Hi everyone, I need some advice. I'm wanting to build myself a good quality AR to take to the range and for home defense. After spending the past four days searching the net and this site, I like what I've read about Stag and Eagle Firearms. A local dealer said he had no problem getting the Lower for me, and would only charge a flat fee of $25 for the transfer and shipping. Right now, this is what I'm looking to buy. A Stag M4 Lower with 6 position stock, and a Stag M4 complete upper(chrome lined, 1:9 twist, with M4 style handguards). As for optics, I'm still not sure, but I want to stick with just a nice red-dot scope for now, I'll find a flip up rear site at the next gun show, and maybe a light, but nothing real fancy. My goal is to spend no more then $1000. I think my wife will get me the lower for christmas. So, what do you all think? I'm still very new to the AR world, so any and all advice is welcome. Thanks again.

Are you getting complete uppers and lowers and pinning them together? (nuthin' wrong with that)  Or are you getting a lower and installing a parts kit and the buttstock/buffer assembly and aassembling an upper from parts?

If you think you might assemble more than one AR from parts, I'd just buy the tools and do it that way.  You can get exactly the components you want, maybe save some money and it's a fun project.  You can always sell the tools later if you lose interest in building ARs.

Putting a barrel assembly on an upper receiver or installing a parts kit on a lower is a piece of cake if you have any mechanical aptitude - it's easier than rebuilding a carburetor.  Heck, I've built things for my kids that were harder to assemble

Thats what I had planned on, just getting a comlete lower and the complete upper, and pinning them together. With us living in an apartment right now, I really don't have the room to put a gun together, plus our cats love knocking small objects around.

I just finished my AR project today. One thing that you may want to note is if you use diff brands of uppers and lowers you might get color differences.

I have a mil-spec bling bling LMT upper with a bushmaster lower, the LMT is a bit darker unfortunately.

Also, beware buying cheap parts, because you may just want to get nicer stuff in the future! I bought a olympic arms LPK and collapsible stock... Now i just want to replace it with the good stuff... I want a VLTOR stock so bad now! Agh, no wonder veterans here welcome noobs to "the disease"

Do not be a Chicken,

There is nothing to geting a lower and a J&T Kit and putting the parts together.

My first one when together in about 30 min.

I used a tack hammer, and a finish nail punch.

you will have a better understand of how it goes together, and works.

Order the lower - I recomend RRA - Look in the Equipment Exchange - have an FFL recive it for you. he should only charge you 20 to 25 bucks + the phone call/background check.  Order the kit from J&T.

Get the Blow by Blow how to install the lower parts kit into the Lower - the the top have just snaps in with the two takedown pins and you are off to the races.  saving you about 200+/- bucks of mark ups etc.

that is about half of an aimpoint or a third of an compact acog.

YMMV,

Later,

Badredfish

Well, after thinking about it I've changed my mind, I'm just going to build it myself. I could take it out to my dads for a little father son project. So, this is what I've come up with. A stripped Stag Lower, a standard RRA LPK, a green Hogue rubber grip, and a RRA M4 6-Position stock(green with no markings). One question I do have though is how do the green color on the Hogue grip and RRA stock compare to each other? Does this lower sound like a good setup?

Sounds like a nice build, the RRA stock, and handguards on my Car-15 build,  match the Hogue grip almost perfect.