Thanks to a couple of guys on this forum, friends and folks on another forum, I completed this rifle tonight for under my $500 budget.

It started about 3 weeks ago, give or take. My daughter decided she wanted an AR style rifle for her birthday. She couldn't have said this 3 months ago when I had 2 at the house that I traded off.

So, off on my mission to stay under $500 for an AR.


I picked up a New Frontier Lower, $25 tied up in it

The LPK is CMMG, and I bought it from a member for $95

The Upper is a DSArms stripped upper that was $96 delivered

The bolt carrier was a gift for helping out another friend, believed to be RRA

The bolt, barrel, gas block, hand guard, and misc finishing parts were bought/traded for $150

The rest of the parts were traded for, and I ended up with about $20 worth of lead and a bit of work for them, including the YHM muzzle break.

The firing pin kit was $22

The magazine was stolen from a buddy, he seemed to have one too many laying around

$408 total for this build

And thanks to gunplay52 for helping with the assembly of the upper, that's a pain in the butt.

Very nice, now do you sell it for $2,000 and build 4 more??

Absolutely not, this was built for my daughter. She was able to get one into her hands not too long ago and it fit her quite well.

She told me that's what she wanted for her birthday, and now it's finished for her birthday next month.

I plan on building 2 more, but not for some time. This one was kind of a challenge to do for under 500 in the time frame I had and the current firearms climate, but I was fortunate enough to have a couple of good friends with a couple of the key pieces that kept me from having to pay retail on them.

Good job!

nice, and it will shoot just as good as any of those $2000+ AR's people buy. looks good

Very cool my friend

Proof that even in these insane times a good gun can be made on a budget. Well done!

well done! I hope she enjoys it.

I'll give you $500 to build me one

Outstanding and a good looking piece. Happy birthday to your daughter

I really don't think I could do it again, not in the same time frame anyways.

I had a lot of stuff and deals work heavily in my favor on this rifle, namely the carrier group, that was a $250 piece that was almost free, had to spend $20 and change on a firing pin set.

I'll start on the next one pretty soon, probably around June or so. It's going to be pretty much the same thing, but with a 16" barrel.

well done and nice looking! now good luck finding something to shoot out of it!

Great job.

Great job! Good to see reality is still alive "somewhere."

Heck I know you wouldn't, your daughter is going to remember that gift forever, Great Job!

Looks good enough to me. Good work

How does she shoot

It shoots better than I do.

She's having to shoot it benchrest right now, topped it with a pentax 4-12x40.

Great Job

Well done on the inexpensive build. My daughter told me a few days ago that she wants one, but in mint green. I have everything here I need to build one (won't be less than $500 darn it) but I need to look into RIT dye, cerakote, or some type of paint.

That's awesome wished I could do that.