I want to invest in a 308 AR rifle. This will be my first AR and need some advice on either building or buying complete. What upper/lower should I use or what manufacture of complete rifle do you recommend. I plan to run this rifle suppressed.
Keep a close eye on the PSA(Palmetto State Armory)website. They run specials that have the complete gun or the upper and lower seperate. Sometimes the lower is "complete" (with BCG and charging handle),sometimes not. For your first weapon,at the cheap prices nowadays . . . BUY. I have seen a complete AR/308 for <$600. This would be a good place to start your build.You could slowly add this,and change that,until you had a gun that was "yours". Most AR/308 parts are the same as any other AR parts. Sign up for the internet flyers. From PSA,Cheaper Than Dirt,Kentucky Gun Co.,and others. The specials come and go pretty fast. Scan these sites often. --- pruhdlr
Greenie welcome. I'm a 308AR dweeb I love mine. I researched it for years b/f owning one. Shot Armalite, PWS, LWRC, LMT, POF and DPMS and while I'd never pay this kind of money even the SR-25. Of course there are 2 schools of thought b/t direct impingement and gas piston and that's for you to decide. If you are shooting suppressed just make sure you get an adjustable gas block. I have a Live Free Armory BA Hybrid. The Ballistic Advantage barrel is as sweet as anything I've ever owned. A true sub MOA gun when using my deer load Hornady American Whitetail 150's. They are having a sale right now I think it's $1,150 which blows my mind. Billet receiver sets fit like a glove every bit as mated at rifles costing 3x. The real kicker for me was weight it's a sub 8 pound rifle and is 10.4 pounds with a 10 round PMAG loaded and my RXQ30 mounted with a sling. I put 2 upgrades on it from the factory: their in house muzzle brake and a 3lb Velocity straight trigger. You can get a Black Rain Ordinance adjustable gas block put on for $120 from them(just checked on this yesterday b/c a couple of my friends are having 308AR's built from them) If I hadn't been in a bit of a $ crunch due to the insane price of our lease this year I would have picked up the Primary Weapons Systems 308AR. It's a long stroke piston and I'd take it over an SR-25 or any other rifle. The nicest blend of performance and weight out there bang for $ IMO. Problem is getting your hands on one I was looking at 6 months. One other thing to pay attention to is what kind of ammo you want to shoot and how well the 308AR you are choosing can eat it. Use the googles and you will find out which rifles can only eat match grade and which ones can eat whatever you want to put in it....that was also a big point with me b/c I shoot a fair amount of Wolf Soft Point when it's available. Have fun rifle building it's a hoot! Are you in FL by chance? If so Live Free Armory is just on the NW side of Orlando towards DeLand/Daytona. The owner is retired military and police and is a great guy I went up from Tampa to meet him, tour the facility and pick mine up in person.
Thanks a lot for the advice guys. I ran across the Live Free sight this morning and was wondering about this company. That is great news. I also have looked at the PWS rifles. I live in NC. I am running short on time and will probably have more questions. I stopped in for lunch and checked the posts. Talk to yall later.
If price and availability are a given I would take a PWS in a nano-second over any 308AR on the market. Or if someone gave me an SR-25 I'd sell it and use the extra for a can and Trail XP thermal! I think PWS is that stellar.
I do when it's available, but the 140g soft point usually sells out the day it hits the shelves at SGAmmo. The only thing I'd caution the OP with on the PSA is use google to look at the absolute disaster the first generation PA10 was out of the gate. They do have a second gen and perhaps that may have been better, but really really look closely at it and ask them a lot of questions. I don't mean occasional issues on the first run. It was every headache known to AR's. Chamber too tight, FTE's, broken bolts it was abysmal. Extractor wouldn't allow the round to seat in the chamber. Wrong buffers installed from PSA led to a ton of issues as well. I say this painfully b/c I love PSA and have one of the FN barreled AR15's that I use as my beater gun when out working. Not a single malfunction with thousands of rounds. It's an irons only gun I absolutely kill it....won't die. However with no 'mil spec' template to follow the 308AR is a little bit of a one off for each manufacturer beyond the obvious caliber they all share. So, just make sure they have ironed out all the issues b/c the original PA10 was a cluster bang of epic proportions. I looked hard at the PA10 just couldn't dive into that mess. Their parts configuration was a mutt of different manufacturers so if you do the PA10 I would recommend getting a complete rifle from them and not building as well. Heck I'd love to hear that they have ironed it all out b/c having a good sub 1k 308AR would be pretty amazing. GS yes Wolf soft point when available.
Well said. I also have one of the FN barreled 5.56 guns. I also had issues with my .308 16" ar10 from them out the gate. I got an RMA and detailed the issue with pics. They fixed it and sent it back. No issues since. Accuracy isn't that incredible with it but that may be me not handling the muzzle rise appropriately.
If you are talking about follow up shots you might be able to mitigate some of that with a muzzle brake. Out of all the 308AR's I tried none were fun to shoot for fast follow up shots w/o muzzle brakes. The Sig 716 was the worst it comes with a flash hider that thing was like riding a bronco for any kind of fast follow up shot. I can more or less mag dump at the 8" steel at 100 on our range and never miss....that's all courtesy of the brake. If I go 1 shot per second it's even better. Witt Machine makes a fantastic brake for the 308 if you don't have a fav. .30 cal Muzzle Rise Eliminator [MRE30] - $89.00 : Witt Machine
I bought the in house Live Free muzzle brake and it works good enough. I've always wondered how a Witt would tame it.....I shot one on a 300 WinMag and it was insane the difference. They also make a clamp on for non-threaded barrels which gets rave reviews in case yo uhave an old unruly bolt gun.
Muzzle brakes? Y'all hunt with ear muffs and earplugs on? Or just go deaf from the muzzle blast? Or are these just range guns?
Hearing protection at all times even when I get to borrow a suppressed rig. When Todd did that video on dB's measured at the rifle and at the animal for various calibers showing a 308 supersonic with can was still 137 dB's at the rifle....to me 137 dB's is loud as heck. My bud's 308 with a can is still deafening to me w/o hearing protection. Oddly I don't find my rifle to be any louder with/without the brake, but people to the side of me do. No indoor range for me all outdoors.
