Home AR-15 Smyth Busters: "Building" vs "Assembling" Your Own AR-15

Smyth Busters: "Building" vs "Assembling" Your Own AR-15

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You’ve bought a set of AR-15 parts and you’re putting together a complete rifle. Are you “building” an AR-15 or “assembling” one? This is often a hot point of contention on firearm Internet forums: one member mentions he / she is building a rifle. Then another member jumps in and – with varying degrees of condescension – insists the first person is merely assembling an AR-15. Well, this kind of talk gets Caleb’s hackles up, as he explains to his colleague Steve, leading with the Webster’s dictionary definition of “build.” Pushing this semantic fine point is way for professional AR mechanics or more experienced hobbyists to flex on newbies or less-experienced AR-15 fans. But the reality is almost anybody building something in the modern world is working with components or subassemblies that were produced by somebody else. You still have to put it together correctly and get it to work properly. You are building your own AR-15. So the myth that putting together an AR is assembling and not building is BUSTED. Go forth and BUILD that new AR-15 with joy!

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36 COMMENTS

  1. The definition of build ( in simple terms) is to construct something by putting materials and/or parts together. The definition of assemble is to fit together the different components of a machine or other object. So if you buy all the parts individually and put them together you are assembling the different components ( upper receiver, lower receiver, buffer system, and so on) of a gun and then building it by putting those parts together. So basically using either building or assembling you would be right!

  2. I’ve built an AR-15; milled it right out of a brick of aluminum. Milled the upper to; lower came out great, the upper, not so much. This is the argument like “you’re not a true woodwork if or because…”
    Let’s work to build up our community instead of berating and diminishing it. There are a lot of new gun owners let’s use these options to help build them up and bring them in instead of pushing them away and turning them off.

  3. Building means you’re not just rearranging parts. To build something means you’re changing its form in a way that can not easily and readily be reversed. Inserting a BCG and charging handle into an upper then slapping it on a lower is not building. That’s just a reverse field strip. If you started with a stripped upper and lower then yes you built it. If you started with an 80% then you not only built it you manufactured it.

  4. I remember very clearly when this started. Tacticool douchebags were telling guys that bought complete uppers that their gun isn't a build. Then a bunch of them responded saying the Tacticool douchebags didn't "Build" their guns either, at which point the AK crowd adamantly agreed.

  5. An AR is not "Built" unless the person mills their lower from an 80%….. If you put parts together that were designed to fit together, it's "Assembly." People don't build their Ikea furniture, they assemble it. If material removal or fabrication is required it can be called a build

  6. Ok this is my thought on the subject, me being an avid Hunter all of my life , I consider a build as the firearm after you have completed it and you have to assemble each peace or portion or section of the firearm until it complete and that’s when it becomes a build . Just my opinion.

  7. To build- To ASSEMBLE individual components into an completed product. To Assemble- To achieve a completed product by attaching completed subassembly components into a completed product. Buying an Assembled Upper and Assembled Lower and attaching the components to one another is NOT "Building an AR15"

  8. I think it's assemble. Like you assemble an Ikea table. Bravo company built my ar-15 I don't have barrel blanks, a cold hammer forging machine, I don't have a 5 axis CNC machine or forgings of lowers from a supplier….

  9. Language has meaning. Dictionaries, by nature, are descriptive and not prescriptive so it can only tell you how people use the word but not confine the word to only mean what is describe in the words definition. Colloquially, build vs assemble has a distinction in the way it is used in the gun building world but people often use the word outside of its traditional use. I can understand frustration from the pejorative distinction of the two.

    Traditionally, “Assemble” could accurately describe someone purchasing a complete upper with BCA and complete lower and completing work comparable to field strip and cleaning.

    Where as, someone who is for the most part, compiling individual pieces to tailor the weapon to operate in a specific role would correctly describe “Build”.

    Someone who purchased a complete kit from PSA, for example, which includes every part except an 80% receiver does toe that line between the two creating ambiguity that go either way.

    But that’s just this guy’s opinion.

  10. Is it just semantics? I did a Form 1 short barrel shotgun, and I'm considered the "manufacturer" to the ATF. All I did was install a shorter barrel, and change the classification of the shotgun. I don't think of myself as a firearm manufacturer, but I guess I could use it on a resume?

  11. The only distinction for me is that I do have what I feel (just my opinion on my own efforts) are both assembled and built AR's. My builds have parts from multiple manufacturers that I ordered for a specific fit or purpose. My assembled rifles are almost a kit build. Yes they're made from more than one supplier but the pieces have been specifically made to fit together in a particular way to end up with a specific preset result. You still have to do it right or it'll be at best faulty in operation or flat out junk

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