Can I save any money at all building a 204 upper with components bought from midway or whoever else or should I just go ahead and buy one? Will be using my same lower, just thinking about a 204 upper with a fast twist bbl. White Oak looks nice, but wondering if i can build one cheaper?
I guess the tools I need to assemble may make it cheaper to buy.

Unless you can buy at dealer cost you won't save much if any by building your own, but when you build you get just what you want and don't have to settle for whatever the factory decides to use to save on cost.

Unless you need to do maintenance on them etc... I wouldn't waste the time... I used to try to do it all, and found you don't save much if any really.

I keep the tools on hand in case I have an emergency, like a barrel die and can't wait to send the upper off to barrel etc...

I priced all the parts and tools and it seems I can buy a really nice one for less than building. Unless there's some source of cheap components I don't know about?

You can't really count tools in the cost of the build. I understand they are an additional and necessary expense, but can be used to build others, or sell when finished.

I've put together three lowers with a little help and definitely did not save any money, but did get them configured exactly as I wanted with great triggers.

Tools are really a one time ivestment, if you can buy parts at a good price you can save a few bucks and have an AR built the way you want it. Prices seem to have come down in price a bit in the last few month's which is a big plus.

For the money I would just buy some kind of custom .204 upper. This is what I did and that way you know you will get match accuracy as well for a price that will be close to the same as building. My .204 upper with reloads will print .5" MOA at 100 yards. It is really impressive at 200 and 300 yards as well. Plus it will print nice groups with a wide array of bullets as well so you can load the bullet for the specific game you are hunting whether it be for prairie dogs or coyotes. I love my.204...

What type of upper did you get drakeky?

I bought a dan carey carey custom. The website is dancareycustomrifles.com I believe. Great guy to talk to and does GREAT work at a resonable price. His guns are tack drivers as well. Like I stated.. Mine shoots several loads under an inch and shoots 2 different loads and bullets into 1/2". Very nice work..

Dan's a good guy.

Dan Carey builds a great upper. I have one that I purchased used and couldn't be happier. I also have one in 25 WSSM that Mike Milli (DTech) built. I don't think you can go wrong with either one of them. I don't know about Dan Carey, but I know Mike is still in the midst of a huge back-log of orders right now. Check them out! Both are great guys and build superior uppers.

I googled Dan Carey and came up with this for his website: www.careycustomrifleco.com

That is it.. Great guy to deal with too... Makes a great product.