Too much mission diversity to really peg down many of these.
For a precision rifle - I'm wanting stainless steel, mid-length at the shortest for gas system, a muzzle device that mounts a can and/or doesn't need to be timed. An aftermarket trigger makes more sense, as does a pricier telescoping stock setup.
For a general use carbine - I'd prefer a CHF lightweight barreled setup with relatively few frills - any trigger will do, the iron sights are only there for if the reflex or 1-4x optic takes a vacation; telescoping stock is still a must, but something cheaper and lighter is preferable.
So much of that list has something as conclusively better - a full auto BCG is simply better, .mil sized stock tube is never worse, and doesn't cost more, unless it's an F/A lower the GI trigger pins are fine, and unless you're spending thousands on a sub-MOA rifle anything but forged receivers is ill advised, or more frequently money spent on cosmetics that hopefully isn't skimping on actually important parts.
It would take a lot of time to go through all of those, many of them are (for me) very one sided on opinion, and a few of them are more mission driven than anything else (a light 1:8" twist CHF barrel should be great all around - but almost every other common variation will fill that role for general purpose just fine too).
Mostly a LOT of the 'does little' category are actually huge differences in performance. A rifle gassed 17" feels other worlds different from a carbine gassed 16" unit as far as recoil impulse.
Barrel make makes an absolutely tremendous difference - mostly because other factors are also varied, but those two things make a much bigger difference than 2/3 of what you have listed above there.
If you want that list to be more of a reference - might need to be organized by component type (or what subgroup), then sorted by what is set from the factory and what is user-install. Though the majority of those sorts of things are set in the mil spec, there are some significant ones where civilian AR's differ, and those are worth highlighting.
Last edited by TehLlama; 10-09-13 at 20:04.
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