My pieced together ar consists of Daniel defense and bravo company. I won't ever sell it though.
Instead of using punches they break out the vice grips and electrical tape.
Outside the roll pins there's not much you can get wrong on the lower. If you do it right, it works, if not it doesn't. May have some extra scratches on it. The upper is about the same too. You can fixture it poorly and tweak it if you're dumb though. An AR is dang simple to put together with a few of the right tools. With all of them and a little experience you can put one together in about 15 minutes.
Outside the roll pins there's not much you can get wrong on the lower. If you do it right, it works, if not it doesn't. May have some extra scratches on it. The upper is about the same too. You can fixture it poorly and tweak it if you're dumb though. An AR is dang simple to put together with a few of the right tools. With all of them and a little experience you can put one together in about 15 minutes.
When buying/selling "pieced together" ARs - that's exactly what it is - a sum of parts.
I've bought "brand name" ARs - no problems.
I've had one professionally built - no problems.
I've built a few myself - no problems.
I've got an upper at gunshow - brand name parts, but at the range I found out delta ring was finger tight ... easy fix, but as I said - just a sum of parts.
I've bought "brand name" ARs - no problems.
I've had one professionally built - no problems.
I've built a few myself - no problems.
I've got an upper at gunshow - brand name parts, but at the range I found out delta ring was finger tight ... easy fix, but as I said - just a sum of parts.
You talkin' 'bout synergy, Mo? 
I would just bet most all ars are built with parts from the cheapest bidder
Pretty much the way I look at it. I figure the cost of the parts new, what I would pay used, then add it up. If some parts aren't listed as a certain brand, I assume lowest possible new price.
If it's assembled by an individual - ie, not a company - then I don't mark it up for being assembled. If it was assembled by a company (ie, Fat Boy Tactical), then you've got someone to go to if anything were to go wrong. You can't do that with an individual, so you have to assume you need to check every part before shooting.
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I couldn't believe how expensive just a decent set of roll pin punches and vice was, but you're correct, the proper tools for the job make the job easier and much less likely to cause damage. I spilt the cost of some of the tools with a co-worker so we could both build AR's for less investment. I'd have the same concerns with a build from an unknown person. Some of those concerns might be mitigated if they tell me how they did the build and what tools they have though. Likewise, if they tell me certain things about the build they might cause me to shy away.
Either way, the only way I'd buy a pre-built AR from someone is if it met my exact specs and was offered for less than I could build it myself. Otherwise, I'd just do the build myself and have zero concerns that it was built properly.
We stock many of the correct punches and roll pin holder/starter punches, what great devices they are. Another great tool to keep around is a small brass hammer. Vise blocks give you that third hand that you're always looking for and a good armorers wrench is handy to have.
I concur. it's funny to me that we hold up mil-spec to such high regard b/c the military doesn't go w/ the best option or product many times but the best bid.
I'd say from a safety point of view buying a random bolt and using it with a random barrel could give you head space issues- and since most people don't have the gauges to check that the owner/seller/buyer may not know that its out of spec
Quality / questionable parts and price aside, my worst fears for Fudd built uppers is lack of moly grease used on the barrel nut or even worse, graphite and graphite based lube. I've worked on uppers where the barrel nut was pretty much fused onto the upper. I've seen barrel nuts with both red and blue loctite used. I've also seen uppers where the barrel nuts were loose and where there was severe galling in the indexing pin / upper receiver notch area. Mostly likely from people hammering barrels into receivers with tight indexing notches, which leads me to question if they hammered the muzzle end bare...
Sometimes, you can see signs of people overly tightening or damage from loosening stuck muzzle devices using receiver clamps instead of properly clamping down on the barrels. It's a bit harder to ruin a lower. Usually I just see a lot of brass marks on the receivers where a brass hammer was judiciously used in hammering in roll pins. I see a lot of damaged and malformed rollpins, due to people not using proper rollpin punches. Then there's always the broken trigger guard tabs, but you usually won't see those on rifles for sale.
Sometimes, you can see signs of people overly tightening or damage from loosening stuck muzzle devices using receiver clamps instead of properly clamping down on the barrels. It's a bit harder to ruin a lower. Usually I just see a lot of brass marks on the receivers where a brass hammer was judiciously used in hammering in roll pins. I see a lot of damaged and malformed rollpins, due to people not using proper rollpin punches. Then there's always the broken trigger guard tabs, but you usually won't see those on rifles for sale.
