I don't know much about them, but the Alexander Arms .50 Beowulf looks really cool. Is changing calibers with an AR as simple as changing uppers? Could I have a .223 upper for target shooting and a .50 upper for hunting.

If I start saving now, in a few years I might be able to afford such a gun.

Yep, its that easy. As long as you don't want something like a 243 or 308, then you need an AR10 lower to successfully do that.

When I bought my AR I saved up money and bought it in 2 pieces. I bought a Rock River Arms NM lower for around $280, and found a 16" RRA Varmint upper for around $425.

I've been doing quite a bit of emailing around an checking for lowers, I'm going to do it all over again. Still kicking myself for selling my AR, I should have at least kept my lower and just sold my upper.

That's really cool. ARs seem to have a reputation as a military rifle, but it would seem that with all the options available, they're a versatile hunting rifle as well.

They will outshoot a lot of bolt action rifles. HCH

Unfortunately, they're not exactly inexpensive.

vt hunter..they might seem expensive for a good one but look at the price of a GOOD bolt gun. they will even out pretty close id say. when building them you can save some money. buy the upper and lower seperatly. weve built guns that sell for over 1000$ for 600-800$ but all ours were in .223 so the diffrent calibers may be diffrently priced since .223 supplies are more common. id love to have an M4 ar-10 in 308. i just like big talkers over a .223. just me though. we cant use them to hunt in our state so we just use them for fun.

Why can't you use them for hunting? Is it all semi-autos in PA?

Here in VT, it's just a mag capacity limit. No more than 6.

The M-16 got a bad rap when the military first started using it, but it was not the rifles fault, it was the ammo. They were using ammo they were told not to use in that rifle, and having problems. What a shock! Once they got that corrected and learned to clean them properly in the field they became quite the weapon.

The AR is a great gun and can be very accurate, like said though, not too cheap. Then again some bolt actions are pretty expensive as well, and look at some auto shotguns that are in the thousand dollar range. Heck some over and unders are around 2 grand. M1's are not cheap either.

If I could afford an AR I would own one, I just can't justify the money for what I would do with it.

As far as if you can hunt with one it would depend on your state laws. Some won't allow semi auto's at all, others have capacity limits, weapon type restricitons, caliber restrictions and over all size restrictions. So depending on how your AR is set up you may or may not be able use it.

In michigan up north you can use a standard AR with a 5 shot magazine to hunt with. We have no weapon or caliber restrictions (has to be a centerfire). Only a capacity limit on shells. However where I live in the southern part of the state you can't even use a centerfire on deer, so it doesn't matter. You can varmint hunt with them though.

Paul

can you buy just the lower and have it sent to you or do you still have to go thru FFL...since it isn't a complete gun then I would think you don't have to worry about the FFL

Check out this guy if you interested in building one I got my parts from him and they are of high quality. He sells Stag arms which is a sister company to CMT. Tell him Dwayne keith referred you if you decide to buy from him.
http://www.ar15.com/forums/topic.html?b=7&f=22&t=335496&page=1