AGI - AR-15 Armorer Course.
A friend of mine purchased this DVD from cheaperthandirt a few years ago and after he found out that I was looking to build my first AR this weekend he suggested it. I poped in the disc and grabbed a drink and was ready to learn and absorb anything that would come my way.
The video starts with a basic history or Stoner, Armalite, and the AR-15 in general. While I LOVE hearing the history on a weapons design the video seemed to drone on very unexcitedly. It seemed that the guy on the video was not a fan of the AR and had no love for the rifle. He spoke for so long without really saying anything that the camera/editor just cut him off mid sentance and skipped into the next part, Dissasembly. 
During this phase of the video, the rifle gets broken down with a good explination about how things function and why they are there. His non love for the rifle again shows up as he criticizes some of the parts that he deems "gadgets and not needed" such as the last shot bolt lock, the chamber cover/door and the forward assist ("This is stupid, why didnt they just put on an operating handle and get rid of this whole mess
"). He goes over a very detailed explination on the way that the trigger/sear/hammer/disconnecter works that seemed to be the only informitive part of the video. He mounted the trigger assembly on the OUTSIDE of the rifle and cycled it by hand. I will say that I truly did not understand how it worked and now I am enlightened. Most of the first part of the segment was nothing more than half a detail strip of the lower. When it came time to remove some of the parts on the upper he said that he did not have the paitence to remove those for the video. These were parts such as the barrel nut, barrel spacer and buffer tube. These are parts that I really wanted to learn about and he did not cover them.During the dissasembly he started to comment on the required tools for the more specailty jobs and I was once again dissapointed. I was expecting to see either the GI tools or a Colt armory kit of tools. He produced a barrel wrench that he made from broken colt parts that were welded together. I dont know about you, but I dont have a welding rig or a bunch of broken colt parts laying around. One item was made out of a part of a broken drill press head. Wait, I think i have one of those... nope nevermind. I would have liked to learn how the GI barrel wrench works as it looks like a facinating tool but I was to be dissapointed.
The next section covers a detailed cleaning of the rifles parts. He took a bucket of water, dumped the parts in, sprayed them with break free, and wiped them off. He did take the time to explain where to look for part wear on some of the items but no tolerances were given for reference except for the firing pin head.
We spend the next 10 minutes watching him mumble to himself about things as he slowly puts the rifle back together.
All in all I felt let down in the whole experience. I was expecting to see some insight from experience in how to make the gun perform better or do other various tuning tricks. There is a second video in the AGI series called Building the AR-15 rifle. I have a nasty feeling that the video is the same footage but without the scenes of the gentleman taking the rifle apart.
If anyone else has seen any of the other AGI videos please feel free to chime in. This was my first and after this I think that I have a better way to spend $20 the next time I would like some video insight on a firearm.
