Bushmaster XM-15 standard: an old yeller

Firstly let's dispose of "the idiot's guide" and call it the  "AR's-for-greenhorns" guide, just so I feel less offended by myself and so you, the reader, can lower your guard and read on. Secondly, let's state one simple fact to dispel any misconceptions about the AR platform: you gotta keep it clean. Contrary to Vietnam-era claims, the platform is NOT "self-cleaning", nor has it ever been, not then not now. And this is where it differs from the AK47 which you can drop in the mud, wash off in the river and lube with engine oil to keep it working, but if you like a little accuracy on your menu then forget it, the AK is hideous. In a nutshell the AR15 utilizes significantly tighter tolerances to acquire the necessary accuracy for combat effectiveness out to two or three hundred yards plus (depending on manufacturer and/or barrel). Nowadays even budget AR's should give you 3" groups at 100 yards, but the AK47 most definitely will not. At 100 yards with an AK you might hit a barn door. Like a lot of Cold War Russian engineering it's a veritable tank but that comes at the cost of finesse: intentionally loose tolerances mean dirt particles can rattle around amongst bolt, chamber and bullet and not effect functionality (within reason of course): think New York subway train trundling happily through tunnels littered with a century of garbage and grime...yup...them kind of tolerances. It runs to no one's schedule, it's painfully slow and wobbly, it's so filthy it could be a source of the next pandemic and it sounds like like blackboard scratching and a bag of bolts, but it RUNS! What it lacks in savoir faire it makes up for in essential reliability. The AR15 is by comparison a finely tuned bullet train - anyone who's been to Japan (or even watched TV for that matter) will get the analogy here. It runs faster, on schedule and aligns perfectly with the allotted embarking positions. And all components are fastidiously maintained because they have to be to necessitate function and meet the requirements of accurate Japanese life. With those cumbersome metaphors aside, let's look to a name we all recognize as a good starting point: Bushmaster. Since 1973 they've been making rifles so you can think of them as ancestral contributors to America's favorite longarm. Bushmaster has survived some of the rockiest decades for the firearm industry and has ridden-out the trials and tribulations of shuttered doors and litigations to arrive to today: it's still a good rifle and still a contender despite the plethora of current market offerings. Their weapons used to be about the cheapest black rifle available but that is no longer true with their ground level XM-15 Standard starting at $895 MSRP. However, with their basic weapon category still in the sub-$1000 range AND carrying a solid four star user rating, they're a great option for newbies like us because they’ve been around forever, bugs have long been ironed-out and Bushmaster offer a full one-year warranty on their rifles (so if you buy one make sure to run it through it's paces before those 12 months elapse). I also like the classic M-16 profile of Bushmaster standard weapons, maybe that's a greenhorn telltale I don't know, but it suggests tried-and-true and if I'm going to spend my hard-won and painstakingly-saved dollars then I need to love and trust what I buy. But don't run out and buy one today, let's get through the week and discuss our options here, there are four more rifles I’d care to shoutout as part of my greenhorn guide.  AH