Home Forums Hunting & Shooting AR and Tactical Rifles What's the best bone stock (OTC) AR-15 to look at for around a grand?

If a man was looking for a buy off the shelf AR-15 and had around a grand to put in it, what's the best one for reliability, accuracy and overall quality?

Uses:

Home Defense
Coyote Hunting

Your not specific enough. But you might look at the RRA operator, currently going for 1k.

I would buy a Stag myself.

I think a coyote gun that doubles for home defense would do the trick. While you can use an M4 for coyote hunting, I would suspect you would do more coyote hunting than home defense.

Lets work on a profile. I assume you would want a 16-18 inch barrel for manuverability, a flat top for optics, .223 or 5.56 for ammo(?). There are many stock options, fixed or collapsible basically. There are weight choices, mostly barrel contour. There are handguard options, basically free float vs not, may help accuracy for hunting coyotes.

I bought a Rock River midlength upper with a 16 inch lightweight barrel (not chrome lined) with an aluminum free float tube with a flat top receiver, it has a rail front gas block so the fixed sight is absent. I have a LRB lower with a 4 position stock. It weighs 7.5 pounds with scope loaded. It fits easily in the truck for roadside coyote encounters. I could easily add folding irons and QD scope mount and have a fine home defense weapon. I am into this, built to my desire for roughly $700. I think you have plenty of budget for a great rifle, just figure out how you want it.

Rock River, Stag, Armalite, Bushmaster/Remington/DPMS and many others make a great AR.

18 to 20 inch barrel would be fine.

Yes, more coyote hunting than use for home stuff.

Optics yes, probably a red dot or something similiar.

Anything under 9lbs scopes is fine.

A lot depends on what type of stock you want, coll or target. If you want the best set for accuracy a Magpul, but they are heavier than the adjustables. The rra comes with a free floated guard, yankee hill fold down front, removable A2 iron rear site, chromed bolt and carrier, Ergo grip. Above mentioned brands are great, but in these tight money days its the extras that make a difference.

What about the Smith and Wesson units?

If you go with RRA you wont be disappointed. They all the varieties your looking for.

I bought an operator for my wife. 1/2" groups with 40gr BT and X-terminator. That was just a handload I worked up for another rifle, I didn't even tune it to the rifle.

I don't think you will go wrong with S and W either. CDNN has a bunch on sale for the $7-800 range. Mostly tactical type guns though.

I've had great luck with mine.

Terry

Armalite. The original. kwg

Colt equals quality parts. For a compact carbine, the 6920 is hard to beat. For pure AR accuracy, take a look at the 6724 stainless barrelled rifle called the HBar Elite. Very accurate.

Read this, contains most if not all the info you're looking for.
http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?...mp;single=true&gid=5&output=html

Sportsmans Warehouse has this

Sportsmans Warehouse

I am not any kind of expert.. I have shot numerous colts and bought a rock river. In my experience the RR is much more accurate. I dont have any bad opinions on any, just that the several rock rivers I have experience with shoot much better groups than the colts did.
I'm not saying you cant make one shoot better, just that if I was buying for out of the box accuracy, I would go with the RR. No problems meeting the 1" moa guarantee on the one I bought, I was pleasantly suprised.

I have a Bushmaster XM15E2 and I paid $820.00. Spend the rest on ammo and mags.

White Oak Armament, with DMR barrel and A4 receiver (not listed but it's an option).

+10000000

should be able to find one for your budget, maybe a little used, but it's not gonna matter....this is thee way to go imo

It would be hard to beat the Rock River Predator Pursuit for that money.