My addiction began with wanting to build the rifle I trained with when I joined the Army.
It grew into numerous ongoing builds that I don't even want to start listing at this point.
I remember a story that Morg308 posted a while back about a guy and his catching this
sickness, I was very entertained by the story and could Identify with a lot of what Morg
wrote. I would love to post that story up again for the newer members to read and enjoy
but I cant seem to find it, Anyone that can help find it and post a link it would be great.
Everyone else lets hear your story of being infected with the Disease.

Now that is some mottled furniture! Looks really good.

+1

I really like that!

Gorgeous!

Beautiful rifle!!

Here it is from Morg308:

We think of ourselves as a 12-step program.

Step1: You want a sort of 'Vietnam looking rifle or carbine' and find the forum.

Step2: Spend hours and hours reading through a zillion threads and still don't understand WTF an 'MVP' marked barrel is, but like the pics you see.

Step3: After a particularly long session online you follow our advice and go to the EE where you see an upper JUST LIKE IN THE PICTURES! You buy it immediately and congratulate yourself by opening another beer. You gloat until the next afternoon after work when:

Step4: You post pics of your new aquisition and 36 members post a list of things wrong with it, but, in the nicest possible way. You just feel like a dumbass.

Step5: Some long term member feels sorry for your predicament and contacts you, offers to help by supplying the part/gun/upper/bayonet you really wanted or gives advice, or both.

Step6: You read more, find ALL THE FUCKING GUIDES PINNED AT THE TOP OF THE PAGE and realize that everything you bought is worthless except for the absolfuckinglutely 601 charging handle and the early barrel, which although pinned with an ugly, POS 5.5" 'moderator' is just what a certain member wants for an E1 build. Someone mentions 'RBR'.

Step7: You buy $100 worth of tools to tear the upper down, sell the parts, and break even, but immediately spend 3x the money you recovered buying more parts off the EE.

Step8: You put your perfect, well, nearly perfect upper together, then realize you should have reanodized the receiver because it doesn't match and has a couple minor scratches that are driving you nuts. You tear the whole thing back down, having never put a round through it, and send it to Victor, along with the Spikes lower you already had 'to save money'.

Step 9: You get all the parts back, plus a REAL ALUMINUM CAR STOCK! Who gives a shit if it's Bushmaster - it's NOT PLASTIC! WAHOO! Your barrel comes back from being pinned, but you are now thinking E1 instead of E2, and WTH, a tax stamp is only $200 - well worth it. In the mean time, somehow you missed that the NDS lower reciever is the only way ONLY WAY to go. You realize this the day Victor returns your gorgeous Spikes lower in XM grey. You can't bear to look at it, but are too ashamed to sell the damn thing. You put in an order for an NDS lower, but of course they are out, so you spend 3 weeks staring at your other parts, which drives you nuts, so you spend your time perusing the EE and score a REAL 602 UPPER! I MEAN THE WHOLE DAMN THING! HOLY CRAP, HOW DID I FIND THIS?????!!!!! You don't tell anyone on the retro board because you are still missing parts and want to present the build as complete, plus those bastards will now want one like yours and be competing for the same parts.

Step10: The bank repossesses your car and the gas company shuts off service for non-payment, but you've been eating nothing but Top Ramen and Tecate for 4 months, so who gives a rat's ass? The cold showers take some getting used to, but since your girlfriend left you for being a 'gun freak' you kind of need them, and they're really not so bad. You buy a real GI steelpot off ebay for only $289 and start wearing it in the shower with your poncho just to see what it was like. Your friggin' closets are full of so many small, medium and long cardboard boxes that you start sorting them and inventorying them periodically, and marking what is in them with a sharpie. You soon begin consolidating parts, making the markings into lists. You congratulate yourself on coming up with such an innovative system on your way to the food bank because you decided to buy a few extra parts as an investment.

Step 11: You quit your job for a job in a gun shop that pays 1/2 as much just because there's a raggedy-ass LH handguard in the display case that is painted green, with brown bakelite showing through. You cringe and sweat everytime your boss shows it to someone casually : 'Can you believe the AR15 began with crap like THIS?' When they laugh you consider where to hide the bodies. How could anyone be so blase about this? You move all your good shit into a storage unit because you can't afford your apartment anymore, but who cares? You shower at work using the rainspout, fantasizing about the green LH handguard in the case. You are almost there.

Step 12: Charlie Sheen stops in the gunshop one day and your boss of course, spends an inordinate amount of time bullshitting with him, even though he is on record that he thinks he's worthless. Bosses. Charlie has a thing for AR15's, so of course, after handling several, your boss shows him...the handguard. Charlie says, 'Yeah, that's cool. Whaddya want for it?' and your boss hems and haws until they settle on $150. You want to slit your boss's throat because you offered him $250 a week earlier, but maybe it was the smell of the dumpster you slept in that night that threw him off. Anyway, CS buys the HG...the very fucking HG that is an exact match for the RH one you have (The one you smuggled in to check while your boss was at his daughter's wedding, bar mitzvah, whatever.) You sneak out the back, then haul ass around the building just as Charlie is getting into his Ferrari with 'Precious' in his hand. You consider just jumping on him and mugging him, but you aren't that well armed, and Charlie's no pushover. So, you strike up a conversation, trying to keep your eyes off the HG he keeps waving around. Scarred as it is, you can't abide it being dinged or scarred further. It just wouldn't look right in the shrine you're building in the storage unit. Suddenly Charlie gets a scared look in his eyes, perhaps becuse of your references to Vietnam, ear necklaces, B-52's. tunnels, and Bouncing Bettys. He tosses the HG into the air and you dive for it before it hits the concrete, and he takes the moment to start the Ferrari and tear off into the smog.

The moral of this story is, YOU GOT THE HANDGUARD!!!! WAHOOOOO!!!!

Welcome to the forum.

This   +1

I came in here looking for the bathroom and have been here ever since.

I was building AR's first in 1983, SGW parts.  There was no retro then.  Just Colt and Non-Colt.  Building a Non-Colt was easier because,  Colt didn't sell parts, and it was more accurate building a Palmetto or SGW because there was no big pin, and you could get forward assist.  The only guide back then was TM and FM and Small Arms of the World.  Even Jane's was far behind and Un-obtainable.

Then I came here first after seeing a TSI 607 stock.  Search led me here.  Of course TSI had folded by then, then re-opened, then folded again.  But eventually I found the stock.   Then the 601 green stuff took hold and that's it. Still sleeping on the sidewalk outside the retro forums neon lights.

i blame it all on George. there i was minding my own. and lazyly going through the EE just building working franken AR's  and sort of half ass thinking i'd like to build a triangle handguard VN style rifle.. and
poof! there's George selling Brandy new still in the package right and left hand handguards..  for less then anybody else wants for used broken stuff..
so of course i by them..
thennnnnnnnnnnnn..  not a week later someone turns up on EE with a stripped no FA no Brass deflector upper for 50 buxs...
i scramble to type in " I'll Take IT"  and get a pm off to the fellow..
now i'm hooked... hook line and sinker..  ok now i pay unbelivable money for a no FA serated BCG..ok big deal it's not chromed.. .. i don't care i just want to get this thing built and running.
now i own more .625 FSB's than i'll ever use.. triangle caps. FG's.  and the rest of the lower parts...
i have everything i need to build this damm rifle except the pencil barrel and triangel CH. and i'm not ready to get a 2nd mortage on the farm...  Yet!..
oh i did buy a vision arms 80% lower for 39 buks and milled the fence off..

all of this because George had NIP handguards....  ACK!!!..

Pete

She's a real purdy George

oh by the way... the 3 or 4 extra A2 uppers i had  for Franken builds.( only because i never liked the look of flat tops)  well now they can't be just franken build  now they have to be correct A2 builds  also....  bad i got it bad...!!