I recently spent an inordinate amount of time bedridden with the flu which turned out to be a good opportunity to do some research on building an AR-15 rifle. I had always thought it would be a fun project but never really investigated it thoroughly until recently.

I don’t know if it was because I was starved for intellectual stimulus while confined to bed, or because the AR platform is truly the “Barbie for men” but I probably spent 30-40 hours watching YouTube videos and reading online reviews and forums about all things “AR”.

Barbies for Men

After this full immersion approach I started ordering parts, did more research, ordered more parts, started the build, ran into a couple of minor issues, ordered more parts, and finally completed the build.

There are hundreds, if not thousands of build diaries on the web/YouTube so I’m not going to go into detail about my build process but I took some pictures along the way. The build itself took about eight hours total, but I went fairly slowly and wasted some time on a couple of parts that didn’t fit.

Ultimately I’m happy with the results but I won’t get to field test it until next weekend.

My inside work area and some special tools The stripped lower receiver This piece is the actual firearm according to the ATF All the parts forming the lower The trigger group installed The complete lower, left side The complete lower, right side The buffer tube and buffer The B5 collapsible stock Some of the parts for the upper receiver Attaching the barrel to the upper receiver The gas block and tube installed The flash hider installed The free floating handguard installed The complete upper The bolt carrier group and charging handle The bolt carrier group installed The charging handle installed The finished rifle with magazine It's a 16 Still need some optics