Hello all, and welcome to me finally submitting my report on my affordable AR15 build. I have been teasing this project for awhile now, and had a false start or two, but I finally accomplished my mission. With one caveat, and we will get into that later. But first, the Rifle!:
What you see here is a Palmetto State Armory “Freedom Rifle” kit, built on an Anderson Arms stripped lower receiver, with a Palmetto State Armory M16A2 Styled Carry Handle on top. My stated objective was to keep the rifle under $500, minus the ammunition and magazines. I almost made it, and would have too if it wasn’t for an assumption I had made when ordering the parts online.
Before I go into a breakdown of the rifle’s cost, and how well it performed, let me give you a little bit of the saga that was building this rifle. At first, I was convinced that the easiest way to keep this build under $500 was to build it by acquiring each part individually. That may be true, if you can procure the parts locally. In reality, shopping around to get all the parts will require a significant amount of internet usage, and with it, shipping fees. So even though I was able to acquire certain parts below what I had originally anticipated, I ended up taking a bath in shipping fees. Had I continued down this path, the rifle would probably have been $200-$300 more expensive, so I sold off the parts I had acquired to recoup my losses, and returned to the drawing board.
Enter Palmetto State Armory (PSA). I had purchased a few items from PSA before on other builds, and had noticed that they often ran specials on their rifle kits. At the beginning of this summer, however, there were no kits that would have allowed me to keep the rifle under $500 once I bought sights and a lower receiver. Luckily for us, the stars aligned and two critical things happened: First, a gun shop in town ran a special on stripped lower receivers, allowing me to buy one for $60 instead of the $95 I had budgeted for. Second, PSA started a summer sale that heavily discounted many of their rifle kits, and even offered free shipping. This was huge, as I was able to acquire a rifle kit that is valued at around $500 (minus lower receiver and sights) for $380.
I had anticipated being able to get one of PSA’s cheaper rifle kits, one without such niceties as a shell deflector and dust cover, and with a lower quality barrel, so this development was a welcome surprise. I even opted to spring for the PSA M16A2 styled carry handle rear sight, as they had a blemished one on sale for $54. Now, this would bring my total cost to $494, which is just under my $500 budget. Had I acquired a different sight, and done so locally, that would have been the end of it. I, however, chose the PSA carry handle under the (wrong) assumption that I would get free shipping with it like I did the rifle kit. Shipping cost me $8.50, bringing my total cost to $502.50. So, so close.
The shipping was quick, however, and I received the rifle within just a few days. I hurriedly put it together (and caused myself a few dings and scratches in the lower receiver. Take your time boys and girls, take your time), and was excited to get it to the range. During my first function check of the rifle, however, I noticed that there was a significant amount of wiggle in the pistol grip, which I discovered was the result of either the grip screw being too long, or the lower receiver having too shallow of a grip hole. I’m not sure which to blame for this, PSA or Anderson Arms, but a quick trip to Home Depot and a $1.50 spacer later ($504.00!!!), and it was as tight as it should be.
Now that the rifle is complete, how does it compare to the other AR15s I have? Aesthetically, it’s blah. This rifle is the definition of basic, which isn’t a bad thing, and is increasingly rare these days (for a reason). This basicness contributes to a slight ergonomic deficiency, but otherwise does not affect this rifle’s capability in any fashion. What really surprised me was the accuracy.
For all intensive purposes, besides not having a chrome-lined bore and lacking full auto, this rifle is basically an M4 Carbine (an M4gery). Reportedly (although I can’t seem to find this anywhere), the US military holds its rifles to a “4 Minute of Angle (MOA)” maximum allowable for precision before the rifle is retired. This roughly equates to a 4 inch circle at 100 yards. So with this particular M4gery, I was expecting 3-4 MOA with varied ammunition and a shooter who doesn’t have much patience for accuracy testing (me).
When compared to our control data, this rifle is not as precise, and we will get to why in a minute, but it most definitely within what I would consider “acceptable.” Especially at this price point. The test was four 5-shot groups fired at 50 yards, where I measured the diameter of the whole five shot group, and the smallest three shots within the group. See the results below for a comparison:
| Ammunition | BCM BFH Mid-Length (small 3/small 5/avg 5) | PSA Freedom Carbine (Small 3/small 5/avg 5) |
| Winchester 55gr FMJ | .75”/.875”/ 1.00” | 1.5”/2.0”/3.0” |
| Tul-Ammo 55gr HP | N/A | 1.125”/1.5”/2.78” |
| M855 62Gr “Greentip” | .75”/1.00”/1.35” | .5”/2.5”/2.625” |
| Federal 55gr FMJ | .5”/1.00”/1.00” | .75”/2.0”/2.0” |
| Monarch Brass 55gr FMJ | 1.0”/1.5”/1.75” | .5”/2.25”/2.59” |
| Remington 55gr FMJ | 1.0”/1.38”/1.5” | .75”/2.0”/2.625” |
Keep in mind that I not exactly the greatest bench rest shooter in the world, but aside from my own ineptitude, here is what I consider to be the differences in accuracy between the PSA Freedom Rifle and the BCM build.
- Ergonomics. The BCM build I put together has a lot of upgraded features that contribute to my comfort as a shooter. The PSA, while not “uncomfortable” by any stretch of the imagination, is not as comfortable with it’s standard “A2 Style” furniture. If I were to upgrade this rifle, I would start with the pistol grip, and add something that provided a more ergonomic feel, like the Magpul MOE grip. Then I would move on to upgraded stocks and fore-ends later.
- The barrel. The BCM build has their higher end barrel, called the BFH, and is chrome lined etc. The PSA Freedom Rifle comes with a Nitride coated barrel, and is what I would consider a “mid-grade” barrel. Nothing wrong with it, just nothing special either.
That is pretty much what I can figure makes the difference between the two rifles in accuracy. Now that the boring part of my shooting experience, lets get on to the fun part.
When we take it off the bench, and into it’s natural habitat, how does the rifle handle? Pretty much like you would expect it to. The PSA’s practical accuracy works just fine for drills, while the basicness of it doesn’t hinder maneuverability much, if any. One thing I noticed when switching between the BCM and the PSA is that there is a bit more (not much) of felt recoil with the PSA. This is most likely due to the carbine length gas system and the A2 Birdcage Flash hider on the PSA as opposed to the Mid-Length gas system and BCM Mod 0 Compensator on the BCM. Although since this is a 5.56NATO rifle, felt recoil was already pretty low any way.
One final comment before I close this out. After the afternoon was over, the fore end on the PSA, which is a standard, round A2 style fore end, melted near the gas block. I attribute this to the high volume of ammunition that was put through it in a relatively short period of time. I also do not consider this to be a highly negative attribute of the rifle. Most people are not going to put 700 (!) rounds through their rifles in the span of only a few hours, and most will not use it for strings of fire that exceed 20-30 rounds. In the case of some of my drills, I was doing 100+ rounds out of the rifle, and even did a magazine dump of 60 rounds, because I have a SureFire 60 round magazine and I can (because this is America, and I am also in Texas). While I have done similar round counts with the BCM, I haven’t experienced this same issue yet. This is probably because the BCM has a higher quality fore end, which could also be placed on the PSA with little expenditure in time, money, and energy.
Overall, the PSA performed about like you would expect a $504 rifle to perform, if not a little better. For any of you who are in the market for your first AR15, and are on a budget, I would recommend you give Palmetto State Armory a look before you go with one of the pre-assembled rifles in the same price category. This would be a great option to get you in the game and out shooting, with plenty of opportunity to customize and upgrade as you saw fit.
Stay safe out there,
-Spencer
