I would like your expert opinion on this subject.

I was in a WalMart in North GA this evening and they had a DPMS sportical for $587. I noticed it did not have forward assist or a dust cover. Other than those 2 items, I could not see it was missing any of the common goodies for an entry level AR. I think the price was excellent ?

My main question is - would this lower be usable with other uppers if I wanted to try a wssm or others in the future? (it is marked 223 Rem/5.56mm) Thanks for any info as I am not very educated in the AR dept !

Yeah the lower is standard and usable with other uppers. We have a Sportical that my youngest son uses for a deer rifle. He has killed several deer with it and I use it often for a predator calling rifle because it is lighter than other ARs. The lack of forward assist and dust cover bothered me at first but neither is necessary for a hunting rifle imo. In fact if a round doesn't chamber properly, bumping the fa just makes the problem worse in my experience. The Sportical upper is also thicker than the standard uppers because the alloy is of a 'lesser grade' or something. But it functions and shoots fine. PH

Stay away.

Yes you could use the lower with other uppers. Which you'll probably need to do so since its a DPMS.

I just ordered a Sportical bare upper from Midway yesterday. They look like a well built upper. I have not yet decided on my barrel, yet. I'm thinking a mid length with an A-2 front sight so I can put on a fixed sight carry handle. Every time I've used my forward assits, I only made the problem worse instead of better. I do have a DPMS lower I've had for about 4 years now. It's solid and I have never had any issues with it. kwg

I forgot to add, we had a Sportical in our Walmart for a total of 3 days before I sold it Friday night. It would be nice if we could have more than one at a time. I'm still waiting for the Sig 400 to show up. kwg kwg

When my son went looking,he passed on the sportical because it had no sights..He wanted one ready to shoot out the door without having to order some sight system before he could go shooting.

Jayco

I really don't think their whole marketing gig was tuned to YOUR kid....

When you live in a small town with just one stop light with the nearest Wal-Mart in another State(Washington)..It effects how and what you buy...

I wouldn't buy any rifle without some sort of sighting system on it and gas prices what they are..

His friends have DPMS(an one Sportster)Stag/Rock River and Colt..I just gave my opinion on the Sportster w/o sights.

Jayco

Thanks for the info. I understand this is not the top of the line, but I don't want invest alot into an AR @ this time. I may give one a shot. I am a die hard bolt action guy, so this will be a jump for me.

thanks again

Our Walmart stocks some Center Point 4-16's for $70. Not a great scope but usable until something better comes along. I have a 2-7 Center Point on a Mini 14 and it works just fine for what it is. kwg

Hi everybody. Figured id sign up and chime in. Just picked another one of these up a couple hours ago in livingston, tx. This is my second dpms sportical and my 5th ar rifle. It came with 2 30 rnd d&h mags in a cardboard box. My other one came in nice blowmold case with 2 c-products mags and cleaning kit. Cant complain though it was $571 out the door after discount. Only gripe is the sporting goods employees at that particular store are rude and stupid. Never had any issues buying guns at the store i used to work at in pineville, la. Back to the gun, youd do perfectly fine with this rifle. Ive never had any problems from my other sportical after a fewthousand rounds. Youll find you dont need a dust cover and the forward assist will get you into more trouble than good. Ignore all the ar snobs that think the price dictates performance or quality. Ive got 2 dpms sporticals, 1 olympic k-16, and 1 s&w m&p15. They have been flawless in performance and quality. Had a bushmaster and it was a POS. Never could run a full mag through it without something going wrong. The olympic has the best fit and finish of all my ars. I think they get a bad rep b/c everybodys on that bandwagon and they would rather agree with everybody else. Id bet most olympic bashers (or any bashers) never owned or fired one much like most ar snobs. To sum it up you wont be disappointed with a dpms and you can always swap parts out if necessary.

I got my slick sided DPMS upper today. Nothing cheap about them. Good and solid and they slid right onto my other 3 lowers. Now I need a barrel. kwg

Have had forward assist since I bought ARs in the late 80s. Have YET to have a FA get me into trouble... of course you do have to understand things like dust covers and FA, how they work, what they are for etc..

As to Olympic bashers, I have only a sample of 2. Neither one ever functioned correctly. But FWIW about 8 years after the fact they finally got a customer service rep that came on line and offered to solve a barrel chamber issue. I was finally impressed.

It doesn't mean oly sucks these days though.

You are correct though, the AR doesn't have to be expensive to work right these days.

I would not spend MORE money to do away with parts that have been there and actually can be a plus at times IE FA/dust cover

I just have to wonder how buying the bottom line gun from any company can be a good thing? There are shortcuts taken...

but for 99%, I guess it don't matter.

At least the lower is made of aluminum

Personally, if it's reasonably accurate and most importantly, reliable then I could like it.

Terry

Thats actually the point of some of them... some folks are just happy with a plinker so to say and one that will dole out cheap ammo 2-4 inches at 100 or so. And work most of the time.

They don't need a combat or match gun. It doesn't need to be reliable after dropping in the mud and sand, it doesn't need to shoot 2 inch groups at 600 yards.

We all have our reasons for owning and a LOT of the time I am the one that misses the boat by simply thinking along the lines of my accuracy needs and nothing else...

FWIW I've had friends that have bought model one, and even cdnn parts guns, and have ended up with bottom tier guns that to this day, thousands of rounds later, have never had a hiccup.

Then I watched a friend buy a piston Ruger, had ZERO need for that gun, paid over 2000 bucks for gun and scope and ammo etc.... and he isn't capable of the [bleep] accuracy that gun has. Sure its supposed to be hell for reliable but what is he going to use it for? Can't see in his area past 100 yards most of the time, 200 max typically except for a few rare instances, and his plan is its a hog gun, and he'll just dump a mag when he sees em. IE he ain't gonna be aiming, can guarantee that. But the salesman saw him coming.... A sportical or parts gun would have sufficed just fine, been more accurate and plenty reliable.

And I'm not posting this as a flame thread either, just simply that I am tunnel visioned at times and I think we all can be.

Honestly I have not built my ideal truck gun yet, but when I get around to it, it won't be much, other than have a pretty decent barrel on it( can't help myself there...) But it won't need to be top line because it'll get dinged, dusty, abused etc...

I can understand that, I have my reasons for something and am oblivious to others reasons.

But here's how it usually goes, someone asks about a cheap AR, they don't know anything about them and don't want to spend a ton of money to see if they like them. Several specimens get thrown in the mix then someone asks what are you going to use it for? The answer is always plinking, a little coyote hunting and home defense so it must be accurate and reliable...

The design has a standard and choosing one that doesn't measure up is beyond me.

To the OP, I am not saying you asked for any of this but this topic comes up alot. Personaly, I wouldn't own one without a shell deflector, forward assist or dust cover, there's just no reason to. I also want a chrome lined bore for my "plinkers" and a quality barrel for my hunters.

While I'm sure there are lots of threads out there .... what is the beef with DPMS?? My M-4-ish is great ... probably 1-1.5k rounds through it and it keeps on chuggin'. Decent ammo will produce 1-1.25" 5-shot groups at 100 iffin' that's what I'm after.

My R25 is fine for accuracy, but some 308 ammo doesn't have the umph to push the bolt back far enough to pick the next round. Decent quality ammo and it ticks likes its supposed to. Wondered if taking a coil off the spring would help with the cheaper ammo, but then decided not to shoot cheaper ammo.

I think the beef is with the parts not being up to spec and this can cause problems when you run them hard. My one and only DPMS was a Mini SASS. It was very accurate and never gave me a moments trouble. That said I never ran it hard either.

Terry

I"ve run the snot out of some DPMS stuff. While I don't care for most of it, at least the older stuff, I never had a single problem with it. It was not made strong enough "looking" to keep me happy, but as I said, it never failed...

I wanted a cheap truck rifle so I bought a Plum Crazy lower and a DPMS sportical works like a charm is very accurate and feeds everything I have fed it so far. Everything for under $500.00

DPMS would not nearly be any of my parts choices for competition... but we aren't all in competition...

And truth be told RE a risk your life rifle, nothing at all wrong with a Colt with, IMHO, a replacement trigger...

Maybe I just had bad luck but I've had a few problems with their parts and to choose their bottom line gun just does not compute with me.

But I see a few here that swear by them.

Junk!!!

Based upon?

I like my junk(to some) just fine.What will the high end do mine won't?

Less than $700 the way it is.Smith and Wesson with a Lifetime Warranty.



Jayco

Actually probably a fair amount yours won't do that a more expensive one would do. But then again most don't need theirs to do anymore than yours does. Both statements make a lot of sense and are true.

Same here. Mine shoots very well.

100 Meter 5 shot group first time to the range with it.

Dont buy a sprot. They do not have a forward assit on them. The forward assist is crutial on a AR platform!

Absolutely nothing wrong with the Sportical unless you shoot lefty. No brass deflector.

Can't quite remember the last time I used the forward assist on my several AR's. Oh wait. That would be never.