I want an AR-15.

Anyone have one for sale or can anyone give me advice? What should I buy or stay away from...

Stay away from Olympic. All I hear is bad things about them. Delton seems to be in that same catagory too.

What do you want to do with it?
How much do you want to spend?
Do you reload?
Are you going to put optics on it, if so what type?

There are 10,000,000,000 possibilities, and we need more information before providing a recommendation.

I want to be able to defend my family's food, water and well-being from 500 hungry city folks from my crows nest or from the woods around my house. But until then, I wanna hunt critters.

I want to spend $900 for the total package. AR, scope. laser. rails, clips... everything.

No, I do not re-load.

I'm thinking of a short 3x9 and a red-dot that can work together. I would actually love to have some sorta night vision (night vision or Thermal). But night vision will break my bank.

Thanks for your help and recommendation.

I've been looking at the S&W Sport (no forward assist nor dust cover.)

Stay Away form Blackthorne and Hesse if your building. I'm also not fond of Armalite or Olympic arms, I Have had alot of issues with them.

If your wanting to buy a great Rifle look into Spikes Tactical, there awesome guns fit finish and quality is there price aint bad either.

sent you a pm

If the total budget is 900, I'd spend as little as you can on the rifle, and as much as you can on the optics. With that said, you're not going to get a good full length rail for $900 w/ optics.

I'd go find a gun shop that will sell you a lower for cheap. Since you asked, I suspect a Plum crazy would work, but I personally prefer a standard alum lower.

I would then order a kit from J&T
http://jtdistributing.net/store/more_k_c20k.html

That will put you at right around $600 for the rifle. I'd then take that $300 and get the best scope you can afford (I just sold a Nikon M223 for $300, and Cabelas has their Zeiss Conquest 3-9 on-sale for 399). I wouldn't bother with the lower end red-dot/laser stuff. A lot of it is trash.

Thats what I would do.

Spend you money on the rifle first. My rec for the money is Spikes, High Standard and Bushmaster. Spend a bit more and get the S&W tactical not the sport. If you want a good scope system go with the Burris. You can fit both optics and a reflex sight on the same mount. It's the poor man's Trijicon.

Take optics off the list and $900 for just a quality rifle is doable, sounds like you want to stake your life on the rifle so don't get cheap. I just went through this myself and went with a used RRA 20" Varmint upper for around $500. It's a little heavy so be careful with that. If I could choose the deal I would rather have a 20" Predator upper from RRA (1 pound less), but that's like $750 new. Super important is twist and chamber, the RRA has a Wylde chamber in 1:8 twist which is pretty accurate with both NATO 5.56 and .223 ammo, both with heavier bullets. I'm not saying you have to go with a Wylde in 1:8, it's what my research pointed to for me. If I were you I would want to be able to shoot 5.56 NATO ammo.

I am also getting a custom Spikes lower with a Vltor EMOD and JP match trigger from Morgan (Dallas Shooting Supplies) for under $500, without the options it could be had for under $300. With that said, you could pick up a complete Plum Crazy lower as a temporary solution just to get firing for under $150 and sell it later losing just a few bucks if any. I'd just keep it for a backup anyway.

Optically if your wanting to defend yourself from groups of zombies 250y away, you may want to look at an illuminated reticle 1.5-6x or 2-7 and maybe a 3x and they can be had for around $200 and of course way more; Bushnell has a new trophy XLT 1.5-6x42 ILL I've been looking at. Close range you could look at a holosight (also decent models start at $150-$200) and a tac flashlight ($50-$70). I'm not sure a laser is effective, sure looks cool though: but it's not for me. Night vision, forget the budget, $450 bare minimum. Flip up front and rear sights is a good idea but you may be looking at $150 for anything decent there too.

900 is plenty to build or buy a great rifle.

I would suggest you call Morgan, he can hook you up with everything you need.

x2

Cant go wrong with Stag, Bushmaster, armalite, Smith and Wesson, Spikes, or any other big name AR. I would go as milspec as possible (IMO there is absolutely no need for a heavy bull barrel on an AR 15 and dust covers forward assist ect.. are very good to have).

A lot of people dislike Olympic but I have owned them and fired thousands of rounds through them with no issues at all. As a matter of fact they where down right accurate.

Optics will depend on what you want to do. If I where you would get a Mk AR and an eotech, and put both of them on larue mounts.