AR-15 thoughts...
 

I might have walked into a pretty decent horse trade. Was wondering if anyone had any experience with either the upper or lower receiver listed here.

Spikes Lower
DPMS LPK
Armalite 5.56 Upper
Eotech 552.A65/1
Magpul MOE Buttstock
Magpul MOE Pistol Grip

thanks for any assistance

Not a big fan of anything DMPS but the rest is top notch.

Spike's has an excellent reputation.

Armalite makes some good upper, I know I love mine, remember that they're 1/9 twist so if you buy 77gr ammo it might keyhole, stay with 55gr-68gr 5.56 and you'll be fine. Other than that it has some good features (M4 feedramps, chrome lined barrel, etc) . It does make a pretty good upper if you want to buy a 22lr kit ( http://www.spikestactical.com/z/inde...roducts_id=176 ). Sadly unless things changed, they still come with semi auto BCG.

Magpul makes great stuff also, I have the CTR Stock and MIAD grip which is almost the same thing as the MOE, great stuff.

Eotech 552, check if it's the REV F, if it's a D or E rev you might want to send it to L3 for an upgrade to Rev F (twice as much battery life, etc). They're pretty much top notch but they had issues with their 553, 557 line last time I've heard.

The Eotech 552 is a Rev F. The price is right as I'm trading one one my spare laptops for it so I guess that I can deal with the DMPS LPK for now but will consider changing that out in the future.

thanks

Nothing really wrong with any of that stuff, with the following caveats:

1) I'd probably go with Stag, RRA, or Colt for your LPK.

2) Eotechs have been known to have issues, and I've heard from a lot of guys who don't like or won't use 'em. Personally, I've never used one.

3) Spikes might make some cool looking stuff, but after the stunt they pulled after the election, I'll never buy from them.

4) I don't know if I'd be comfortable with a frankengun that somebody else built for anything other than plinking. If you're going to bet your life on the gun, perhaps you should consider going in a different direction.

Personally, I've built and used plenty of ARs over the years, and for the money, Noveske has my vote. Excellent service and product.

I always heard such great things about Spikes. In fact I wanted to go with a 9mm 5.5" upper and maybe a dedicated 22lr upper. I'd like to know more about that stunt.

Edit. Found it
Meh. It'd say it was more due to panic buying than anything.

That is not all there is to the story.

A month before the election, they bought this: http://i135.photobucket.com/albums/q...5/buggy003.jpg

Said they paid 25K for it. It's also got an M16 and an M249 on it.

Then they announced that they'd added three more machine shops so they could get product out faster.

Then, first thing in the morning the day after the election, they announce their price increases due to their manufacturers doubling their prices overnight.

Here's the thing about machine shops: There are a shit ton of them going under right now, and things were just as bad for them during the election. Mostly, they're hungry for your business, and they're not going to jeopardize that by doubling their prices to what is probably one of their larger accounts overnight.

Furthermore, what, at least four separate machine shops ALL colluded to raise their pricing on product that they're making for ONE company? That's a hard pill to swallow. Could it happen? Sure. But what are the odds?

And on top of all of that, they either had locked or outright deleted not only posts, but entire threads that were critical of their decision.

I'm all for people getting paid. But if you're trying to cash in, at least be honest about it.

It bears mentioning that while all the price gouging was going on, Noveske didn't raise their prices at all. In fact, they hooked me up with some deals during that time that were pretty amazing.

I like spike's and have bought several of their products and never had a problem with any of them. There items are quality and I think that they are priced reasonably (at the going market rate). From my experience they also have excellent customer service and have gone out of their way to make things right for me, although YMMV.

Stag arms is also quality at a good price from my experience. My model 1 has 3k+ rounds through it and I've never had a problem. It was very accurate right out of the box, although I am by no means an expert shooter so that might not mean much.

Fng