I figured for all of those who are building or are going to build ARs, somebody should make a thread of hard lessons you may have learned so that others can learn from our mistakes.
For me, some lessons learned were:
I purchased one Rock River Arms lower receiver kit from PK Firearms and one DPMS kit from Four Seasons.
The DPMS kit worked flawlessly. The RRA one gave me enough problems that it is unusable. I would return it but frankly the problems are with the trigger/hammer/disconnector and I was going to replace those anyway so I won’t bother.
In both kits, the literature is not exact enough to help you figure out which spring is the bolt catch spring and which is the disconnector spring. As best as I can tell (and AR15.com verifies this) the disconnector spring has a slight bell or taper to one side.
Be skeptical of anybody who suggests you need a hammer to install the trigger pin/hammer pin. If done right, these go in without needing that much force. At most you may need a very slight tap from the back of your screwdriver. (as in the handle)
Work someplace clean. If a spring shoots out during installation, good luck in finding it in a cluttered room.
For me, some lessons learned were:
I purchased one Rock River Arms lower receiver kit from PK Firearms and one DPMS kit from Four Seasons.
The DPMS kit worked flawlessly. The RRA one gave me enough problems that it is unusable. I would return it but frankly the problems are with the trigger/hammer/disconnector and I was going to replace those anyway so I won’t bother.
In both kits, the literature is not exact enough to help you figure out which spring is the bolt catch spring and which is the disconnector spring. As best as I can tell (and AR15.com verifies this) the disconnector spring has a slight bell or taper to one side.
Be skeptical of anybody who suggests you need a hammer to install the trigger pin/hammer pin. If done right, these go in without needing that much force. At most you may need a very slight tap from the back of your screwdriver. (as in the handle)
Work someplace clean. If a spring shoots out during installation, good luck in finding it in a cluttered room.