[Crispy129]

I'm looking to get an assault rifle so I can start getting into three-gun shooting at some point. What's a good AR and company for the money that costs about $1000? I'm willing to go 200-300 higher if it will be a significantly better deal for the money, but I'd rather keep it around $1000 or less. I'm about 5'6" or so, so I don't want a musket. I would also like it to be 5.56 or 7.62 and have a picatinny rail because I have a couple of fore grips and a pressure switch flashlight that I'd like to be able to use with it, and I want to get a decent EO Tech sight for it (I'd still like it to have iron sights as well). I have pretty limited experience shooting other AR's and really don't have the time to search through the gigantic multitudes of AR's available, so I thought I'd ask the subject matter experts and at least narrow it down to a few AR's to check out.

Thanks for the help!

[Quentin]

Well if you want an assault rifle, join the Army! If you don't need select fire, then get a semiauto rifle like the rest of us and don't use the antigunners terminology...

BCM is hard to beat but Spikes Tactical has a very low price on their LE ARs.

Take a look at this if you want to see what lengths BCM goes to to produce a top notch AR:
BCM Stuff... - M4Carbine.net Forums

[Crispy129]

Thanks for the suggestions, I'll check them out. What do you think AR stands for? I call it an assault rifle because that's what it is. I don't call it a semi auto rifle because that could get confused with some normal semi auto hunting rifle. I want one with a pistol grip and 20-30 rnd mag capacity for three gun/tactical type shooting.

I'm not a politician and not here to play word games and call it a "semi auto gunpowder fueled projectile launcher" to make the anti gun idiots happy.

[DrumJunkie]

Originally Posted by Crispy129

Thanks for the suggestions, I'll check them out. What do you think AR stands for? I call it an assault rifle because that's what it is. I don't call it a semi auto rifle because that could get confused with some normal semi auto hunting rifle. I want one with a pistol grip and 20-30 rnd mag capacity for three gun/tactical type shooting.

I'm not a politician and not here to play word games and call it a "semi auto gunpowder fueled projectile launcher" to make the anti gun idiots happy.

You'll find with a lot of "gun guys" that evening news terms like Assault Rifle are not real popular. Being most people buy a "Black Rifle" (another TV term) for reasons other than house to house fighting many stay away from terms like that. I know several that have used an AR to hunt with. Me, I"m more a I want to shoot at things with it so I got one. The one I have is not too popular But it is a good shooter. I have a DoubleStar model Star-15. It does what I need it to do but I would like to get a flat top upper at some point. Though the handle really isn't a hindrance for me.

There's a lot of AR people here that can help you better than I can. Yuo can build one most the time cheaper than you can buy one like you want as is. There are a lot of threads about that in the AR sub forum

[Gatekeeper]

Originally Posted by Crispy129

Thanks for the suggestions, I'll check them out. What do you think AR stands for? I call it an assault rifle because that's what it is. I don't call it a semi auto rifle because that could get confused with some normal semi auto hunting rifle. I want one with a pistol grip and 20-30 rnd mag capacity for three gun/tactical type shooting.

Not to derail any more but I always assumed AR stood for "Automatic Rifle"
Apparantly I was wrong also. AR stands for Armalite, 15 was the model number

http://www.armalite.com/images/Library/History.pdf
ArmaLite licensed the
designs and trademarks of the AR-10 and AR- 15 to Colt’s in
January 1959.
Early Colt AR-15s, their magazines, and their operator’s manuals were marked with
ArmaLite’s name. Colt’s retained the AR-15 designation on commercial rifles. To this
day Colt’s has a model designation with the letters AR, which stands for “ArmaLite”.
___________________________
An assault rifle is a select-fire weapon firing an intermediate powered cartridge, so by definition a semi-auto AR would not be considered an assault rifle. In function it is exactly the same as a "semi-auto hunting rifle"
The anti's like to use cosmetic features like collapsible/folding stocks, pistol grips, flash hiders etc, to define a semi-auto rifle as an Assault Rifle, so I don't like to help them out by mis-using the term as well.
_____________________

To your original post, for 3gun gaming in close to your price range, you would probably be very happy with a DPMS, Spikes, or better yet if you want you can buy an upper from BravoCompany (as Quentin suggested) with pretty much any configuration of quality parts and handguards/rails you want and add to the lower of your choice.
Bravo Company USA, Inc. AR-15, M16, M4 Tactical Gear, Parts, Accessories.

[Quentin]

Crispy, Gatekeeper explained it well and it IS important for you to understand the politics and tactics used against us - the gun owners in this country. When you use the same inflamatory labels gun grabbers use, you play right into their hands. Terms like "assault rifle" and "Saturday Night Special" hurt our cause because the average citizen is swayed by the distorted perception of what actually is being described and many tend to agree and say "the average joe shouldn't have that, it's too scary!"

And Gatekeeper also is right, AR stands for ARmaLite. Always has and still does. In fact ArmaLite had at least a couple dozen firearms designs and not all were rifles. The model numbers all began with AR. There are other people who definitely aren't your friends that want you to think it stands for assault rifle. Then take away your normal semiauto firearms.

Getting back on topic, how goes your search? Hopefully we can help out.