Thoughts on building your own AR or AK

[ponycarman]

Good deal!

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[pacolo90]

he'll love that thing, nice!

[Live_2_Ride]

Very nice rifles, Pacolo90 and WeldonHunter. Thank for sharing. I should have anticipated the election year shortages, but wasn't ready to take action until now. AR first, then an AK, hopefully, sometime down the road. The AR's are really cool looking, but I also really like old guns with wood stocks and hand rails. Crazy, huh? But that's what got my attention exactly a year ago, walking through Big 5 and seeing some old rifles out of the corner of my eye. WWII era, Russian milsurp, for about $100? What's not to love? And the rest is history.

[ponycarman]

If you can't find a "kit" and see a stripped lower grab it and build your own kit. The lower is the rifle. Everything else can be shipped to a residential address. The lower is the only part that has to go through a ffl. I've been thinking about get a few more lowers for myself, for future builds and/or investments.

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[Live_2_Ride]

My LGS has a nice selection of stripped lowers from $100 to $299. Yes, the thought of getting a couple sounds good to me. Already told Mrs. L2R the price for a full rifle, so I'll look like a hero getting a rifle as parts and paying half price.

[ponycarman]

I know when I built mine, building it piece by piece helped out alot financially.

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[Junk Yard Dog]

This is something that was just dropped off to me yesterday. It's my buddy's son's Christmas present. He was looking at a S&W MP15 but mama vetoed that as to expensive at about $924 and he decided to go with this, a DPMS Panther RFLP-WCP for $599. It's a good entry level AR for a 16 year old. I ordered optics for it a few minutes ago. It's 5.56 1:9 twist with adjustable telescopic stock. I've only ever held 3 ARs in my life one being this. I've only ever shot one and that's Fred_G's. I'm going to field strip this one and lube it up for the kid and maybe sight it in once the optics arrive so he can shoot it straight from the box. Then it's going to live here until Christmas. This will be somewhat of a learning experience but I've already been reading the manual and done some intial stripping. These are not very complicated really. I'm going to familiarize myself with it and then show the boy what I've learned. I think he'll love it.

Lucky kid, beats the hell out of the socks, and such I will get this year .

[WeldonHunter]

This is something that was just dropped off to me yesterday. It's my buddy's son's Christmas present. He was looking at a S&W MP15 but mama vetoed that as to expensive at about $924 and he decided to go with this, a DPMS Panther RFLP-WCP for $599. It's a good entry level AR for a 16 year old. I ordered optics for it a few minutes ago. It's 5.56 1:9 twist with adjustable telescopic stock. I've only ever held 3 ARs in my life one being this. I've only ever shot one and that's Fred_G's. I'm going to field strip this one and lube it up for the kid and maybe sight it in once the optics arrive so he can shoot it straight from the box. Then it's going to live here until Christmas. This will be somewhat of a learning experience but I've already been reading the manual and done some intial stripping. These are not very complicated really. I'm going to familiarize myself with it and then show the boy what I've learned. I think he'll love it.

Lucky kid, beats the hell out of the socks, and such I will get this year .

Yeah he is. He has a great family and grew up here. My buddy just brought grandpa (his dad) by to look at it. He loves it. We got to talking and he was telling me some of the stories of him carrying one like it in Vietnam. He was surprised at how heavy it was. He had some stories to tell. I showed him some of the collection including the Garand. He was really surprised at how heavy that was. He told me about some of the old milsurp weapons they took off the VC. When he saw the 24/47 Mauser he swore he took one off of one of them. He wasn't sure though, it's been a long time but mostly he remembered it had bullet holes in the stock.

[Live_2_Ride]

Great story, WeldonHunter, thanks for sharing!

Well, I bought a stripped lower yesterday (which, comrades, means I paid for it and get to wait 10 days here in People's Republic). The LGS was still out of complete kits, but had various upper assemblies, stocks, lower kits, etc. that I could buy to complete the rifle. One even had a target barrel and another was in 7.62x39 caliber. Unfortunately, the various parts plus the stripped lower came to just over $1,000. I really like Del-Ton's price point and that you can customize; however, all their kits show as out of stock. Might be worth a phone call or email.

[ponycarman]

Congrats on the lower purchase. When I built mine I just searched around for the lowest price on the part I was looking for. I ended up getting stuff from many different places haha. Keep us updated on the build

[Junk Yard Dog]

Many of the communist countries behind the iron curtain were selling surplus weapons to their socialist brothers in North Vietnam. These weapons could be anything they had on hand including Mauser's. I have heard many reports of Mauser's being taken off VC during the war.

[Live_2_Ride]

Received a response from Del-Ton this morning. As expected, out of stock with no eta because of vendor etas and product availability. Oh well, gives me more time to consider which caliber to get.

JYD: do you know if any of those Mauser's or any other capture weapons were brought home by our guys?

[ponycarman]

If this is your first ar15 I would recommend going with the good ole 5.56/.223 for the first rifle. Thats what they have used for years and what they are designed to shoot.

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[Live_2_Ride]

That sounds like a plan, Ponycarman. Will keep looking for the rest of the kit. Thanks!

[ponycarman]

No problem. I love mine. It's accurate, fun, and easy to shoot. Your going to love it! Especially knowing you put it together yourself

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[millman]

Build your own. It is fun.I picked this one up one piece at a time, and saved big bucks. DPMS lower, stock and small parts. FNH barrel, and an Olympic arms upper receiver. It is wearing an Imperial bayonet and a vintage VZ24 sling for good measure.

[MarkB]

I'm trying to find a parts kit for my Polish ak receiver. If I can round one up i'm gonna build me an ak.

[Junk Yard Dog]

That may be the only way you get one now.

[Cavtanker]

I definitely am all for building an AR. If you are smart with your purchases, you can still keep the cost below what it would cost to buy a complete one. Of course, with the current status of the market that may soon change if it hasn't already. I have built three AR's so far. It's a fun project, and easy to do. AR15.com has great, easy to follow instructions. I haven't done any AK builds though.

[Junk Yard Dog]

Good luck finding a receiver or a parts kit at this point, with full weapons hitting three and four grand in some cases there is a huge and growing demand as well as possible restrictions to deal with. At this point if you don't have one, and are unwilling to pay ridiculous prices then you will not be getting one.