Preface: I'm currently recovering from a pretty major medical event, and have lost a huge amount of physical strength. I'll put a couple details at the bottom, for anyone who cares. Anyway, I've finally decided to sell my best-condition AR (which is kind of also my WWIII/TEOTWAWKI rifle) to a friend who happens to really want a 14.5" P&W M4-style AR, and put the cash towards, basically, "the same thing, only lighter." And I'm hoping for input on what kind of stuff to get, so that I'm not losing any reliability or durability, but not breaking the bank, either. The WWSD carbine would be perfect if I were taller and favored a 45 degree bunny hunter stance. But I'm 5'8", use a square stance, and really prefer a 10"-11" LOP. I end up bottoming out most aftermarket stocks just to get 11".
At this point, the best idea I've got is a WWSD upper with just a part or two swapped out. Edit: Damn, the WWSD doesn't have a good way of mounting a BUIS front, dunno how I overlooked that. Well, different handguard and problem solved. KE sells an aluminum one that's only 3.2 oz. heavier. Other than that, mainly a Magpul ejection port cover to save a couple grams, plus if it gets damaged somehow and starts interfering with ejection, you can just rip it off and toss it, while the milspec one requires you to disassemble half of the upper. But for the lower, I'm really not sure. I probably want to use a JP Silent H2 buffer and spring, for reliability, even though that's definitely not a lightweight component. Then again, maybe the standard carbine weight one is fine with the 14.5" barrel and middy gas combo? Google gives me nothing but armchair commando answers, none of which agree with each other, they're all just "standard carbine works fine for me, I've never used H2 even once, everyone else is an idiot" and "H2 works fine for me, I've never used standard even once, everyone else is an idiot." Oh, and one guy sitting alone in the corner with his dangly bits hanging out, screeching about how rifle buffers are the one true buffer, and real men are all 6 feet tall or more (he looks to be about Danny DeVito's height). Meanwhile, I use H2 buffers and have never used standard once... but at least I can admit that I only chose H2 in the first place because it's more expensive (especially when you chuck the standard weight buffer that comes with every carbine!), and more money = more better, right? Plus the satisfaction of "customizing" every rifle. And then I just kept crawling, because it kept working. I was about 22 when I "built" my first AR (put an upper on a lower and told all my friends I built an AR-15), so I don't really expect any better of past me. It has been quite awhile since I've built a new rifle; hopefully I can avoid my old mistakes and habits. Okay, that's enough storytime. Grandpa needs to focus now. So, if standard weight is fine, that saves me $60 and a couple ounces, plus the JP H2s are out of stock, while standard carbine is in stock. I'd love an opinion from someone who's actually used both, and knows the actual physics involved.
Then a Rekluse trigger, since that should definitely be the most reliable and durable drop-in trigger pack. I absolutely love being able to engage the safety with the hammer down, too! The JP buffer and the Rekluse both eliminate multiple failure points, while providing other benefits. If left to my own devices, I'd probably throw on a Magpul MIAD just because that's what I'm already familiar with, and a Mission First Minimalist stock since that's pretty much a fixture of lightweight builds (and survivalists are kinda obligated to have paracord macrame on everything possible, right?). Are rolled vs. machined threads on the buffer tube still considered a big deal? I don't even know where to shop to make sure I get rolled threads. Looks like KE sells tubes that are machined to mil-spec dimensions.
Edit 2: after getting some input from a couple lefties, and actually finally trying some various things for myself, I've decided ambidexterous controls are a complete non-priority. The standard bolt catch is, if anything, easier for a lefty, and getting an ambi mag release is pretty trivial. Not sure why I thought an ambi bolt hold open would be a big deal.
So I'm mostly stuck on how to weight off the lower wherever it can be shorn, while hopefully keeping the whole thing under, say, $2,000-ish? No more than a standard WWSD carbine? I really hope I'm not barking up the wrong tree with the WWSD upper, anyway.
The whole V Seven Enlightened thing seems equal parts genius and loo loo land (and a little pretentious, honestly), and I can't tell what that adds up to, other than almost 4 grand for a rifle that's only 8 whole ounces lighter than a WWSD carbine. But are any of the V Seven parts applicable to this build, especially given the budget? What if I keep saving until the budget is functionally unlimited, if the gains seem actually worth it? It's basically impossible to search for V Seven here, since both "V" and "Seven" are too common, and there's only like 3 total threads for "vseven."
Edit 3: Looks like a plain old BCM Recce-14 LW may be the easiest turnkey solution, and I'm guaranteed to get a solid and reliable rifle. Weight difference between that and a WWSD is about on par with a single, loaded 20-rd mag. Not a lot, but not insignificant either.
Personal junk, offtopic postscript, turned into mostly a rant, just skip to the pretty picture: I had 2 massive strokes from the corona vaccine back in 2021. I've regained 100% motor function, but I can barely digest food now, have to stick to a 100% strict vegan diet (absolutely any animal products, especially dairy or eggs, make me unbearably sick for days), and can only just barely digest plant proteins. I've actually met a bunch of people who developed weird animal food intolerances because of the vaccine, too. I now have to cook almost all my own food, because so many people here, including restaurant staff, are utter morons who think, for instance, that milk and eggs aren't animal products. And several people have told me that insects aren't animals at all (oh, so they're crawling ****ing plants, apparently). Fish aren't animals at all. One thought that oysters and other bivalve shellfish aren't even alive, they're just ****ing magic ****ing rocks full of magic ****ing meat, which is why the bible says they're abominations. "So you can eat clams and oysters and stuff, because those aren't animals, and you obviously don't care if you go to hell or not!" If there's anything that will send me into a blind rage, it's that level of utter stupidity. Can you believe that I actually live in a suburb of Portland, Oregon?
Eggs, dairy, and seafood are the. absolute. worst. in terms of causing a hideous, unbearable, weeklong reaction, but everyone immediately leaps to the assumption that I must be able to eat those, as someone who is only vegan for medical reasons. Oh, yeah, being vegan means I'm a ****ing Catholic on permanent lent, uh huh. Meanwhile, at least 50% of the very few vegans around here are utterly psychotic PETA-types, basically exactly the kind of people all the stereotypes are based on. I refuse to talk about food with anyone around here these days. The only thing keeping my blood pressure down (it's only been high since after the vaccine, pretty sure it's a permanent effect of the myocarditis) is a combination of a 100% vegan diet and 3 blood pressure prescriptions, and god help me, that won't be enough to hold off stroke #3 if I have to explain one more goddamn time that ****ing bread has something like 6 different non-human bodily fluids, to someone who literally thinks that if you trim all the fat off a steak, it magically becomes vegan steak, because "vegan just means it's healthy, right? Cut off the fat, fry it in olive oil, don't use salt, and it's vegan!"
Also, why the **** do garden salsa sun chips have 3 different dairy products? ****ing why?
Anyway, it's not actually hard to get adequate protein on a vegan diet, especially if you do your own cooking, but my body can still barely digest it. And the less I eat, the less energy I have to cook. So I went from a little over 200 pounds to 115 over the last 3 years. I don't recommend this as a weight loss method. I'm pretty sure a whole-ass, grown-ass man is supposed to weigh more than 115 pounds. And I haven't been able to exercise at all since the strokes, I've ended up bedridden for over a week each time I've tried. I can still handle about 10 pounds of rifle (current TEOTWAWKI carbine, 100% kitted out, with 70 total rounds of 75 grain ammo, is 10 lb, 4.3 oz.), but that's really the limit. I'm definitely glad 5.56mm is so light. I can still carry 20 pounds in each hand, but man is that the absolute limit. So anyway, absolutely any weight savings anywhere is going to be worth it, as long as I'm not spending food money (that's the last place to take money from!). If the weirdo Enlightened crap is actually worth the inflated prices, I guess I gotta smash the old... broccoli bank?
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Originally Posted by mig1nc
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