Uh, Walmart?

I shot an STI race gun once. It was pretty...different. It was like for every action, there was a spring or counterweight or pully or something that made an equal and opposite reaction. End result was that I'd have a sight picture, then bang, then exact same sight picture as before without me ever correcting. I was like, WOW!

So, I was at Wal Mart getting ammunition a few days ago and noticed that they had that Colt 6920 featured. Well I went back a couple of days later, only to find that it had sold.

I didn't let that stop me though, presenting the Sig Sauer M400 Enhanced. (which just means some Magpul stuff on it) The reviews I read on my phone were positive, everyone liked the ambidextrous mag release. I've never played with the .223 before, after near 100 rounds over the last two days, I'm wondering what took me so long. $1004 after tax.

The guy at work who told me about these guns bought one of the Sigs last weekend.

Sig is milspec, right?

That's the one i'm looking at getting, evenflow.

They can learn to. Here, one of their security, a retired police officer, was killed by a gunman because the security guard stopped the latter over an unpaid tee shirt.

So I've talked myself into building an AR. I've found a complete upper, so that isn't a problem. What I need to learn about is the lower. Gunforge assemble!

The lower's not all that difficult. You just need a stripped lower (the onlyest part that you need to transfer through a dealer), a trigger kit, and a stock. I got a Stag stripped lower, an RRA trigger kit, and I forget who made the stock, then I googled how to put it all together. It wasn't hard. I only launched a few springs and detents across the garage. Generally, a lower's a lower's a lower. The only controvertial part that I'm aware of is the castle nut. Without naming any names, Frontline insists that the castle nut is "properly staked". I just used Loctite.

Do I need the upper before i get the lower for registration purposes?

I don't know about the laws where you live, but I've never had to deal with gun registration. The only thing like that I ran into was with the stripped lower. That's the only part that had to go through a FFL dealer. Everything else...including the complete upper...I ordered through the mail.

Yeah, I have the upper on order, should be here before too long, I just wondered if I'd need to bring it in when I registered the lower.

Shouldn't need to.

Depending on where you live, you may not need to "register" the lower, only fill out the paperwork for the transfer. If you intend to use the lower as part of a rifle, make sure it's listed as a rifle on the paperwork (AR lowers can also be the basis of a pistol and Im pretty certain you can't legally change one to the other).

What exactly do you mean by "register"? If you mean a full on gun registration, then I have no idea. As I said, I've never had to deal with that. If you're talking about the Federal NICS background check, then no. It's just for the lower. It doesn't have to be a complete gun (and it's not a registration).

O.K. cool, thanks guys, sorry for the dumb questions, it's my first A.R. build.

They aren't dumb questions. I clearly remember being amazed when I learned that of the whole AR, one relatively mundane looking hunk of aluminum was the only part that's considered a firearm by the .gov.

btw, what kind of upper did you order?

I ordered a .50 Beowulf upper.

You're not playing around for your first build.

I'm pretty sure you'll need a .50 Beowulf stripped lower....so forget what I said about a lower being a lower.

Nope, it'll fit any regular lower.

Cool. In that case, you can always swap that upper out for a 5.56 upper down the road. I hear that the .50 is expensive to shoot.

Yeah, this isn't gonna be a primary rifle by any stretch of the imagination. Might get a .458 upper later down the line.

I've never been a big fan of the 5.56/.223 round. It's just waaaay too high velocity for a round with such a low mass.

That's a bad thing?

.50 Beowulf?!?

Well, hat's off to you for not messing around, though I'm afraid that's going to be an expensive proposition to shoot!

The 5.56/.223 round is ineffective against larger game. The velocity combined with the low mass leaves relatively clean holes in soft targets, and doesn't do so well against bone. I'd use it against something like foxes or otters (of the ass). The .50 Beowulf mimics the ballistics of a hot load .45/70. This is a hog/deer gun and where I hunt a 200+ yard shot just isn't realistic.

I agree that a .50 would be a better hunting round...especially out past 200 yards, but your reasoning with regards to 5.56 + high velocity = clean holes in soft targets is flat wrong. The high velocity is what makes a .22 caliber bullet do soft tissue damage way out of proportion to it's size. Get a spitzer bullet going fast enough, and it will yaw violently when it hits tissue causing it to fragment and make big raggedy holes. I've actually heard that a 5.56 is a pretty good hog round.

People here hunt hogs with 5.56/.223 all the time. It wouldn't surprise me if it's the most popular round for that particular pastime.

Well, like I said, its not purely for hogs. The Sig at wal-mart got me thinking AR, was gonna get the Sig, but started thinking about what purpose I'd use it for. That train of thought led me to the 6.5 Grendel, which I had contemplated a while back. For gits & shiggles I looked at the .50, remembered my last hunting trip, everything was sub 200 yards, so the .50 is just perfect, and it's something a little different. It was the price of the upper that sealed the deal, complete upper with a threaded barrel and a muzzle brake for under $800. Figure $300ish for a lower, trigger kit & stock set. Fair Price, I'd say.