Hello All
I am looking to purchase a competition rifle.  I have been looking at American Spirit, Armalite, and Bushmaster rifles.  I was wondering what you guys thought about who was best to go with for quality foremost and value.  Any recs would be appreciated.

thx

I'm not expert on competition rifles but from what I know you would be well served buying the parts individually and assembling your rifle yourself.  

A Krieger barrel, Jewell trigger are good parts to start with.

If you want a turn-key pkg check out
the Olympic PCR-1 SUM. They have the
best barrels in the business. 4 groove,
broach cut. The Max-hard treatment makes
them super smooth, easy to clean, very durable.
I have one that will shoot under .35MOA all day long. That, with the JP Enterprise fire control pkg, makes a sweet unit.

[url]www.olyarms.com[/url]=

I have to second martinTN's comments on the Olympic.

I just bought a Service Match model and have been very pleased with it so far. I had intended to buy the Bushmaster CMP rifle. THe Olympic had superior fit and what I feel is a superior barrel. (mine has the SUM barrel w/o Maxhard) Finish was about the same.

Olympic has gotten a lot of bad press in the past. Their new rifles of of tremendous quality. You would be doing yourself a great disservice by not checking them out.

First off, Welcome to the board; I’m kinda new here too.

Second, I’d stay far away from American Spirit. When I was lurking here I’d read all the posts about how bad they were, but I didn’t heed the advice. I got some parts from them and sure enough, they suck.

I don’t have any experience with Olympic; heard good and bad about them so I’ve gone with Colt and Bushmaster. Their products are great, top shelf, more expensive but I seem to be one of those folks who only gets what he pays for. I have a friend who has an Armalite, I’ve never had a chance to fire the rifle but it looks nice and he seems to like it.

I’m trying to put together a match rifle myself. I have a Colt 6601, 20-inch 1 in 9 HBAR.  I have replaced the plastic buffer and would like to get the LEO or cut down M16 bolt carrier for it. Hopefully I’ll get to a couple matches this year. This winter I plan to send it down to Compass Lake Engineering for their float tube, trigger and match sights.

The barrel on the rifle is not chrome lined and works just fine. The heaviest load I’ve fired through the weapon is the Federal GMM with the 69gr SMK. With this ammunition and a little Zeiss 6x I can get five rounds into a group that can be covered by a quarter at 100 yards. I figure this barrel will be good for a few seasons and by then I hope to have my skill up to necessitating a Krieger barrel.

Hope this helps,

Best regards, J

Not sure what type of competition you'd like to use this rifle for, but if you're talking about 3-guns discipline, any one of the listed brands would do. Don't forget Rock River Arms, they have the best AR for the $, IMO. I'd recommend sticking with the A2 profile 20" barrel (if you can get one) and flat top upper.

Also, a really fine option is to build one up, either from scratch or with a kit & lower receiver, that way you get exactly what you want in one time rather than keep buying new upgrades (like what I'd done before learning to build the "small block chevy" of firearms.)  Good luck in your matches.

What kind of competition are you going to be shooting in? If it's NRA high power, the flattop upper is an 'open' class rifle. If you're going to shoot the 'service rifle' class, the gun has to be an AR-15A2, (visually identical to the M-16A2), as issued by the military.

Olympic, Bushamster, and Rock River Arms all have excillent reputations for out of the box service rifles. There is nothing wrong with Armilite, they just cost more. Unless you are getting ready to make 'master' class in NRA high power, any of these rifles will be more accurate than you are.

Be realistic about your needs. You can spend $1,000 or $3,000 on what is essentially the same rifle, and the cheaper one will shoot just as well.

What kind of competition are you going to be shooting in? If it's NRA high power, the flattop upper is an 'open' class rifle. If you're going to shoot the 'service rifle' class, the gun has to be an AR-15A2, (visually identical to the M-16A2), as issued by the military.

Olympic, Bushamster, and Rock River Arms all have excillent reputations for out of the box service rifles. There is nothing wrong with Armilite, they just cost more. Unless you are getting ready to make 'master' class in NRA high power, any of these rifles will be more accurate than you are.

Be realistic about your needs. You can spend $1,000 or $3,000 on what is essentially the same rifle, and the cheaper one will shoot just as well.

If you belong to a CMP affiliated club and shoot in one match, you are eligible to purchase a Bushmaster DCM Match AR-15 through the CMP's subsidized pricing program at a cost of about $875 the last time I looked. The gun has a list price of $1495. That's the way to go if you ask me.

http://www.odcmp.com/Services/Programs/AR15.htm

I completely agree however if you go this route plan on immediately replacing the crappy BM competition trigger, it sucks. I put a $175 Jewell from Georgia Precision in mine and couldn't be happier. (You can install the trigger yourself if you are the least bit mechanically inclined.)

I went with the DCM Bushmaster. It shoots better than I ever will and so far the trigger is perfect.



What problems do people have with these triggers?

The first stage stops returning and the trigger pull weight is not consistent. My trigger was good for about 400 rounds (incl dry firing). After that it was crap. There were a lot of posts on the BM comp trigger on the competition section of this website. Most people over there have dumped the stock trigger group.

Are you the same CB2 that posts on BR.com?