Anodizing
  • Magpul GEN2 MBUS Flip Up Sights (Front & Rear) – $75.16 (20% off code + free shipping)

  • Magpul PMAG Windowed 30 Round Magazines Qty: 4 – $57.36 (20% off code + free shipping)

  • Magpul AFG2 Angled Foregrip- $27.18 (20% off code + free shipping)

Total Cost: $1,113.72

As I mentioned earlier this is just enough to get me started with a fully functional AR-15. Right off the bat you’ll notice there is no optics system. I plan on getting one eventually but still have not done the research to determine what my needs are and what products best meets those needs. So rather than prematurely purchasing an optics system, I’ve opted to wait until I’ve had a chance to send some rounds through the AR, then make a decision.

Finally, in strict adherence to the Internet convention of making sure the build list is as cryptic as possible to the novice AR builder I will leave my post at that. At least I have links, prices, and pictures! That’s better than 95% of the build lists I’ve seen. But, if you have any questions please post a comment with your question and I’ll be happy to answer it the best I can!

Stay tuned to learn about how the assembly goes!


AR Build: A Critical Piece of Homestead Security

One Component Of Our Security Plan

A key component of our homestead is security. We do many things to work towards securing our homestead such as maintaining our fence, planting thorny plants around the fence, and other things that are planned but yet to be revealed. But one of the most critical components of our security plan is ensuring all members of our homestead are responsibly armed at all times. This does not mean everyone is always carrying a gun per-say. It means that depending on the situation, we aim to bring the appropriate tool for the job. In practice this means you’ll never find Martha or I without a handgun on us or in short reach anytime we are at home, away from the homestead we carry what we can legally (we can go into this discussion in a separate post later), in a scenario where we need to hunt for food we may bring a bow or appropriate rifle for the game we are seeking, and in an event where we may need to defend our homestead from others you may find us with shotguns and …

AR-15 Build Options - Source: http://bit.ly/HXCGZu

That last and … is the part we wanted to address with this AR build. Books have already been written talking about the history and uses of the AR platform, specifically the AR-15, so I will try and point out just a few of the features that brought us to this weapon system for our homestead. The first is that it addresses that “and …” need for defending the homestead in both close quarter combat scenarios as well as being capable of performing for longer range engagements, and can also be used for hunting game of a variety of sizes. Secondly, the AR-15 is an extremely popular firearm which means there is an abundance of components, tools, accessories, and resources available for one to call upon in the assembly, maintenance, modification, and use of the firearm. Continue reading


Wishful Wednesday: AR Build

AR-15 Lower Receiver - Source: http://bit.ly/FQ8duF

Yes, this week’s Wishful Wednesday came early. I’m just too excited about this new development to make you wait to read how its progressing!

One thing Martha and I appreciate most about our move from California to Virginia was the huge increase in our gun rights. California is a bastion of gun control and a perfect example of gun control’s racist and prejudicial history and its utter failure to reduce crime and improve public safety. I could probably write a book about how useless gun control laws are, but I don’t have to because its already been done. While Virginia is nowhere near perfect in terms of respecting our self-defense rights, its much better than what we had before and we do appreciate it!

Part of our appreciation of our newly found rights and freedoms is a desire to exercise these rights and expand the choices we have for personal protection in our firearm collection. In California we limited ourselves to handguns due to space restrictions in our old place of residence. However, since settling in our new homestead we have expanded our collection with long-guns (and more handguns of course), but we don’t yet have an AR-15 style rifle. I won’t go into the details of why we have settled on the AR-15 platform for this project, but for the purposes of this post, a major reason is the AR-15 platform’s ability to be heavily customized and completely assembled from parts by ourselves.

Excellent Manufactured AR-15 Options - Source: http://bit.ly/JnjVCh

What better way to expand our firearm collection and skill set, than by building a versatile self-defense and hunting rifle in the AR-15 platform? Yes, doing this build may not get us the AR-15 the cheapest way and yes there are lots of great local AR-15 manufacturers near us. But for our first AR-15 I want to be able to really appreciate and understand as much about the firearm system as possible. Building also allows us to realize much more customizations in the firearm since we won’t be paying for a gunsmith to make the modifications. While we may certainly purchase fully assembled AR-15s in the future, we want this first one to be OURS!

I look forward to our journey selecting the components and assembling our first AR-15 and will be sharing our progress with you in future posts!

If you have had any experiences with your own builds you’d like to share, we’d love to hear about them!