Live free rifle?
 

Looking for information on these rifles. My son was looking at buying a used rifle and likes this Live Free AR-10. I don't know much about them but have seen a few decent reviews for them. This rifle has 16" barrel and the mounts for accessories. The price the guy wants is what I think is high at $1300. So before I even make an offer, I would like to know a little more about the company and what issues this gun may have.

My apologies if there is a thread on these. I looked a few pages and didn't see a thread. I'm also a long time bow hunter and just now have been seriously getting into rifles.

Thanks

I don't think I'd pay that much for an AR style rifle unless I was going to shoot with it competitively. You can get a functional AR-10 for several hundred $ less. But that's my opinion. I am going to send you a PM on this.

I have built literally hundreds of AR’s, and among them more than 50 LFAR’s, I would kill to be able to charge $1800-2300 for such a bare bones rifle.

They’re tagging the Ballistic Advantage barrel name to appear like it’s something it isn’t, and then adding cerakote to increase appeal. Doesn’t seem as if the FCG is anything but Mil-spec, and they’re just forged receivers, so really they just suck a $300 barrel into a plain Jane LFAR, slapped cerakote on it, and upcharged $800.

I noted in their feature upgrade options, they are upcharging full retail prices! So they’re valuing the Magpul standard offering at $0, no replacement credit toward the upcharged product, and then not passing along any volume discount to the consumer. You’d be better off buying the rifle standard and buying a stock on your own on sale, then reselling the Magpul stock - you’d be $50 ahead.

So looking at those aspects, I personally wouldn’t buy from them. Sounds like you’re considering a used rifle - personally, for $1300, I’d buy a less expensive model and replace the barrel to have an equivalent rifle to the LFA, or build one up from parts.

Do you collect ARs or are you in the gun selling business?

To OP: As almost everyone knows you can build an AR much, much cheaper than buying one.

I forgot about nut n'fancy. The world's first Tacticool LARPing Fudd.

I just built my own AR in 350 legend for $496. What a sweet handling rifle. I just got it all together and put the scope on yesterday. I can't wait to sight it in and shoot it.

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.

*Note - for clarity, LFAR = Large Format AR, and nothing to do with the Live Free Armory brand. Between AR-10, LR-308, LAR-8, GII, etc, it’s simply easier to lump them all as “large format.”

Geez..this guy put a post on here and looks like he never got back on it. I sent him a PM and he didn't respond to that either! I was going to give him a deal on my AR-10, about 700 rds of ammo and 13 ten round mags.

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.