Building an AR-15

4/15 | FierceKulak

[FierceKulak]

Hello Freepers, I'm looking into getting an AR-15. Given the prices I will probably build one. I'd rather build one than buy used.

Atlantic firearms is selling Olympic Plinkers rather inexpensively, anyone own of those?

Any parts or suppliers I should avoid?

[investigateworld]

"In case anybody gets the wrong idea, I mean, that's a way of holding your duplexed mags without needing a magazine pouch. One mag is inside your belt or pants, the other outside, both upside down. Works great."



Hmmmm ... the front or back of your pants?

[Travis McGee]

Taping to mags together in opposite directions is not the best way because /1/ it makes the mag very long, and worse /2/ the bottom mag has it's bullets facing down, so if you hit the dirt, you're shoving dirt into the open mag, which will cause malfunctions. The side by side method works much better, but only for rifles with a thin-sided mag well like an AR-15. It doesn't work well on "fat" rifles like M-14s.

[Travis McGee]

Usually the front. It's kind of a grab and go idea, for when you don't have a harness or vest on with mag pouches. If one duplexed pair of mags is in the rifle, and you grab another on the way out the door and stick it over your belt, you have 120 rounds ready to go. That should be enough for investigating "things that go bump in the night."

The main reason for the duplexed mag in your rifle though, is to give you a very fast 60 first rounds on an ambush or entry, say. Switching from mag one to mag two that are duplexed side by side only takes a second, and your off hand doesn't have to fish around in mag pouches. Number two is already right there, ready to go in.

Some folks have even made a triple mag setup, with the center mag carried in the well, but then the weight becomes an issue. Most folks do use duplexes though.

But only one duplexed pair of mags will fit into a standard three magazine pouch. So typically it's only the pair that's carried in the rifle, and the rest are single mags carried three to a pouch to maximize bullets carried in the space you have. The empty duplex mag pair gets shoved upside down over whatever will "hook" it, such as an empty space on a web belt (if you can find and empty space!)

[King Prout]

if I were undertaking this project, I'd go with Bushmaster components.

[King Prout]

oh, and stay away from Hesse.
if there is any component manufacturer with a worse rep than Hesse, I am unaware of it.

[King Prout]

dang. I can't do that, not with the brass-catcher I have on my AK.

DANG.

[MileHi]

Thanks for that. Gotta dig out my Brownells and read up. What's up with the duplex mags? Is that a manufactured widget that holds them or something Travis concocted?

[Travis McGee]

It started as a jury rig made from materials on hand, usually a busted pencil or sliver of plywood or such, and green rigger's ("100MPH tape") tape. The idea is to join two mags with a slot at the top, so that they can be switched from one to two just by moving the pair over an inch or so. Nowadays, there are plastic gizmos made to do the same trick.

[MileHi]

Cool. In Brownells, perhaps? I like that they should both be "right side up".

[Travis McGee]

I haven't really looked in catalogs for them, I've just seen them on news photos, usually of SWAT teams and so on. For sure, you will almost always see feds carrying MP-5s using them.