AR upgrades

[skygod1]

Just wondering what the opinion is here on upgrading the factory AR. What is your favorite upgrade to the standard AR? Most AR's these days are really good right out of the box compared to 10 years ago. As for myself the first thing I replace in just about all my rifles is the trigger. In my mind it is the single best improvement that can be made.

[walnutz]

If it has one of the handguards that are squeezed in there, I usually change it to a freefloating handguard. I don't know if it makes a really big difference, but in theory it should. It gets the stress off of the barrel and they look good.

[300Blk]

It depends. Post a photo of your AR and I will tell you what I would do to it for me to be happy with it as my only AR.

[skygod1]

That's the point here, I haven't decided which configuration that I want. I'm not a big fan of full length picatinny rails all the way around the fore end. Are they really useful outside of a full blown combat setup? Although I do intend to put on an optic, but not sure which one is ideal. Obviously it will be a 300blk but I like the idea of the flexibility of a 5.56 barrel that I can change to. Are all the internal parts created equal? What essentially is the first factory part to be removed and replaced with after market parts to make it a better system?

[Abiqua]

What essentially is the first factory part to be removed and replaced with after market parts to make it a better system?

Again, without knowing what you have, we can't tell you what is worth upgrading. There's a wide spectrum of build and parts quality put out by manufacturers. Either post a picture or description of what you currently have so an informed reply can be made.

[certifiable]

My first upgrade for a factory assembled AR is a high quality set of irons and red dot.

[tfbit]

If you decide your handguard is on the upgrade list I would seriously look at the Midwest Industries Lightweight M-LOK rail... just built my 16" AAC barrel upper with one. Pretty sweet!

http://www.midwestindustriesinc.com/ind ... ry_ID=1266

Cheapest place I found to buy:

http://vtsupply.com/mi-midwest-industri ... ar-15.html

They also have the KeyMod version.

[plant.one]

generally speaking there's two things i look to first.

a modular free floating forend with a full length toprail, and a trigger.

i have a upgraded lower that i already have a trigger in, so now mostly its just making sure they're free floated.

beyond that of course, i make sure i have a decent optic on it

[farm use]

To be honest this is why I built my own to start with, I build it the way I use it and want it. No buying something and wasting the money changing out parts I dont like or use. But to answer your question, depending on the configuration it was bought in, Stock, Free float tube, Trigger.

[sucker76]

Grip and handguard for me