Should I BUILD or BUY? HELP!

[Jfwatson]

I'm pretty new to all of the information with Semi Auto rifles, but I've been looking around at some rifles with the gas piston system. I have found that they can be pretty expensive to just buy one straight out, so I was thinking about buying the parts to build one and put it together myself. I figured I could buy the parts to put together an Ar style rifle with some sort of gas piston upper, but I only want to do that if it would save me a pretty good amount of money...Obviously. So I'm wondering if anyone out there builds their own rifles often and knows if it is actually worth it to build the rifle yourself? Also, around how much money would it cost to build a good reliable AR style rifle with a gas piston upper as apposed to buying that type of rifle at a gun shop? [/B](When looking at just purchasing the gun I was looking at a bushmaster for around 1,500 dollars. But I would love to build it for cheaper if possible) HELP PLEASE!

 

[briansmithwins]

In my opinion the gas piston systems for AR rifles are over rated.

1) Going gas piston locks you into a proprietary parts supplier. Ask anyone who needs parts for Rhino system how easy parts are to0 find.

2) The gas piston doesn't solve any real problems. ARs do have minimal clearances and exterior grit and dirt will cause them to stop working. A gas piston doesn't do anything to fix that. You can't carry enough ammo to get an AR dirty enough to make it stop working.

3) Every gas piston system is untested when compared to the standard DI system. Millions of ARs with DI gas systems have been manufactured and are still working. No gas piston AR has that kind of history.

4) The AR was not designed for a gas piston. Introducing a piston can lead to problems other places in the rifle. Read up on 'bolt carrier tilt' for starters.

Spend what you would have spent on a gas piston on mags, ammo, and training.

BSW

 

[kellmark]

Check out an AR-180. The early generation were good. I have a Costa Mesa model. Accurate, folding stock, gas piston.

I like the idea of the gas piston as well.

The AR-180B has been made recently, also with gas piston system. No folding stock and different lower. But I have heard mostly good things about them. I would try to get a recent production one. They are much more reasonably priced than many other similar AR types that do not have the gas piston.

Here is the link.

http://www.armalite.com/ItemForm.aspx?item=180B&Category=0406c9ff-539d-4b4c-ae1f-d045b91324c3