Given the choice, do you prefer to purchase complete uppers for new builds or rather the individual barrel, barrel components, upper receiver, and bolt carrier group, and assemble everything yourself?

For my first build, I wanted to get all the seperate parts and put everything together, but I wound up with a complete upper anyway. Then I thought that, aside from making my first build a bit easier (not that putting the lower together requires anything more than half a functioning brain cell), I wouldn't have to worry about headspacing and whether the upper would end up working (since thing has been factory-tested already).

For a first build, I'd recommend a complete upper.

As far as what I'm buying now, I don't think I can bring myself to buy another complete upper.

It's too easy to build and it's more fun that way.

WIZZO

It depends. I only build my own uppers if it's a configuration that isn't available from the factory. For a readily-available, standard production upper assembly, I'd just buy the complete upper and be done with it.