Originally Posted by
Nomercy448
LFAR’s aren’t AR-15’s. It’s easy to find AR-15 receivers for $50, high quality carrier assemblies under $100 - that just doesn’t happen for LFAR’s. Handguards are also typically slightly more expensive, you’ll even often see upcharges on barrels. It’s easy to spend $50-100 more each on a handful of parts in LFAR’s such AR-15 pricepoints simply aren’t meaningful when considering AR-10/LR308’s.
Yes - gunsmithing and selling custom AR’s paid a lot of bills for me for several years. I build a dozen or so each year still. In general, I have told folks for the last ~10yrs, if you really want a proper AR-15, budget around $1000 and you’ll never be surprised. For an LFAR, I recommend $1500, with $1800 as a contingency - and frankly, it’s still easy to go well over that.
Excluding these silly “builds” where a guy buys a complete upper and complete lower and pins it together for $50 less than the complete rifle, building a low end, Mil-spec-ish AR carbine very rarely saves any money. Outside of panics, it’s typically possible to buy a Mil-spec-ish carbine for $250-450, and at those times, building them only comes at a savings if you depreciate your tool costs over a handful of builds.
As reference for a higher end spectrum, I built an AR-15 and an M5 LFAR for myself finishing both last year. They were not completely identical in componentry, but shared many common parts plus similar component quality standards. Even with considerable dealer/gunsmith discounts and sale pricing on everything else, I have $1900 before optics into the AR-15 and $2500 into the M5. No extravagance and no aesthetic cost-adders, no billet, no cerakote, no TiN or NiB, just proper builds for PRS competition - only spending extra where extra spent makes a difference. My AR-15 price is even bloated a bit, as the non-SAAMI wildcat barrel had a slight upcharge and the handguard cost a bit more than a true equivalent (not available) to the handguard used on my M5. So the price gap between these two should have been at least $100 more. Not uncommon to see a $300-800 mark up for similar rifles, just scaling from AR-15 to LFAR.
You can dump thousands REAL fast if you're putting Geissele parts in your build. Even with discounts.
On sites like delta team tactical you can get a complete AR kit (whole gun minus lower) for about $350 if you are patient for them to offer whatever combo of parts scratches your itch - the variety of kits they offer seem endless. I've seen them sell complete AR's kits with Noveske barrels and Aero upper out the door for well under $500.
My HD AR is a home build. Aero upper, Faxon barrel, bolt and gas block. Brownell's M16 BC. BCM nickel teflon trigger and LPK, JP enterprises yellow springs, Cobalt kinetics linear comp on an Anderson lower. Thinking about picking up one of the $99 wilson combat lowers to transfer it all onto. It feels dirty having all those nice parts on an Anderson. Even if lowers are just glorified pin holders.
I am into for under a grand all up. Those veteran discounts really help.