NiceSo earlier this week I had a spare receiver, LPK, and I felt like doing a "challenge" build throughout the week. I wanted to build a complete 16" AR-15, with an LPVO+mount, that weighed 7 pounds or LESS all inclusive (bolt, lower, upper, stock, optic + mount) for under $1000.
The lightest budget friendly AR I could find on the market was the M&P 15. It's a standard setup featuring an adjustable stock, and colt-style handguard. It weighs in at 6.7 pounds per the manufacturer website. That's without optic or mount, just iron sights. MSRP is $812 per S&W's website. Here's that rifle below.
Additional criteria:
- No skeletonized parts (bolt, handguard, stock, grip, etc). I'm sure I could have shaved another half pound off by skeletonizing everything but that would have increased cost by a LOT going over my budget, and also I am not a fan of running things like a skeletonized bolt, or handguard. Sorry, just my preference, I don't trust the durability. Been to too many carbine classes where someone was out of the game after an hour because their skeletonized handguard cracked under normal course usage.
- No pencil barrels. This could have saved me another 7-9 ounces of weight probably, but again, I am not a fan of pencil barrels due to your POI shifting greatly after moderate use (several MOA from my experience after 2 mags).
- No super short or non-MLOK handguards . I'm a tall guy, and I like to have a longer handguard to get a proper c-clamp grip. So can't do short handguards. I also prefer MLOK due to the vast amount of accessories.
If I had used skeletonized parts, short handguard (below 12"), and a pencil barrel, I am sure I could have gotten under 6 pounds with optic (probably 5.5 - 5.8 area). But probably would have spent another $500+ easily. But I digress.
My build details below. With each part I weighed them separately on my compact kitchen scale, and tried to round off to the closest hundredths of an ounce.
Now just to sanity check myself, I weighed the complete rifle on my scale with a single empty magazine inserted. I got almost 7 pounds on the dot. Seeing as your average 30 round plastic mag weighs around 3-3.5 ounces, I'd say the total weight was well within the margin of accuracy you can expect from a kitchen scale.
- Completed Lower - Magpul Fixed MOE stock ($30/9.5 ounces), PSA stripped lower ($50, 8.8 ounces), CMMG AR15 LPK w/o FCG ($15, 1.25 ounces), Fostech Binary Sport Trigger ($260/3.6 ounces), Milspec pistrol grip w/hardware ($5, 2.5 ounces), Guntec Carbine buffer kit with tube, carbine spring, and carbine buffer ($29.99, 6.5 ounces).
Total Lower weight/costs: $390 / 32.15 ounces or 2.0 pounds
- Completed Upper - United Defense BCG FA profile ($60, 9.2 ounces), APF Armory 5.56 NATO 16" barrel 1/7 twist ($240, 27 ounces), Davidson Defense 15" Slim profile MLOK handguard with barrel nut ($50, 15 ounces), Recoil Technologies Micro Low-Profile gas block kit with tube ($18, 3.4 ounces), Strike Industries LINK handstop ($12, 1.4 ounces). Various pins + dust cover ($5, 1.0 ounces). I got a free ambi-charging handle from Delta Tactical for ordering the BCG and handguard in the same order, but I'll add $10 and 2 ounces for that as well to make it more realistic.
Total Upper weight/costs: $395/ 59.0oz or 3.68 pounds
- Optic setup - Vortex Crossfire ll 1-4x24 LPVO ($160, 14.8 ounces), UTG 30mm Quick Detach Rings ($29, 2.4 ounces)
Total Optic Setup weight/costs: $189 / 17.2oz or 1.08 pounds
Rifle total Weight/Costs: $974.00 / 108.35 ounces or 6.77 pounds
View attachment 348316
Complete rifle:
View attachment 348317
It's so light, I can actually swing it like a baseball bat when I run dry.
