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accurate/reliable .223/5.56 rifle for under $1000?

11K views 48 replies 18 participants last post by  focusmaniaczx3 
#1 ·
need a new fun gun. the local range allows a .223/5.56 at the largest for rifles on the range so thats what im going for. plus ammo is cheap. i have a sks that i love and have made perfect for myself but i cant shoot it as much as i would like and its always been horribly inaccurate but reliable as time. i would like the new rifle to take its place but i want waaay more accuracy than the sks had to offer and i would like at least close to the same reliability. not necessarily dig it out of the mud after 7 years, clear some of the gunk off it, chamber a round and blast a whole mag reliable, but at least "fire every single time so long as i keep it clean and well oiled reliable. sorry but for this reason specifically i will NOT buy an ar-15. yes they can be reliable but they need waay to much $$$ to make them that way and are still awful high maintenance. too many times ive gone out shooting with friends and watched them fight their ar's all day while i blow several hundred rounds down range. 9 of 10 have terrible issues and the 10th has several grand in the gun. so NO lol. i am thinking about the tactical mini-14 however but ive not even handled them enough let alone fired or even see them fired enough to have an opinion. would anyone else care to weigh in on it or suggest a different weapon?
 
#2 ·
I have the Tactical Mini 14 and it is rugged. Mine is not a MOA gun but it suits me well and is reliable. I have AR's and they tend to be more of a precision shooter than the Mini. If I could only pick one, I'd go with the Mini 14--I like the platform.
 
#7 ·
i am open to input i suppose. i would prefer a semi auto rifle. i have a remmy 700 already ;)
cant speak to how well all the other peoples guns are maintained either.
perhaps i do judge the AR unfairly. i could be swayed. would it be possible to build a decent one for under $1000 that will actually function reliably? point out links to the parts i would need to order to build it and ill give it a looking over. who knows i might get one after all. if i can build it cheap enough i may just build it and love it but if i have problems i could probably just sell it to get my investment back the way people around here buy and sell the things.
 
#22 ·
I built my AR for under $500 - yes, it's possible. Mine is not for sale.
 
#8 ·
I bought most of the parts on the one I am building from either eBay or Amazon. The lower came from my LGS, the upper came from CDNN, and the barrel came from DPMS. Every other piece was bought from, as I said, eBay or Amazon. You can spend as much or as little for the parts, but in the end no matter how much you pay, they are all going to basically look the same.
 
#12 ·
I don't have a horse in this race, but I'd like to see pictures of the finished home-builts. Maybe the OP would also. Better to judge, maybe?
I know a picture don't say anything about how it shoots, but.

Up to the OP, I would think.
 
#13 ·
OK, here goes. All prices are WITHOUT optics, sights, and magazines.



Left is a 1:8 built on an Anderson 5.56 barrel, middle is a 1:7 twist on a Tactical Ambush 5.56 barrel, right one is a 1:9 built on a JSE surplus barrel. My cost to build is, from left to right, $531.70, $551.63, $571.93.

I have a list of AR parts suppliers that I just checked constantly for sales and deals, and also used ARPartsfinder.com
 
#14 ·
If you don't want an AR I suggest a Remington 700 BDL with a 24 or 26" inch heavy barrel. The one I have is very accurate to 300 yds and since it is a bolt gun very reliable. The other .223 I have is a Mossberg MVP Varmint. It also is a bolt gun and surprising accurate for a $500 rifle. At 100 yds it is very close to the Rem 700.
 
#15 ·
Buy a Mossberg MVP in 5.56mm. It is a bolt action that will shoot all 5.56 Nato or .223 Rem ammo you can throw at it, out or AR-15 magazines. YES you can put a 60 or 90 round mag on it.

I have an MVP Predator, 20 inch fluted, with a 3x9 Nikon Monarch on it. With the bipod, I have about $750 into it. With just about any factory ammo it is an MOA rifle. My Rock River AR HB with the BEST factory ammo is an inch and a half rifle with Black Hills ammo.

I use Military 20 and 30 round mags and 20 and 30 round Pmags along with the 10 round Mossberg mag and haven't had a problem with feeding with any of them. The Pmags (and the Mossberg 10 rounder) work flawlessly....most 20 round milspec mags work flawlessly too...SOME 30 round metal military mags work "stiffer" than others....

With my handloads (and the break in period of about 500 rounds) it is now a sub 1/2 MOA rifle. With my 60 gr VMax and 26.5 gr Varget reload it will shoot under 1/2 Inch at 100. The best I got with my Rock River with any of my handloads was a littleover an inch at 100 from a bench.

Plus, after you shoot, cant the rifle about 45 degrees left, work the bolt crisply, and catch the empty in the air (Heck, in South Dakota shooting P-dogs quickly this year I got good enough at it so when I worked the bolt I could get the empty to land in my shirt POCKET....no scrambling in the cactus, rattlesnakes or bubonic plague fleas to pick up BRASS....;))

A guy with an AR may out-shoot you three or four to one over time....but you will be putting EVERY round of yours into earholes while they are spraying and praying just trying to hit the target somewhere........
 
#16 ·
sounds like a very nice rifle and it has now been added to my wish list of future additions to my collection but for now im sticking to something that is semi automatic.

mogunner

i obviously have cheap taste because the gun on the left was my favorite based solely off appearance and perceived practicality before i looked at the prices. how do those guns run? will they eat pretty much any ammo? can you run steel case ammo through these or will that damage them over time? i dont load my own ammo yet so for the time being i will likely be cheap on ammo so if i can run steel without damaging the gun i likely will.

if the left one is a no BS reliable gun and is close to being a MOA rifle then i would like more info. for that matter if ANY of those fit that profile i would like more info. the possibility of building one for that cheap means i can take the excess in my budget and spend it on additional toys and that makes me smile on the inside.
 
#17 ·
They all run 100% and all have had at least 100 rounds of steel case tulammo run through them with no problems. Steel cases aren't what wears, it's the bi-metal bullets that they load in them. I got bored and reloaded some steel cased with Hornady bullets but haven't tried them out.

And I have to admit that I scoured various sites on a daily basis for about three months on each build, chasing down sales, closeouts and special promotions, and a time or two snagged a part off ebay that the seller had the price messed up on...that full float handguard on the middle one ran me a whole $21 on a "buy it now", day after I bought mine I saw the price jump up to $61. They all three have "blemished" upper receivers that have small cosmetic defects, one I never did find the supposed blemish, one has a small nick in the coating across the ejection port, the other had a sort of rippled effect to the left side by the rail that totally disappeared once I hit it with some oil and wiped it down. I got the best deals with Christmas and Black Friday sales, it pays to be patient! A lot of the companies have free shipping on the holidays.
 
#18 ·
if you dont mind would you private message me a list of specific parts and name brands of said parts? or if it doesnt bother you to make it public then feel free to post it here, maybe some other people will make good use of the info in the figure. i hate being a copy cat but i dont care if i copy someone else if the gun will run. like i said ive never built or messed with the ar-15 before in much depth but i am a very quick study so if this is the route i go in i will learn very quickly whatever i need to know. however research into how to tear down and put back together said gun as well as safe operation will only go so far. all those brands and parts are different and i need to know which ones work well together and that is where the first hand experience and assistance of someone like yourself would come in very very handy
 
#19 ·
also on a different note. ive looked at the tul ammo (i think) spent casings before with thoughts of reloading and i have to wonder. how do you get the primers out? i dont reload yet but ive done my homework on it. the steel casings have 2 off center holes that you would poke through to pop out the primers. all the brass ive ever seen have a single hole dead center and reloading equipment native to us anyway is made for the latter. also wouldnt the steel mess up the reloading equipment since is so much harder than brass?
 
#26 ·
If you do a bit of research on forums you'll see some places to avoid. Some you just take your chances with and hope you aren't burned. Here's an example. Some time back, a company called Moore Machine was making and selling AR's that had a horrendous reputation. Bad enough that they quit making them. Here lately a new barrel maker showed up, Bear Creek Arsenal. Guess who they are? Yup... Moore Machine renamed. Their barrels are carried by Classic Arms and run around $80. Are they any good? No idea, those who have them say they are fine, I haven't seen any bad reviews on them yet. Basic entry level, 16" carbine gas system, 1:9 twist.

I even have New Frontier polymer stripped lowers that I got cheap last year on a Black Friday sale just to see how they were, at $29 each they were worth a shot. One of the attractions to these is that no matter what part you don't like, you can always just change it out. I've got over 1k rounds through one of the polymer ones with not one problem at all, but then again I don't go around butt-stroking enemy soldiers with my AR's, either.

I checked sites on a daily basis to hunt down the best deals I could, from JSE Surplus to Anderson, AIM surplus to Tactical Ambush and even some parts off Amazon. It's being patient and taking the time to search out the deals and wait for sales that keeps the price down, instead of "Gotta have it ALL TODAY!".

Palmetto State offers some that all you have to do is pin the complete upper to the complete lower, and I'm seeing prices creeping back down more and more. Also a LOT of people trying to unload the AR's that they snagged during the panic, and desperate to even get something close to their money back out of them.
 
#27 ·
im a patient man and im not planning on buying anything TODAY. i do like the idea of buying a gun piece by piece and putting it together myself. it will help break down the cost over several weeks or months and i will learn the gun inside and out. my only concern is getting a bad part that doesnt work well. the reason for my concern is that once i have the gun put together and test it out, if it doesnt function well, i may have a hard time tracking down exactly which part causes the issue. like i said, not terribly familiar with the AR platform.
 
#30 ·
I'm just starting to get the parts together for a 7.62x39 AR pistol. what I did to build the carbine was make a list of every possible part I could need for the few basic configurations. I can send you a copy of the Excel spreadsheet I put together that has it all. The nice thing about having the spreadsheet is that as you buy parts and put the cost in you can see the running total you are spending. You can also put prices in of parts you might want to buy and see what your total cost will end up being.

Then, I started looking for parts. The first part I buy is a lower receiver and have the transfer done. After that, everything ships direct to the door. There are several things you don't need to decide right from the start. You can make those choices as you go along. Free float hand guard or not? Barrel length? Rifle, carbine or mid-length gas system? A2 sights or not?

Before you go farther than completing the lower assembly you should decide on what twist rate you want for a barrel to help narrow your search down. However, I have a list of pretty much all the places you can get the best prices on barrels - chrome lined, nitride/melonite, stainless steel, manganese/phosphate finish or parkerized.

As you find some of the parts you need at good prices some of the other choices get made for you. Say you find an 18" barrel with a mid length gas system at a great price - well, now you know you'll need a mid length gas tube and you can decide on what hand guard you want for it. In my case I found a quad rail hand guard with a rail height gas block and it came with 2 castle nut wrenches and a lower vice block at a really good price. It was a carbine length hand guard so it made my barrel length choice for me.

You'll need a few special tools. A barrel nut wrench, a castle nut wrench (or an armorers wrench combo) and an upper vice block. I spent a total of $55.76 on the tools. I didn't buy a roll pin punch set. Didn't need it.

You can buy one for under $1000 easy that will be fine. It's more fun and more educational though to build it.
 
#28 ·
the way I started into AR rifles was with 1 good lower, and by that I mean a metal lower, not poly, and dpms parts, and good multi position stock, added to that a basic cheat plane Jane m4 upper basic clamshell handguards, a3 front site, etc. That got me shooting.. From there I added other uppers and calibers, could test em as I got them, eventually was less convienient having 4 uppers and 1 lower, so next project was to add lowers as I found good prices and parts, in that way I could test as I went
 
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