Geez. I’ve been crazy lucky building ARs! Why hasn’t everyone?

[AndyLate]

Define sub-par tools. SOTAR has a crap-load more tools than most home assemblers, should every builder have the same guages and tools?

Anyway, the AR durability and reliability would look like this, assuming a reasonable amount of care is taken:
1. Quality parts and tools will have the highest likelihood of great function and part life.
2. Quality parts and sub-par tools would come in a close second. The allowable torque range on a barrel nut is huge, muzzle devices can use a crush washer, and a RE castle nut that is tight and staked should not cause any issues just because it is not torqued. Headspace may be out of spec, but quality parts reduces thay concern a bit. Any issues with assembly would show up relatively early in service life.
3. Subpar parts may be screened a bit with rigorous inspecting and measuring. Reliability will be better than long-term service life.
4. Sub-par parts installed with sub-par tools may have immediate reliability issues and long term service life will be poorer.

Building one sample of each and running them to failure really won't tell you much. Maybe you will have terrible luck and get that .01% bad part from a quality manufacturer and get perfect parts from a lower tier manufacture because the stars aligned.

All manufactures build perfect and sub-par parts. The quality manufacturers produce fewer sub-par parts and have test/inspection processes that ensure only a tiny fraction of those parts leave the factory.

Andy

[SeriousStudent]

Will Larson taught me a lot, and I listened to him.

Crazy, huh?

[simonp67]

Eh I buy quality parts and seek out someone skilled to build an upper. I have neither the tools nor the experience to try building an upper, probably not the only one. Probably some folks who are unskilled or less skilled attempted to build an upper who shouldn’t have.


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[mark5pt56]

Aside from the guns I've snapped together or actually "built", Some people can't get a rock to work. In my time, I've seen every gun break (AR) in some form. Are the odds greater with the bottom feeder parts, of course but they can also be great performers.

Both line-most everyone can't afford to wear any decent AR out. I also wonder at times how the world survives with all these malfunctions and breakage we see here. I do wonder though on the validity of some of the post. It does crack me up when someone has a decent gun, said they have 10k through it and one day out of the blue they have a common malfunction, the only one they've ever had and now what do I do?
Anyhow, just picked up a BMW and going to Advance Auto for a performance kit and Walmart for better tires.

The other one is "I shoot 500 rounds every week through my XWZ space modulator" -5 years later they have 5k on it.

[bamashooter]

"Assembling" ARs is about as simple as it gets. I've assembled many more than 15 and have yet to experience a malfunction due to workmanship or hear of any from others. Had one malfunction likely due to tolerance stacking. That and a quarter ........................ Big deal.

[Jewell]

A lot of people buy bargain basement parts, because price is the deciding factor in their purchase decisions.

I know many people that do exactly what you just described, then come to me hoping I can fix it when something goes wrong. You can only tell people to buy quality parts and point them in the right direction so many times. As the old saying goes...You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink.

[556BlackRifle]

Will Larson taught me a lot, and I listened to him.

Crazy, huh?

We don't have a like button so here's my like.

Anyone with rudimentary knowledge, but enough humility to listen, learned a lot from him. RIP.

[17K]

Gas port, chamber, BCG.

If those thing are right, it’s almost hard to make it choke.

[JediGuy]

Anyhow, just picked up a BMW and going to Advance Auto for a performance kit and Walmart for better tires.

My mind is working slow today. Read that and started to die a little inside.

[Nocalsocal]

I’ve always wanted a factory gun. But I’ve yet to have a failure in any of my home builds (quality parts only) that I can’t really justify spending $1300 or so on a factory gun. I know that it’s probably a better idea to do so but I’ve yet to experience a problem. Even more so now that I’ve watched SOTAR and his walk through of parts. His videos really left an impression on me on what to look for and why.
OP thanks for posting what I’ve thought...right tools with the right parts and more than likely you will be ok.


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