Which components can you go cheap on without issue? On which components is your build money best spent?

Cheap
Lower
Possibly Upper


 Spend the Money on
Trigger and Barrel

You can buy good parts for not much money also and not go cheap. A few that comes to mind are ALG rails and Aim bcg.

Everything is cheap at the moment, buy the best you can afford.

Barrel, bcg, trigger/lpk, optic/sights is where I put my dime.

Eta: Oh, and buy a quality receiver extension the first time around.

If you don't know what you can and can't, I would just recommend buying a rifle that is already put together and then you can go shooting.

Unless you really want to build, I would buy a pre-built.  Wait for July 4, I bet there will be great deals on quality brands.  I would look for the M&P15 Sport 2

I went cheap on the small parts (detects springs, mag release, buffer tube etc.)

The most expensive single purchase was my BCG. Its a Lantac E-BCG. Got it on sale for $200, but are around $240 new. I think it's the best money I've spent on my build. The receiver and the BCG stays hella clean.

Buy an upper and lower receiver from a commonly mentioned reputable company.

Buy a 7075 re

Buy a barrel from a company you see people talking about positively on here, ask if unsure

AIM or PSA is good for LPK and BCG. BCG doesn't need to be expensive there are lots of great ones for around 100.

Buy a handguard from a company you see talked about positively on here, ask if unsure

Don't buy anything off ebay or Amazon or alibaba.  If you suspect it is shit, it probably is.

AIM, Brownells, Aero, BA, Geissele, ALG, SLR, PSA etc are just a few places to look

The three most expensive things in my builds, that I always will only buy specific brands of, are barrel, handguard and trigger.

The other things, I don't really care who makes my gas tube or lpk as long as it comes from some place I trust to not have crap. Aero Spikes Anderson PSA are easy options for receivers.

If I was doing a quality budiet build, I would get an Anderson upper, lower, and reciever extension. Then an ALG qms trigger and one of their rails, a barrel from green mountain, spikes builders lpk, and a bolt carrier group and other not mentioned small parts from AIM. You could buy what ever furniture you could find a deal on. The only part listed that would individually cost you over a $100 would be a barrel, and at the end of the day you would have a good build for little money.

Best post all day.^^^^

I just finished my first build. Anderson upper and lower, LaRue 18" stealth barrel, gas block and tube, and 12" handgaurd.

Geissele SSAE trigger, a CMMG bolt carrier group that I had laying around, and various small parts from a cheap lower parts kit

that I had bought for spare parts "just in case". Topped it off with a Vortex crossfire II 6 to 18 X 44.

It has quickly become my favorite and most accurate AR. It will eventually get a better stock and scope mount, but I'm pretty happy with it.

Yeh, a lot of people have made some good point above.

it all depends on what kind of build you're going for.

if you want to go the cheapest route, buy it from PSA for $320 when on sale.

some swag that would be nice is an ambidextrous charging handle(I have some for sale LOL, $30), nice foregrip, and buy a decent scope (trs-25) comes to mind, under $70. You can definitely buy some $20-40 red dots on amazon. if you think that it'll be enough to go shooting paper at the local range

if you're using it as a self defense weapon, maybe a flashlight would be a nice addition, but it will give away your location possibly.

As a fellow noob, I completely agree with this. I recently bought a PSA lower and upper with a free float handguard. I immediately replaced the trigger with a RRA 2 stage. I just bought a new barrel to replace the PSA barrel which isnt bad, just too thin for my purposes. When shopping and researching, it occurred to me (not that this is a news flash) that there are many parts of similar quality so why pay more for a part with "BCM", or whatever, logo on it?  Also, not everything on Amazon is crap. I got a really good scope mount for under $40. Again why pay over $100 for this type of part.

My mistake was not thinking thru what kind of shooting I'd be doing. Since I dont own a 50 acre farm, I have to go to ranges and most wont allow for mag dumps, so I'm doing mostly bench rest shooting. So, buying a heavier barrel would have been a better option.

Barrel
Bolt group
Trigger
Optics