Lightweight PCC on a budget?

[olstyn]

As I mentioned in the "What did you shoot today?" thread, my wife and I recently tried out a friend's 9mm AR, and we both liked it, so of course I've been trying to figure out what it would cost to set one up that would work for us. My wife complained that my friend's PCC was too heavy, and I didn't like that it lacked last round bolt hold open. The ~$200 vortex red/green dot sight he had on his seems like a fine option for the purpose of enjoying target practice and/or USPSA PCC division, so I'd probably go down that path with it. Ideally, the whole package less mags would run $1000 or less, which, assuming $200 for the optic, would leave $800 for the gun. That means that going nuts on things like Brigand Arms braided CF handguards is a non-starter, but I'd still like it to be as light as possible in order to allow my wife to enjoy it.

I'm not 100% married to the idea of a dedicated Glock mag lower, but that seems like the smoothest path to cheap, reliable hi-capacity mags, so it's definitely the front-runner in my mind.

What does the P-F collective say? What's the lightest 16" 9mm AR carbine with reliable LRBHO that can be built on a budget of ~$800? I've never built an AR, but I'm not afraid to learn if I can save significant money that way. (It might also be more palatable to buy the parts over time vs all at once.) I own decent quality torque wrenches in both inch-pounds and foot-pounds, so I've at least got the expensive end of the non-specialty tools covered. Beyond that, I don't know what I don't know, so feel free to tell me that I'm an idiot for even thinking about building my own.

[pangloss]

Does it have to be an AR? There's the Ruger PCC, CZ Scorpion, and Beretta CX4. The Beretta can be set up to run M92 or PX4 mags, and the stock length is relatively easily adjusted.

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[olstyn]

It would not have to be an AR, but the configurability of ARs is why my thought process heads in that direction, especially given that light weight is one of the goals. The CZ Scorpion certainly has some appeal as well, but my understanding is that the stock trigger is not very nice, and I'm not sure how you could shave weight on the gun itself, so I think it might end up both overpriced relative to the budget and overweight. I don't know too much about the Beretta; I'll have to look into that option as well.

[jandbj]

No LRBHO but the Kel-Tec is light, inexpensive, and pretty darn good for what it costs.



Yes, I’m stunned I typed that too. But it’s absolutely true.

[GuanoLoco]

You might want to make sure your wife is interested in the recoil of a blowback lightweight 9mm PCC.

They aren’t hard to build IF you have a decent lower and a barrel with a decent, preferably external feed ramp for reliability. Troubleshooting them can be an expensive and frustrating PITA, but they can also be surprisingly reliable if you get it right.

LRBHO is over-rated and can be another source of unreliability.

[mmc45414]

I think $800, Glock mag, BHO is probably a pick any two situation.

I have a CMMG that I did buy as a separate upper and lower and consequently had to fiddle with the ejector but once I got it tweaked it has run great. I will also say the 9mm AR is one of those things I was not sure about but now that I have it I think it is one of the coolest things I have. They are listed as 6.2 pounds, how light were you trying to get?

Also, it is the Colt pattern and I have three of the Brownells magazines that have been great. If I had Glocks I would probably switch to one of that pattern, but the 32 rounds Colt style really are fine. And it has BHO.

[olstyn]

You might want to make sure your wife is interested in the recoil of a blowback lightweight 9mm PCC.

That's a fair point, but she specifically called out my friend's gun as being "too heavy," especially in terms of having a muzzle-heavy balance. It might be more that it needs to be balanced differently for her than that it needs to be at the absolute minimum weight.

LRBHO is over-rated and can be another source of unreliability.

I get that in a typical USPSA scenario, it won't come into play very often, but it seems to me that when/if it does, it'd be quite a bit faster to slap a bolt release than to run the charging handle. Of course, if you run a 30+ round gun dry, your stage score is probably already screwed anyway, so I guess it's entirely possible that I'm overthinking things.

In researching this, I'm also noticing that dedicated pcc lowers seem to run double or so the price of normal AR lowers from just about every manufacturer - is that just a supply and demand thing, or is there a technical reason?

[ranger]

I just got back from the range where I practiced with my AR based PCC. Cheap. It is an early Palmetto State Armory based on an adapter going into a traditional AR lower and using Colt style mags - this was before PSA started the Glock mag options. I bought it as a complete kit minus the stripped lower. Upper was factory assembled - I just assembled the lower. I added an old Tasco Propoint PDP3 left over from ancient USPSA Open days. It runs well. I have a SIG MPX SBR I normally shoot but the MPX is a lot more expensive.

[Odin Bravo One]

Mine isn’t it a PCC, it is a PCP, but that’s a legal technicality. It weighs in under 6 lbs fully dressed. Due to its length, I posted a photo in the long guns photo thread as we don’t really have an AR pistols photo thread. Minus the suppressors, I’m into it less than $1k.

[GJM]

I have a bunch of different 9mm carbines. A pistol caliber cartridge like 9mm is required for USPSA, but my experience is that 9mm AR carbines are significantly more costly and significantly less reliable than similar .223/5.56 carbines. If you are using a blow back design as opposed to something like the MPX, they also recoil a lot more than 5.56 carbines when using full power commercial 9mm ammo. Most everyone competitive in USPSA with a blow back AR is loading lower power ammo. The advantage of the 9mm carbine is you can shoot steel at pistol ranges, and be invited to pistol shoots.

Even leaving aside the ballistic advantage of rifle cartridges, I would take 5.56 or .300 BLK over a semi-auto 9mm carbine every day for defense, based purely on reliability.