It’s been informative reading so many comments. I have just purchased my first AR15 Platform with the DDM4 V7 a couple of weeks ago. I haven’t taken it to the range yet but I’m scheduled to take it out for a spin the day after Christmas. I do my research before buying anything. I spent over 6 weeks researching high quality AR15′s to gain information needed to make an informed decision. Before this, I haven’t heard of Daniel Defense not because there were unknown, but because I didn’t know very much about guns, gun makers, current technology advances etc. I wanted to make sure I didn’t buy an over priced high end AR15/M4/M16.

After extensive research I ran into a Daniel Defense 12.0 rail system mounted on a different manufacturer. The rail system stood out because I thought it didn’t belong. This is when I discovered the upper and lower was not Daniel Defense. The rail design and quality didn’t match the gun itself. This drove me to research Daniel Defense itself. As mentioned earlier in another post, I too discovered they previously primarily manufactured high end accessories for the AR15 platform and had recently moved into making complete rifles. Because of the DDMV Rail system I began researching Daniel Defense and Daniel Defense M4 Carbines compared to other manufacturers for low, mid and high end. If there rails where so nice and of high quality, their rifles must be too.

I was impressed that they use heavy and light weight, chrome lined, and cold hammer forged barrels with a 1:7 twist. The 1:7 twists means I can shoot heavier grain projectiles. Customer Service ratings where high which is a must when having to resolve issues. Life time guarantee…absolutely unheard of nowadays. The craftsmanship of the rifle and every part and accessory were mind blowing.

We all purchase firearms for different reasons and within the price ranges we can afford. I will not criticize any man or women’s decision based on these criteria. I do stress the importance of research prior to making a purchase that will fit your needs. The AR15 platform is history, fun to shoot, own, and I’m glad we as civilians have manufacturer of many kinds making attempts to target all sorts of consumers.

For me it’s the DDM4 V7 12.0 Modular Rail Carbine in 5.56 NATO. I love this rifle. Once I held it, I had to have it.

Thanks Daniel Defense.

Happy Holidays everyone!

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I had originally wanted something around the quality of LMT or DD but could not justify the cost differences. BUT last night while being my OCD self searching through forums and such I ran across a forum that a guy posted on his DD that was just ordered from http://www.smartgunner.com/DanielDefenseLiteURG.aspx .

I am able to put a DD custom upper together to compliment my Spikes lower for $710 w/o BUIS. Now the total cost of my entire rifle will still be under $1000 with quality iron sights included. I am finally sold on the DD due to the affordability with excellent quality.

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You can just pick this rifle up and know that it will perform.

For all you guys saying, “who cares, just another AR, blah blah blah…”
Yes they are VERY VERY PLentiful, but is quantity such a great thing to have over quality? I think not, this is the highest quality M16/AR-15 platform for the moeny by FAR!!!!
The fact of the matteris, and I implore any and everyone to do the research (And you will come to a similar conclusion believe me) the majority of AR-15′s out there are not mil-spec, are not fit for combat and are only fit to take to the range, not SD, not combat, nothing but plinking!!!!! I’ll buy a $150.00 .22 LR for plinking and stick with a quality AR for SD & potential Combat situations.
Do the research, your rock river arms is a piece of crap range gun, your olympic arms is a piece of crap range gun, your dpms is a piece of crap range gun, stag bushmaster, crap range gun crap range gun.

YES, these are MY personal opinions based on MY personal research (based on facts provided by each manufacturer), so settle down if you own one of the crap ar’s I mentioned above, if you’re happy with your rifle, great, that is what matters for MOST…

The only AR’s I would trust with my/family lives is #1) DD M4, #2) COlt LE6920 (Although they are less bang for your buck and have some rediculously small pins and odd mag wells), #3) BCM M4 (Bad customer service, rated grade F from BBB, and just look on the net G&R tactical has got bad press all over from customers), #4) Noveske N4 Light Carbine (Still batch tested!), #5) LMT Defender, S&W M&P 15a (Still batch tested), sabre defence 90244 (Batch tested),, Charles daily defense D-M4LE (Batch tested!) and armalite m-15a4c (Still batch tested).

If you look at purchasing weapons from a tactical point of view, the DD M4 tops the list with few TRUE contenders.

Just to clarify, I originally started out wanting to buy a RRA AR1252X for $900, but then found the doublestar M4 Car 16 for $700.00 from buds gun shop to be the same gun for $200.00 less; so I started to do research seeing as those guns were out of whack price/quality wise to see if all ar’s are similar, and most of them are sadly, what I found was a lot of crap AR’s and very few true mil-spec combat ready weapons systems that had been actually tested for TDP, or TPD mil-spec tolerances and HPT pressure tested, not batch tested, but every single rifle fully tested to insure quality and functionallity.
I am not biased towards Daniel Defense as a company (although they have such great customer service and they are miles ahead of the competitors in the R&D to engineering real life platforms deparment!) in fact I hadn’;t even heard of them before I started my research. The fact is I just spent the man hours literally deducing each individual rifle with a lot of help from different AR forums and borrowed information from many other researchers out there; as well as direct facts from the manufacturers.
Daniel Defense is the best, and the best price.
Thats my 2 thousand cents!
Tom

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Heres the complete breakdown:
-MPI Bolt
-PRessure tested (HPT) bolt
-Shot peened Bolt
-extractor spring insert
-properly stacked gas key
-M16 bolt/carrier style
-4150 CHF Barrel Steel
-MPI Barrel
-Pressure tested (HPT) Barrell
-Chrome Chamber and bore
-1:7 rifle twist
-5.56/.223 wylde chamber
-M4 style feedramps
-F- MArked front sight base
-pins at FSB: Taper
-Finish under FSB: Parkerized
-Handguard Shields: Single
-Receiver Extension diameter: 1.14
-Staked Castle Nut
-Heavy Buffer
-FCG Pins Diameter: .154″
-Rear Sight: DD A1.5 (Beautiful simplistic approach to sight system out of the box, love it!)
-Warranty: Lifetime! Your Colt LE6920 is only a year warranty, and from what I have heard from special forces guys is that you will be spening money to service it after that year warranty has dried up.

Average Street Price: $1150.00!!

With the Omega 12.0 Rail system you can actually mount your light in front of your barrel eliminating the “barrel” shadow from the light being mounted behind the barrell. Not to mention you have room for any rail system add on you could ever imagine, shit you got room for 2 of every rail system add on you can imagine!!!!!!!

Easiest rifle I have ever sighted in.

Yep, as evidenced by it’s factory included features and it’s exacting mil-spec design, for a lower than normal top tier rifle price; this is by far the best value and MOST COMPLETE M16/AR-15 available to civilian markets.
I have fired over 5000 rounds through my DD M4 with not one malfucntion of any sort, I even stress tested her at 2000 rounds of Prvi 62 grain match down the tube without so much as a (1) patch through the barrel after the first 1000 rounds and no problems what so ever. Tightest (In the good way) tolerances of any AR I have ever handled including Saber Defence, Noveske, Larue, Colt 6920, RRA, Olympic arms, Stag, CMMG, DPMS, Armalite, CDD, BCM, LMT, S&W, and bushmaster; none come close to a “complete M16/AR-15″ Platform as the DD M4 does.
Not only the best bang for your buck, but the best bang period, wihtout getting the tax stamp and getting a real M16 for multiple thousands of dolars (And I would still take my DD M4 over those!!!!!! I have some sepcial forces buddies that couldn’t put the DD down, and hated going back to the military platform from there, seriously they all went out and bought the DD M4 in the next week after shopoting mine, and these are some old school hard-core guys!)
Comes with MAgpul 30 round p-mag, plastic case, sling swivel mounts in front (ambi) and rear.
My brother in law bought an olympic arms upper with DPMS lower for $1,000.00 the same day I bought my DD M4, and he has been hitting himself in the head ever since, I got ten times the gun at just about $500.00 more than his piece’o'crap batch tested non mil-spec Olympic/DPMS. Oh and he had to spend more than $500.00 to get the same accessories standard on my DD M4 (He really couldn’t stand to look at me me for a few months after this! Poor guy! Buyer beware! Research research research!) Sure you can get rifles for cheaper that will shoot, but do you really want to spend $700.00 to get a nice looking pile of shit that may jam up when you need it to save you or your families lives???, or spend the extra $700.00 to get a rifle that will outshoot you for he rest of your life?
Go with the DD M4, you CANNOT be dissapointed!!!!!!!

I got mine with (13) Extra P-mags, (1000) Rounds of match grade 62 gr. Ammo, and (200) Rounds of Black tipped M955 AP (actual AP ammo, not just mild steel swagged green tip ss109/m855 crap!) ammo for a total of $1,550.00! Best deal I have ever seen on anything, and I was oh so glad to be the buyer!!!!!!! Especially with the REAL M955 AP ammo included, that shit is hard to find, and overly expensive when you can!!!!!!!! Whatever M955 ammo is out there is pretty much “grandfathered” to its owner now-a-days; sure you can get the green tip ss109/nm855 crap, but why? it has almost exact ballistic capabilities of regular ball ammo anyways, but on average at $1.00+ a round, no thanks!!!!!!!!!.
Best purchase I have ever made, period.

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“…if you are going for accuracy, steer clear of 55grain bullets. They fire safely and are great for plinking but the 7:1 twist seems to “overspin or over stabalize” them causing more fliers and a really spread out group. The m855 with a 62 grain was very accurate. So my advice would be 62 grain or heavier…” (on 03 Oct 2009 at 1:48 am)

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“…if you are going for accuracy, steer clear of 55grain bullets. They fire safely and are great for plinking but the 7:1 twist seems to “overspin or over stabalize” them causing more fliers and a really spread out group. The m855 with a 62 grain was very accurate. So my advice would be 62 grain or heavier…” (on 03 Oct 2009 at 1:48 am)

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The 1:7 twist ratio is also nice, although I’m not convinced that it’s necessary. But, having it means that if I want to fire an 80 grain bullet with any accuracy, I can.

The sights are simple and one can easily and quickly sight a target and shoot. The weighting of the weapon is excellent and it sits well (comfortable) in your hands (better than almost every other gun I looked at in any case in my opinion).

Having multiple positions available for the adjustable butt stock is nice. One thing here that would be nice would be to have a metal stock although I was unable to find a metal stock on any gun that was under several thousand dollars.

Again, in my opinion, the next closest AR is the Smith and Wesson M&P15T. The S&W is also a very nice gun, but there are several things about it that I believe make the DD M4 the gun to get. The S&W has collapsible sights, where as the DD does not. I’m not sure what the benefit of collapsible sights other than storage or perhaps moving through rough country. I don’t plan on trekking through the jungle and I also don’t think I need to protect the sights. I’d rather have them set like they are on the DD.

Although the rail on the M&P15T is a lot longer than the rail on the M&P15X, it’s still shorter than the DD. Also, the S&W does not come with the forward vertical hand grip. Getting it adds a minimum of $100 to the price, making the total cost of the Smith and Wesson the same as the cost of the DDM4

Finally, I simply think the quality of the DD M4 is better than the S&W M&P15T. The DDM4 looks better and it feels better in my hands.

My guess is both guns fire close to identical (I have not fired the DDM4). But I suspect the DDM4 is more durable and thus will last longer.

Since the price of both guns (as I would equip them) is identical, the M4 is a no brainer for me.

Other guns I looked at include:

Colt AR15 LE – $1600, 20 round mag, shorter rail, weighting not as comfortable as the DD or the S&W. Pass

Bushmaster Modular Carbine AR15 – $1400, 1:9 twist, shorter rail, also the rail is slightly more limiting in what you can use with it. I liked this gun, but for $200 I can get the forward vertical hand grip, the longer rail, the more adjustable stock and the better weighting feel, all which come stock on the DDM4. If you don’t need the vertical grip nor do you care about the longer rail and you want to save $200 but still get a metal rail, then this is probably a good choice. For me, pass.

SIG 556 Classic Swat Diopter – $2,100 – This is an awesome gun! If you can easily spend the extra $500, then this gun is worth it. You get the 1:7 twist ratio, the 16″ barrel with Swiss style hinged stock that is collapsible. The diopter sights are also very cool. The gun “feels” super comfortable in your hands. It is weighted perfectly. The only other gun that is comparable, in my opinion, is the Daniel Defense M4 Carbine.

Unfortunately I can’t tell you what all of these guns are like to fire (other than the Smith and Wesson M&P15T) but after extensive conversation and research, I believe the Daniel Defense and the SIG to be the best performing guns. The Smith and Wesson M&P15T and the Bushmaster are also very nice guns. But, taking everything into consideration, I believe the gun to get is the Daniel Defense M4 Carbine.

In any case, these are all my opinions.

Jason, Phoenix, AZ

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If it’s proprietary I will be heartbroken.

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