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Bang4Buck wrote:My loyalty is to a quality standard in manufacturing, not a brand. If colt, bcm, daniel defense, etc.... Suddenly stopped following the mil-spec, I would not longer consider buying them.

For what is it worth, I was watching a 3 gun competition the other night on TV. A couple competitors had failures on their ARs. None of them were using mil-spec. Might have been the ammo or mag.

I just know when I am on dedicated AR forums I hear the worst stories about the non-mil-spec ARs. And many of the people there were ex military heavy users of ARs.

I agree in a general sense, but historical accuracy makes it worth pointing out that "Mil-Spec" is what sent the M16 to Vietnam without chrome-lined bores & chambers, or cleaning kits, or even proper ammunition for it, or even proper instructions on how to clean it, and COLT (back then) even argued that the rifle was a "self-cleaning design" (SOURCE), which I can tell you this morning after having sent 100 rounds downrange yesterday is most assuredly NOT true.

"Mil-Spec" may be hard won knowledge, but in actual practice it is often fudged or imperfectly implemented. And as the above makes clear, it can often be wrong. Like all things, it evolves, and when people of clean conscience are in charge of it, it always evolves in the right direction. But history informs us that this is not always the case, nor is it always reliable. And here's another thing. Mil-Spec manufacturers are making a product for a customer who is not likely to sue them. But civilian manufacturers have to build a rifle that is not going to kill its user, so they have standards that are ALSO fairly demanding. It's one of the reasons that 5.56 NATO ammo should not be fired in a .223 chamber. SAAMI enforces a stricter standard of tolerance for the chamber and throats of .223 rifles, even though they are (incorrectly) perceived as the same ammunition. Federal law may protect a gun manufacturer from being sued for the manner in which the owner uses his gun, but it does NOT protect them from liability in the event of a failure of the gun resulting in injury. The individual soldier cannot sue Colt for producing an inferior weapon......not that they do, but if they did......whereas I can sue DPMS all day long. Therefore, DPMS has as much of an incentive to produce safe and reliable weapons as any Mil-Spec manufacturer does.

So, Mil-Spec IS a good standard, but it is not necessarily the ne plus ultra of AR design and manufacture. It is good, but it is not perfection.

AndyC wrote:DPMS isn't very highly-regarded in the AR community (who generally-speaking are very snobby about their brands), but you have to take that with a pinch of salt. Olympic Arms, DPMS, Bushmaster, Rock River Arms - they all take flack for not being Daniel Defense, Noveske or whomever and are a bit harder to sell down the road should you need.

I agree with Andy. As in all things gun, there exists a certain amount of snobbery for or against certain brands. However, the positive reputations on which that snobbery is based are generally well earned. But that said, you could buy a DPMS and be perfectly happy with it for the rest of your days. My first AR lower receiver was a DPMS. Never had any problems with it. My custom AR10 uses DMPS upper and lower receiver halves, which were sent to Noveske, who trued them up and added one of their N6 heavy barrels. It is extraordinarily accurate, and it has a mixture of bad (from the snob POV) parts, and good (from the snob POV) parts. I watched my son put 4 rounds into virtually the same hole with it once, at 100 yards.

If I was going to buy an M4 profile carbine, and not do anything to it other than maybe mounting a good RDS, I'd go for a Colt or maybe a Daniel Defense. If I was going to play Barbie Doll with my AR and do lots of things to it, I wouldn't worry about Colt, and I'd just get whatever was easiest on my wallet that didn't have a horrible reputation. I took my home-built AR15 DMR rifle to Tac Pro today and spent 8 hours ringing a 2/3 size IPSC steel plate at 500 yards.........and it isn't a colt.

If you're building your own, buy what you can afford. You can always upgrade later. If you're going to buy the ready made rifle, Colt or Daniel Defense would be very good choices.

It's the old "custom Colt 1911" versus Glock debate, written on a different canvas.