I'm brand new to this site and could use a little advice. Last thing I fired was an M-16 but that was a while ago (1968 in Loc Ninh, up by the Cambodian border). I've decided to look for an AR-15 and have been researching manufacturers. Holy cow there's a bunch out there. Anyway, I ran into a guy from a small manufacturer,Tactical Weapons Solutions, at a local gun show and he talked a good game (I think). Mil spec, yadda yadda, 4150 steel yadda yadda. Problem is, I never heard of Tactical Weapons Solutions before. Anybody here know the company?

One of the things I liked about Tactical Weapons Solutions was that they are local so if there's a problem, they're easy to find. And they have a pretty informative website. As for my needs, I'm thinking M4 rather than retro. I'm looking for a 5.56/.223 rather than a .223/556 and barrel-wise, chromed with a 1/7 twist. Totally undecided (and uneducated) on accessories. For example, the site possibilities today are endless. The standard sites on the 16 I carried worked fine, though there wasn't a hell of a lot of distance shooting. Everything there tended to be pretty much in your face. As far as standard manufacturers, if I'm reading things correctly most (if not all) of them are assemblers not manufacturers.So I guess it comes down to how well things fit together. I'm finding a lot of info here....just gotta slog through it. The major quality guys in "manufacturing" seem to be Colt , of course and then in no particular order; Bushmaster, Rock River, and Stag and DPMS. I've seen good bad and iffy reviews on all of them which just adds to the confusion.