"A Rose by any other Name would smell as Sweet..." - Wild Bill Shakespeare

Like most AR-15's, if I covered the branding with tape and handed you 10 of them, you'd likely never be able to identify ONE of the manufacturers by feel, quality, or appearance. There are a few proprietary or unique parts that certain makers use, but largely, AR's are AR's.

The Ruger AR-556 runs under $600 street price. The ONLY thing that I know is different for the AR-556 vs. a DPMS, Bushmaster, RRA, Stag, Sig, Windham, etc etc is the way they mount their front sight/gas block. It's a taper pin set up, some people seemed to have problems removing it - for the life of me, I can't figure out why?

Otherwise, it's just another mil-spec "M4 style" AR-15. Ruger seems to do very well with hammer forged barrels, but I've seen DPMS barrels shoot incredibly well also.

Just being a Ruger fan and having been down the DPMS/Bushmaster road many times before, if I had $600, needed an AR Carbine, and had a DPMS/Bushmaster sitting on a shelf beside a Ruger, I'd take the Ruger, but I'd fully recognize that there wouldn't be any real difference between the two. I've built lots and lots of AR's on Bushmaster frames, but just to have the stability of Ruger's business, and their second-to-none customer service, I'd buy the Ruger AR-556 over a DPMS/Bushmaster today.