re: Gun Buying experience...(updated again)

OK, well, putting them together was a piece of cake.

Watching the video on youtube and using the directions from ar15.com were both very helpful.

If I can make a recommendation, get the punches that they recommend. They can hold everything in place while you drive the pin in from the other side. That a very helpful recommendation given by the ar15.com instructions that was not shown by the video.

You don't need a vice. You don't need vice grips. The tools I used were needle nose pliers, gunsmith hammer, different punches, screwdriver, and a knife.

I put the first one together after getting everything laid out in a bit over an hour. Second one went together just a bit shorter. It would have gone together much quicker, but one of the detent pins decided to launch itself out of the front takedown pin spot and bounced off a wall and then ended up INSIDE a plastic bag. I checked the whole room, everywhere and was just going to check to order another one from the web when I decided to check inside the bag. I don't know how it got in there.

Anyway, it is not difficult IF you lay everything out, know what you are going to do before you do it, and follow the instructions.

Overall, a fun thing to do. Pick out the parts you like. I would recommend against a kit. That kind of takes the fun out of if. You get to pick this thing from the ground up. Look up the different parts, know what you want the gun to do, and buy the parts and put it together.

It was easy to get the parts because I bought them all from the same place and got them cheap.

I will start a thread going through all the steps I did and my thinking since at least one guy here said he was thinking of building his own. Wait till later this weekend.

Anyway, my first experience was very positive one. I enjoyed it. I will want to build others.