Im new to the AR PISTOL world and am VERY interested.

Why would you build?

Is it substantially cheaper???

1. I can.
2. It's fun.
3. I get to decide on each and every part.
4. For further information see numbers 1&2.

FPNI

+1.

 

Because most in the "enthusiast" market build all their ARs regardless of whether they are rifles or pistols.

Oh ok..

Cool!!

Think I will join you guys!!!

Never built a gun before. Might as well start here and now!!

FPNI.

I too have never bought a fully assembled AR.  Once you start throwing on different accessories you can end up with parts you never even needed/wanted.

^^^THIS^^^

For me it was the price.  Why pay $1800 that some places want for one when I can spend half that and do it myself?  Plus I wanted to control the process while my SBR paperwork was getting approved.

I'm an 80%er.

A $900 pistol isn't common. A $35 blem lower, sure, $54 upper, choice of caliber, what handguard, grip, how much rail and where, which compensator, pistols/SBR's are a completely different world than carbines. Even tho they use a lot of common parts, some things are necessarily different.

The pistol buffer tube isn't intended to accept a stock, and whatever alternative a builder comes up with is suddenly expanding with the acceptance of the SB15 wrist brace. That alone helps some sidestep the entire SBR process, at least initially. Later on, it will likely add more to the ranks. One major rule applies, tho, once a lower is designated a "rifle," it stays a "rifle." Pistol build let some of us use that as an excuse to buy another lower!

Assembling an AR isn't rocket science, and a lot of the design sidesteps or even eliminates traditional methods of gun design. What is considered dogma for a manual action pressed barrel and receiver traditional gun doesn't even apply to the AR15. It's also a quick and easy way to tell if someone has half a clue.

The only part that goes thru an FFL is a 100% completed lower. Other than that, all the other parts go directly thru a parcel delivery service to your front door. Just don't overdo it with $2 parts and $10 shipping charges. Best to bundle as much as possible. Your front door price is your guide, not somebody's advertised special. Holidays do offer some great bargains, tho.

If you want to build, read the stickies at the beginning of the forum and you will discover expensive tools and fancy parts don't get you any better performance. The end result of all the posts is that a firing pin hits the primer and the bullet is propelled out the muzzle. Between the first and last is where all the accuracy, reliability, and real reputation are earned. Not what Rollmark of the Month is being shipped. That changes a lot in just a few years time. Most American small businesses fail in ten years.

For parts, there is a thread here that lists the latest bargains in the Build it yourself forum. After that, it's up to the builder to check his chosen suppliers daily, if not more often, to find an item he particularly wants for that build at the best price. It takes a lot of bookmarking and some time to keep up.

Once built, you have a firearm that your state might deem Ok to carry loaded and actually available to hand as long as it is actually concealed in a car.Pistols enjoy that distinction. Rifles are more often required to be carried unloaded and cased with ammo separate. Just one of the quirks in the law, examine your state and local regulations, which may be entirely different from someone else's. In MO, a pistol can be use in any firearms season for deer, rifles only in the November portion. It makes some difference in terms of practical application. I'm not going to say that your local range will appreciate shooting up the 25m targets at the pistol lanes, tho.

Keep reading and researching, there are nuances with barrel length, gas, what caliber, etc. We each have our favorite, and regardless of the differences of opinion, it's all about the AR15 pistol.

A lot easier to hide small purchases from my wife over the course of 6 months or so, than it is to hide one big purchase.

I am with you on this.  

I never understood the concept of lay-a-way until I got married and then needed a scope.



 

This. I enjoy A1 uppers and LW barrels, something no manufacture offers.

Yup.

I built a 300BLK pistol for like $480. It was fun, I learned a lot, and I chose all the parts.

This  ^^^^^^

I built a pistol and a rifle. I won't ever build again if I don't have to. It can be expensive to tool up, take a long time depending on issues, and you still end up with a weapon built by a garage tinkerer. Lest we forget, there are people with troubles on builds here basically daily.

The cheaper something is, the more pride people wrap up into it (you'd think it'd be the opposite!), and try to get others to do exactly what they did.

I was lucky on my pistol build. Seekins ended up rebuilding it for me.

Pepper your angus

 

Oh lawd

Ya ya, I'm a garage-build and PSA nonbeliever.

You guys need to start up the PSA-Talk forums if you don't want anyone like me around.

This is the real reason.

"What did you get in the mail today honey?"

"Parts."

End of Conversation.

But in this day and age of fast form approval and cheap parts, if you can have an SBR, just go ahead and do it.  I waited 9 months for my first SBR approval in the panic days.  Much easier now.

I hate correcting people...but ....tirod gave you incorrect info...

"The only part that goes thru an FFL is a 100% completed lower. Other than that, all the other parts go directly thru a parcel delivery service to your front door.

A lower, whether complete or stripped, must go thru an FFL. All other parts can ship direct to you.

"One major rule applies, tho, once a lower is designated a "rifle," it stays a "rifle."

If you build your lower into a pistol first, you can go to rifle and back to pistol.

I am looking at buying a DIamond Back pistol cause it looks cool. Could build one for less

BE CAREFUL!

I was going to do a cheap little AR pistol build.
It is snowballing out of control.

when a manufacture builds a complete ar they pay 11% fet that is built
into the purchase price of your rifle.

if you buy a complete upper, and a complete lower separated you will
save an 11% federal excise tax. 11% adds up fast as i explain to my wife
for every 9 ar's i build i get 1 free.

plus i can take however long i want to to build, i buy almost all of my parts
on sale around holidays, and whenever free shipping is offered.

I did a budget build for $453, not counting sights.

I got what I wanted, got the fun of building it myself.

It would seem tirod was referring to the difference btwn an 80% and a completed receiver - a 100%.  An 80% can ship directly to your door.  A 100% cannot generally be shipped that way.

I could be wrong........but cant a lower registered as "rifle" be made into an AR pistol with some kind of tax stamp or other (like an SBR)? I thought I read thst somewhere, but I cant remember where.

A firearm that began life as a long gun can never become a handgun.

It can become a Short Barreled Rifle, Short Barreled Shotgun, or Any Other Weapon with tax stamp, which could then be shot in "handgun config",  but it's still not a handgun.

Obviously, if all you are after is an AR pistol, it makes no sense to start with AR rifle and SBR it just so you can shoot it without the stock in pistol config.

- OS

All S/N receivers not assembled into complete guns should be sold by an FFL as an "other".  In the past, due to an incorrect form, FFL's checked the box "rifle" or "pistol" when they sold AR lowers, but now they sell it as "other".

So:

other > pistol > rifle > pistol > shotgun > pistol > firearm > pistol

other > rifle > other > shotgun > other > rifle

other > rifle + SRB stamp > SBR

In short, if building an AR, ALWAYS start it out as a pistol - even w/ a 20" bbl, if need be, so that receiver can always revert to being a pistol.

Unless you have some state firearms registration, lowers aren't "registered", much less registered as anything.

They are transferred on a 4473 from an FFL, and when doing so should properly be described as a receiver and designated as "other" as they are neither a rifle or handgun until assembled as such.

I see them for sale at gun shops with insane markups.

Ok that clears things up. The question came from a cousin who stripped down an old pre-built rifle and was wanting to make it into a pistol. I will tell him to just go buy a stripped lower. That's what Im going to do.

Yep, new stripped lower.

Unless of coarse he likes prison.....

Or he can just keep a 16"  bbl on it.

...and kissing the Bishop.

I built mine over the course of 4 months and spend $574 including shipping, FFL fee, the extra buffers in different weights that I bought, and the $20 for my gunsmith to mount my barrel and FH.

And all of the big parts went on sale a week or so after I bought them coulda done it for $500

Tools are by far the cheapest aspect of this hobby. I built my first AR just from watching videos and lurking on this site and it performs as good or better than my off the shelf ones. It also looks as it was done professionally, and not by a "garage tinkerer". Just buy the right tools and take your time in researching parts and compatibility. You will get what you want and you will learn the AR platform inside and out.

What these 2 said.

The truth of the matter is that I'd rather choose each and every part and pay more than buy something and then change everything I wanted different. That and the wife thing.

Nobody made what I was looking for. Trading off half the parts is a PITA.

The few companies that could do a custom build take months and cost considerably more.

I don't own a single off the rack AR.

I ended up buying Grace USA punches, barrel nut wrench, couple things to help check alignments, vise blocks, and I'm sure other stuff. I had a tapco combo tool and some junk chinese punches already.

Point is, for those 'proper' tools the cost addes up, especially if you believe in buying a tool only once and having it last.

It might "look" like it was built by a professional, until you look close at how things line up precisely, or again after 1000rds (if you ever get that far). My factory built guns have scratches on them from use, but you wouldn't assume they were built in a garage? I really wasn't talking about looks at all.

Just about the only upside was, as you mentioned, learning it inside and out. Other good thing is, you're now tooled up and have experience to work on AR's if you ever need to.

Because I can

Come on down!   Ok, google the Brownells (site sponsor!) AR 15 build videos.  They are broken down into short 1-3 min vids of each subsystem of the AR.  I watched each of them probably a dozen times before I even had my parts all bought.  When I went to do the build it felt like I'd gotten a Matrix download of "How to Build an AR."  They are simple and well-made and I highly recommend them, and throw them a dollar or two from your build for providing them free... I did.

None of my built guns look garage built either.  

Honestly the tools are the least of the cost especially if you already have some tools lying around.  All I really had to buy was a punch and an armorers wrench which came in a package with some blocks and stuff all on sale from PSA.  If you properly torque down everything to spec as well as stake all appropriate items you won't have to worry about your rifle falling apart down the road either.

In the glorious state of CA, either you make your own pistol and build from a 80% lower or  buy one complete for a lot of money and have to bring it into the state as a single shot, then convert to semi. A real PITA.

I like getting parts in the mail too...

As someone that is just about to build my own AR pistol, it is because I can't find anything even close to what I want. If I were to buy a basic pistol and then make the mods to it, not only would it be more expensive before I even put any parts on it, the total cost would be WAY more than building it. Plus I'd have a whole lot of useless basic parts lying around.