SUPERLITE69
Expert
Honestly, unless you're an armorer, your experience doesn't mean you have any skill or knowledge of the platform beyond basic field stripping and maintenance. Even then, .gov buys stuff in contracts from one manufacturer at a time. Over the last 30ish years, most of the military's AR type weapons have come from Colt, FN, and Daniel Defense until HK and Sig made their appearance. You wouldn't have seen any quality control or out of spec issues (outside of bolts with excessively worn lugs causing bad headspace) if you were an armorer, much less a person carrying one.
I've said nothing untrue, I'm speaking from hands on experience myself, working on guns for one of my friends who had made poor decisions buying guns, and doing research and building plenty others over the past few years, including a few from unfinished receivers that had to be milled out. Moreover, there's more than plenty of other evidence scattered around the web where people have also had the exact issues I've mentioned. Better still, check your receiver end plate for staking, pull your bcg out and look at the gas key screws, and pull your handguard and gas block off and look at that barrel, you'll find everything I've said to be true. While you're at it, inspect the bolt lugs, they'll probably be pretty worn at 7k, if they're all there and none have stress fractures on them.
I'm being realistic here, I've got nothing to gain by arguing with strangers on the internet, it makes no difference to me one way or another what you own, but if I help somebody else who is on the fence about what to buy to protect their family, then I, too, have protected their family myself, by stifling potentially harmful information. I mean no disrespect to you personally, but your one-off good experience (if it's true) with a brand with such a bad rap does not increase the credibility of that brand.
If you spend less than $1000 on an AR-15 in today's market, you've spent your money on a risky liability, period. Those $1000 rifles are the absolute bottom line lowest you can go and get a consistently reliable weapon, they aren't even the good ones, much less the "high dollar" weapons.
Not sure i agree with the arbitrary $1000 delineation for good/bad threshold. You can find a Colt for certainly less than that, ive seen them even recently in the $800 range, though thats not consistent, and frankly, if you’re buying pre-built rifles, you’re doing it wrong imo.
Beyond that: the comment about “unless you’re an armorer” has me absolutely rolling, because its true. Shooting a gun for 20 years has no bearing on mechanical knowledge, but you’ll have myths like “lowest bidder” peddled to make you think that FN and Colt arent held to a rigid standard, when in actuality, the govt sues and drops contracts all the time, for QC failures. And then, if the DoD is only buying cheap garbage, why do tacticool nerds drool over DD/KAC/ARMS?
Its an obvious case of cognitive dissonance, and its crazy to watch unfold, comment by comment