For those of you contemplating building your own AR-15, there are absolutely tons of how-to resources and trouble-shooting support sources available to you, as well as many sources for parts and materials. You can build anything from a pistol configuration, through a standard A2 configuraton, and up to a flat-top, heavy barrel varmint rifle capable of extreme accuracy.
By far the absolute best source for information is www.ar15.com. There is one forum in particular that deals exclusively with build-your-own issues. As well, they have the US military manuals available for download (free of charge) for the use, maintenance, and overhaul of the AR-15. There are also on-line articles on assembly, with pictures and detailed instructions on how to assemble the parts into the lower, which is the most demanding part of the job. They also have a blueprint you can download which is very useful, but not very user- friendly (because of its size). So I broke it down into several 8-1/2 X 11 pages in PDF format. You can see it here. It prints much nicer than their original. Of course you will need the Adobe Acrobat Reader, which is available free of charge at www.adobe.com.
So if all of that material is available there, why am I writing it all down here? I'm not. Consider this as supplementary material, because some of what I read there is unclear for a novice, and up until I built this first rifle I had never held an AR-15 in my hands nor even seen one up close (other than in pictures). This then is to help others like me who are truly starting from base zero.
As you go through the following, I will detail the pitfalls I encountered, and how I either overcame them, or would do it differently the next time.
Getting The Parts
The Project
The Worklist
Finishing Up
