Ok, we left off in part 3 at a complete lower receiver. I am kinda buying my parts, piece by piece, starting at the butt-stock and moving forward.
I was going to get the upper receiver from Anderson Manufacturing also, being as that’s who made the lower receiver, but they were always out of stock. I guess they do a good business…lol. So I ended up getting, from Palmetto State Armory, a blemished stripped upper receiver for $39.99. Anderson’s is $45. According to their disclaimer, the blemishes are cosmetic in the finish but I didn’t see any. This part is going to be duracoated so any finish blemishes would be irrelevant anyway.
I didn’t pay any shipping on the upper receiver being as I bought the bolt carrier group from them at the same time and they were offering free shipping on purchases over $100. The bolt carrier group I chose was not the cheapest but it wasn’t an expensive one either. It cost me $109.99. You could get a BCG made from carpenter steel for $99.99 or you can go with a nickel boron plated BCG for $119.99. I split the difference…lol. If you were all about the name brands, a BCG could cost you $200+ for one from Sharps Rifle Company or someone like that.
By the way, at the time of this post, they were offering this bolt carrier group for $99.99.
Now we have need for all the little parts for the upper receiver. You can save a little bit more if you built an upper receiver without a forward assist. But S.P.O.R.T.S. was drilled into my head as a Marine, so it seems like going against nature not having a forward assist…lol.
You can, of course, get a whole set of hardware as a kit. Palmetto State Armory has a kit that includes parts for the forward assist, ejection port cover, barrel nut and delta ring parts if you are going to do a set of drop in handguards for $22.99.
I went with a kit with just the forward assist hardware as I am going to be doing something different with the dust cover. Rousch Sports out of Austin, Texas has a good selection of the basics. Their site is being worked on at this time, so the link is to their ebay store. They sold me a forward assist kit for $11.99.
As for the ejection port cover, I decided to go with one from Strike Industries. This dust cover is a polymer one that does not require the usual hinge rod and c-clip that is a pain in the butt to fool with…lol. This one is spring loaded. Pull the rear detent back into the cover, place dust cover in it’s spot and let the detent drop into the hinge hole in the receiver. Done. How cool is that?! The little piece of coolness cost me $13.95 plus $2.50 shipping.
Charging handles can run anywhere from $15 for a generic MIL-SPEC one to something like this for $89.95. Matter of fact, the one I have coming looks a lot like the $89.95 one but doesn’t have all the logo stuff on it and only cost me $17.09.
So I could have saved $185.04 so far. that will buy a barrel…lol.
We will go forward from the barrel nut in the next installment. Part 5.
Y’all stay safe and keep a round in the chamber…
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