Who cares if a company sells to the military? Do you drive an Hmmwv too? FN, Larue, BCM, LMT, Colt, and DD all make great rifles, don’t get me wrong, but there’s really nothing special about their mil-spec rifles. Throw a heavier buffer and a Colt extractor spring into any cheap, chrome-lined, budget carbine and you’ll have a rifle as reliable and durable as any of these, without the brand name mark up.
Forgings are only made in a handful of places around the world, and it’s pretty hard to claim anyone really has a significantly better program on their CNC mill than anyone else these days. Finish quality is largely an aesthetic difference - it’s aluminum underneath, scratch it, it’s gonna scratch, but it’s not going to rust, and too much importance is placed on exterior finish quality if a person is also banging the #milspec4lyf drum. Small parts and springs are only made in a handful of places and contracted by everyone else, same as forgings.
Guys like to regurgitate the same lazy lines - “go to a carbine course and see what fails on the first day.” Most of these guys have never been, as they’d have seen only one or two rifles in 3-4 classes go down, and typically only a few misfeeds. And almost always, it is a “I bought it last week to come here” guy. I took a bare bones Bushmaster M4gery to my first carbine class, nary a hiccup. Have taken custom built home brews to every one since - same story. Take a look at how many of these mil-spec monsters are actually in use in 3 gun competition - where high rate, high round count is the norm. Heck, how many of these competition rifles even run increased mass reciprocating masses...
For everything I want to do with an AR, if in 5.56/223, I want an 18-20” match barrel from Krieger, Shilen, Proof, etc, 1:7-1:8” twist, Geissele NM 2 stage, free float handguard, and adjustable gas block. My go-fast guns have carbine buffers, the rest have H2’s. These specs have been refined from building, rebuilding, and function testing literally hundreds of AR’s, attending a defensive carbine course every year or every other since 2003, competing in Service Rifle and 3 gun matches since the late 1990’s (and some PRS gas gun matches while it was still going), hunting in extreme heat and cold, rain, dust, and snow... I prefer to draw my own conclusions from what I see and experience firsthand. No DD, FN, Colt, or BCM I have owned has done anything any Bushmaster, DPMS, Sig, or homebrew I have owned couldn’t do.