The Long Road to Getting My AR-15

My obsession with owning an AR-15 began last summer while visiting my family in the Rocky Mountain region. My uncle had just gotten a Remington R-15 and I was psyched to get to shoot it. We destroyed plenty of melons and with that R-15's Leupold scope, I decimated some apples from a decent distance. The handling of the rifle coupled with the amazingly dead-on scope felt better than any other rifle I had shot. (Ironically, I ended up not opting for the amazing Leupold scope.) The price of somewhere around $1,000 was high to a novice gun buyer like myself but wasn't out of reach.

My uncle's Remington R-15 with Leupold Mark AR 3-9

After thinking about it, I decided to begin looking into actually purchasing one. This was a long road and I learned more than I thought I would. It is some of this knowledge or experience which I hope to share for someone else's benefit. Thinking back, I wish I had kept notes of some sort so that I could hit specific points that might be helpful.

Initially, I looked a lot at manufacturer's websites. I intended to buy a fully assembled system. Being familiar with Remingtons, I looked a lot at their site. Most of Remington's Ar-15's are designed for hunting and I knew I would rather have some sort of combat/tactical gun. That led me to Bushmaster. Bushmaster has a lot to offer. This is when I got serious and really tried to find out what exactly I wanted. I knew I wanted a flat top (optics ready), 16'' barrel, rail system, and collapsible stock.

Remington R-15 VTR Predator Carbine CS

Bushmaster Modular Carbine

Preferring to buy the weapon in person (I don't even know what kind of shit one has to go through to order a gun), I had been attending gun shows and looking for guns I liked to then research and potentially purchase. After not seeing exactly what I wanted, I thought I would try out Mountain View, CA's Gun Vault at the advice of a friend. A store that specialized in "black rifles" sounded like a good place to talk to someone about what I wanted. I walked in to a very very crowded shop right after New Years. When I told the old dude that I was interested in AR-15's, he asked me if I wanted gas or direct impingement. I didn't know. I inquired about Bushmasters. He told me Bushmaster lowers are illegal in CA and launched into a list of all illegal lowers. It was a rather intimidating and unpleasant experience except that the man did mention that they could build me an AR which started to sound good. The other piece of information I took away from the visit was to not get caught up thinking of brand name parts as a lot of brand names parts are manufactured by others anyway.

It was time to put in some serious studying about AR parts. I spent a lot of time looking at sites like LaRue, watching YouTube videos from Nutnfancy, and eventually the CalGuns forums. It seemed like everything I learned presented new options I wanted as well as new things I didn't know about. It is really tough to figure this all out via the internet. I almost wished I had contact with someone who was military/ex-military to pick their brain about preferences. (Of course, given the nature of my politics, that was unlikely.) Finally after thinking about AR-15's so much my brain overloaded, I thought I was ready to try The Gun Vault again.

I went in to The Gun Vault early on a weekday in hopes of avoiding any crowd and getting some one-on-one customer service. It worked. The employee who helped me seemed to know a lot, was ex-military, and not pedantic at all. I was prepared with a full list of questions to ask and thing I was looking for. I highly recommend gathering your thoughts together in a list to take in with you. It ensures you hit all the points you want and get all questions answered. It could have been bullshit customer service but I really paid attention to dude's military experience in his preferences and suggestions. Of course, with such a customizable gun, I didn't find everything I was looking for. I did find enough that I felt satisfied.

Optics are, of course, a whole topic on their own. As soon as I decided I did not want a hunting style magnification scope. I started looking at reflex sites. As much as I wanted to buy the optics when I bought the gun, I told myself I would need to check out my options firsthand before buying anything. I was most interested in the Aimpoint Comp 3 or Eotech's XPS. Luckily, The Gun Vault had both for me to check out. I looked through both and preferred the Eotech XPS-2. (I know Aimpoints are supposed to be better/cooler or whatever but I liked the Eotech and it was much cheaper.)

Aimpoint CompM3

Eotech XPS2-0

The actual purchase of the gun was quicker and easier than I expected. One does not need to take the CA Safety test when purchasing a long gun and I didn't have to show any stupid display of how to load the weapon or anything. The only bummer is the 10 day waiting period. When the 10 day wait was over, I went in and picked up my AR-15. I brought in a case I had purchased for the gun and the store made me buy a lock from them since I didn't have one (or a receipt for one). I should note that I did go way over my initial projected budget but that can easily happen when customizing something like this.

point of purchase

Something like 6 months later and I finally have the weapon I wanted. I also learned more about AR-15's and CA gun laws than I ever expected to and that feels really good.

LWRC lower, GG&G Dominator upper, RRA stock, Eotech XPS 2-0 sight.

Thank you to all my friends and family that helped inform this purchase. Thank you to the Nutnfancy Project. Thank you to CalGuns, specifically aPlinker's AR thread (a must read for any new AR buyer/builder!).