Leaderboard

Yes, mother's gone but I'm waiting on my wife (and mother) hand and foot. Yes Dear!

I smoked a 6 lb boneless leg of lamb today; it's always been a family favorite. I use a rub of thyme, rosemary, garlic, salt, and pepper in a bit of olive oil, then today followed up with a mop (similar ingredients plus diced onion in an apple juice/apple cider vinegar base). Four hours smoke over apple wood, brought in to rest when the interior temp hit 138F yielded perfect rare/medium rare lamb. I carved over board sauce (olive oil, splash of red wine vinegar, plus thyme and oregano), and it was a big hit. It was my 75th cook on my Weber Smokey Mountain Cooker.

This makes baby Jesus cry.

To all the Mom's here...Happy Mother's Day!

Happy Mothers Day to all past, present and future mothers!

My mom passed 17 years ago, but I treated my stepmom and wife to a lovely dinner last Thursday night.

Happy Mother’s Day to all you mothers!

We always had it Greek style, served with potatoes, warm pitas, tzatziki, and wine. Lots of wine.

Arms Unlimited has genuine Colt 6920 uppers (complete with the BCG, CH, and BUIS) for $600. (You will need to shave the bayo lug down and swap the flash hider for something NJ legal) https://www.armsunlimited.com/Colt-AR15-16-inch-Upper-Receiver-Assembly-p/le6920ck.htm Another ~$100 for a lower, $60 for a quality LPK and $50-$80 for a quality receiver extension and Magpul Fixed Carbine stock. You can shave the lug yourself with a dremel, a cold blue pen, and some high temp black BBQ paint, but will likely have to have someone pin the new brake for you. Do all that and you are good to go for under $1k with a rifle that will serve you a very very long time. IMO, it’s a way better option than a complete carbine from any of the makers you or @Krdshrk listed, and is really about as good as it gets for a budget AR. if you want to buy a complet rifle,@Scorpio64’s list was right on - my only edit would be: • Add Modern Materiel (local NJ base AR manufacturer) • Bump FNH up to the higher level since they got the TDP from Colt • Drop Noveske - they are a boutique/niche company lately that is way overpriced and whose quality has dropped since their founder was killed in an MVA Any of those rifle manufacturers are good to go - but they will be more than $1k. Some After that it is: • mags • sling • vis light • optic In that order. Oh, yeah…. Piston ARs are dumb. AKs are fun and reliable, but are stupid expensive lately. There is no “standard” making parts and repair difficult unless you are an AK savant. I have the same Bulgarian Arsenal AK that @Jon has, and it runs great, but there is an AR in my “Break seal for EOTWAWKI” box. If I could have only 1 long gun for defense, plinking, hunting, zombies, it would be an AR.

DI= direct impingement. Normal gas system on AR rifles. The Colt 6920 is an excellent choice.

Went looking for a new commode and came across the "Kardashian".

S&W (as well as many other manufacturers) have tiered levels of their guns. The Sporter is the no frills lower level. It is hobby grade, using lower cost parts made from lower grade materials using lower grade manufacturing techniques and assembly.

Lowest tier

Best quality, not best value. While I agree with buy-once-cry-once, there is only so much pain one can endure, and it's different for everyone. Always buy the best quality you can reasonably afford.

To be fair, I did not compile that list, I plucked it from a website where I more or less agreed with the list. I didn't even bother listing the lowest tier. A few years back when I was regularly on the Ruger forum, it was an instant hit, admittedly with a few hiccups, that Ruger ironed out. It's reliable, better than military accuracy and Ruger will fix it for free forever. I can't put Ruger in the same class as BCM, but I would not hesitate to depend on it for a moment. As a practical matter, there would be little difference in the hands of a marginally trained user. I am on board with building a lower and buying or building an upper. It can definitely save some money, but the experience of building and understanding how the rifle operates is more valuable.

I have the Colt upper on 2 of my builds! Thanks as always for your EXPERT advice!

Ruger's AR556 can be had for under $1k. It's an excellent rifle.

Piston ARs are a good idea, if you shoot full auto AND suppressed. You don’t do either in NJ. And you sure as hell don’t do them at the same time. DI is the way to go. My preferred flavor is Colt, but yours may differ.

Perhaps my expungement timeline may help you. My began in January 2020 and was finally executed in September 2020. Then after serving all parties of the notice it’s always recommended to still allow some buffer. For them to officially adhere to the order. There is nothing in an expungement order that says when municipalities or state police have to execute the order. Now this was during the pandemic so maybe nine months was long and could be shorter but I think by end of year is best case scenario in your situation good luck

It would be cheaper and quicker to move to a free state where you don't have to deal with the NJ crap.

Then you wind up wondering why your proctologist has a Ferrari for each day of the week and all your Bitcoin is missing.

OK, I'll bite. If your looking for a rifle to plink and to save your butt when you need too, then drop the $1000 max, although there are some options, and most of those are 7.62x39 piston guns, aka. AK47. Let's say you went plinking with your direct impingement AR based rifle and didn't get to clean it and the zombies come, yea it might still work for a while, but its going to gum up and start failing. Now change that to a piston driven AR15, like a SIG, it will work all day everyday, even if you haven't cleaned it for 10,000 rounds, dropped it in mud, water, sand, dirt, you name it. That's what you get when you up your price target... So either get a AK47 to stay inexpensive, or get a real AR15, not that thing that was made in the 60's.... Just my opinion.