I spent $630 on a pa10 last month after much research because I didn't want to spent $1500 + buying or building one that would end up needing to have the same issues addressed and with no measurably better component quality than the pa10 had when I got it.
So far I have not seen and nobody has given me a good reason to spend 2x-5x the price of a pa10 on any of its competitors. There are issues with the PA10, but they are for the most part all commonly known, easily fixed, and inexpensive to address.
The most commonly reported issues for the PA10 are
Overgassing symptoms like heavy recoil and extraction issues
Assembly issues including mismatched parts combos, mostly buffer tube/buffer combos that would not work
and, much less commonly,
mediocre accuracy
Overgassing is easy. I have come to the conclusion that most AR 308 rifles are overgassed. Its a port size issue, and PSA is not outside the range of port sizes encountered from various barrel and firearm manufacturers...in fact, at 0.089, the port on my rifle length 20" barrel PA10 is at the lower end. DPMS lists their port size at 0.093 for that configuration.
Where PSA falls short here is their buffer/spring/buffer tube combo. They have changed it several times and had some issues with standardization, but for their sliding stock models they seem to have settled on a proprietary rifle length buffer tube that fits a 3.25" carbine buffer and AR10 spring. Don't like that? Change it to a carbine length buffer tube of your choice, get a 2.5" heavy buffer and spring. I prefer the 3.25" buffer myself for the myriad of options.
Where PSA has dropped the ball is their buffer. It's an H buffer and it needs to be at least an H3 buffer. Mine is in the mail.
The other issue that I had to address was the depth of the buffer tube. As it was from the factory, the buffer tube was too deep as assembled and would have allowed the BCG to contact the receiver at full recoil. This was fixed by dropping two quarters down the buffer tube under the spring and buffer. Voila, plenty of clearance and the BCG still has enough travel to extend at least 3/16" behind the bolt hold open.
Switching to an H3 buffer and a Tubb flatwire spring is a very popular mod for the PA10, and one I'm doing to mine. My spring and buffer are in the mail as we speak. This does two things. The extra mass of the buffer and the extra spring pressure at lockup helps the bolt stay locked up for longer while firing, which allows chamber pressures to drop before the bolt unlocks. This helps solve any extraction issues, drops bolt velocity which tames recoil, and mitigates some of the effects of overgassing. For $60, its a pretty cheap fix. If that doesn't work, my next option is to go with an adjustable gas block for $90
Lets say I have mediocre accuracy and I can't tailor an acceptable load. I buy a new barrel for $300-$400, sell the old one for $150 to someone who just wants a blaster DPMS pattern barrel, and I'm still under $1100 I doubt this will be the case, though. People are reporting surprisingly good accuracy. If I get under 1.5moa I will be happy, and many are reporting sub moa accuracy, so I don't have any reason to think I won't be happy.
So yea, if anybody has a good argument as to why I should have spent $1500 to build or to buy an AR 308 so I wouldn't have to spend $700 to build a PA10, I'd love to hear it.
Edit: out of curiosity I went to Aero's website and started pricing out a comparable build. For $630 I got a complete upper, a stripped lower, an LPK, and a handguard.
No barrel.
No gas block.
No gas tube.
No muzzle device.
No BCG.
No charging handle.
No buffer tube, spring, buffer, stock, or hardware.
I don’t look at PSA anymore because they are always out of stock on what seems like well over 50% of the items they supposedly carry.
In fact I believe they should change the company name to, “Temporarily Out Of Stock.
Funny, Aero precision not only doesn't have half the parts needed to complete a build in stock at the time I'm writing this, They don't even have complete rifles in stock. Hmm...
OK... so they'r the wally world of ar's, starting to make sense. Its the whole "I cant justify spending more money somewhere else. " Now I am starting to understand the PSA thing.
So anybody try any other makers?
Oh please. Lets not pretend that deflating your wallet unnecessarily is anything other than that. if you've got personal preferences for features that require extra expenditure to fulfill, sure, but spending more money somewhere else just so you can say you spent more money somewhere else is financially unsound.
So lets hear you justify spending more money somewhere else. Seriously, price me out an AR 308 with a 20" bull barrel, 15" FF mlok handguard, polished trigger, and magpul ACS-L stock from other makers. Show me why Ignoring PSA when building an AR 308 is the right thing to do.