The idiots guide to buying your first AR

​I’m the first to put my hand up and admit I’m an idiot when it comes to the AR. I can do the basic field strip and can shoot pretty straight but my extraordinary skills stop there. Part of my ignorance stems from a disinterest in modern military weapons, and partly I can’t help but think “gas guzzler” when I spot one on the rack in my local firearms constabulary. Because my dollars are so neatly budgeted (by my wife of course) for monthly bill-paying purposes, I just don’t recognize excesses that include bullet-purchasing extravagance. My weapon buying power is accumulated over months, $10 at a time, added to a slim roll concealed in a coffee can marked “widgets” on a shelf in my diminutive workshop-man-cave (aka “the potting shed”). When I buy a new toy it’s thoroughly considered. Correction, it’s a painstaking eenie meenie miney mo scenario that drags on for weeks and honestly, most of my final purchases remain virgins, unmarred by the carbon residue’s I’ve read about other’s addressing. Yes, in an ideal world I’d have a full and varied collection of firearms unhindered by a working man’s austerity, and with it an assortment of the finest ammunition, frequently depleted and replaced, stacked by caliber just like a well-stocked Walmart outlet and all would be right in the world. But meantime I get by okay. I enjoy hunting down those historical hard-to-find pieces unnoticed in the corner of a bricks and mortar gunshop or online store AND I cherish every purchase. I’m also amazed at how many brilliant concepts were mothballed - not that they should all be resurrected but in the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s there were some tool and dye guys who (after being laid-off in the industrial downsize) turned their extraordinary talents toward firearm engineering. Of course much of that American knowhow has subsequently passed away with them and we have a serious deficit of craftsmen in this once-unparalleled nation, but there is hope (I hope) of a revival as a new generation of jobless graduates is awoken to the exciting creative (and earning) potential of skilled trades. Because economy goes inseparably hand-in-hand with innovation AND manufacturing, America will necessarily return to it’s roots and in the coming decades again be the nation the world coveted. We’re just not quite there yet. Back on message….this week I’m going to look at 5 manufacturers of a wholly American weapon, the AR15, not from a standpoint of knowledge but from an idiot’s vantage. But an idiot who does his diligence into functionality and user ratings, ha! So let’s have a look-see at what’s out there and which rifles may be quality, affordable choices for all you of my unschooled dollar-pinching ilk who are simultaneously black-rifle curious. AH