I may not be a prolific poster around here, generally more of a lurker, but here's my two cents.
For a first rifle, I think you're better off starting with a complete model and working from there. While it's easy to figure out what you "want" from reading, often what looks good on paper translates differently than expected into practice. What would really be a shame is to spend some decent coin to escape "getting stuff you'll replace" only to discover that you replace it later anyway because it didn't line up with your preferences as well as you thought it would.
I'm actually helping out a buddy of mine who is in the same situation right now, guiding him through his first carbine. At the moment, I've recommended him to a S&W M&P15 as a base model. On the chart, it's further to the left (if you want to use that as a bench mark). An M&P can be had in the ~$1000 range, same as an RRA, but S&W put their money where it mattered, filling in chart features rather than furniture or accessories. What you get is essentially a bare bones but well made rifle, so there's lots of room for customizing the firearm to your preference via grips, trigger, stock, sights, etc without feeling like you wasted a lot of money on "parts you won't use" (because S&W certainly didn't!). The other nice thing about S&W as a starting platform is that the parts that don't comply with the chart are easy enough fixes in their own right, which could bring your rifle up to pretty high levels and give you some tinkering experience before you try to build one from scratch... barrel, bolt carrier, buffer.
The advantage, at least in my mind, is that you start off with a functional gun without any real "flair" in its operation so you can see precisely where you might want to tweak its operation. At the same time, whatever you swap out essentially just becomes a spare part, and spare parts are an avid carbine user's friends, whether they're the best or mediocre or even just a "well, I've got this on hand, so I'll slap it on til I can get a better one."
If you're interested, the model I recommended to my buddy is the M&P15OR, it comes with a flat top receiver and a railed low profile gas block with no factory optics, that way you can browse around and find some with a sight picture you like and install them yourself. Personally I'm a fan of Troy's flip up BUIS because I like to run optics on my carbine without anything obscuring part of my field of view. $850 for the rifle on GunBroker, plus ~$250 for the sights.
Anyway, just my two cents (or more like twenty by this point, heh). Best of luck to you!
Last edited by MilesVeritatis; 01-11-11 at 15:22.
Deo vindice, aspirat primo Fortuna labori.
His RRA is a really nice shooter, easily sufficient quality for recreation, although he does use it for IPSC shoots. Thanks to all of you, I'm pretty sure I want more.
I feel like I must be missing something... Can it really be as easy as it looks??? I am looking heavily at a BCM complete upper, figure I can't go wrong with that from everything I read. I want to keep it simple at first and let my rifle slowly evolve as I find out what I really like/want so I was going to get a complete BCM lower. I see that the Noveske factory second lowers are probably a wicked deal over at Rainier, also it's pretty easy on the eyes. For a first timer it seems like putting together a lower from scratch is a good starting point skill wise. What do all of you builders suggest from your first time experience? Should I dive into a bare lower?
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Originally Posted by totenkopf_u64
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