I will agree that for most people a PSA rifle is fine but there is a huge difference in the fit/feel/finish in a PSA and a top shelf rifle. The devil is in the details. Properly sized gas ports, barrel nuts that aren’t so tight they need a 4ft breaker bar or need to be cut off (I have seen this with a PSA rifle). It’s not their AR15 line but at Mid Carolina Saturday matches, the PSA AR9s fail like clockwork for all sorts of reasons. I’ve seen well over a dozen go down at that place.
If the quality level of a particular brand meets or surpasses your needs and it saves money over another model, I am all for the saved cash being free to spend on ammo, optics, etc but there IS a difference and slapping the word milspec on something doesn’t mean it’s going to be identical to another “milspec” something. Like Tommy Boy says “I can take a dump in a box and slap a guarantee on it and all you’ve got is a guaranteed piece of crap”
I agree with a lot of what is being said in this post!
My thought is that if we are being realistic 99% of AR15 owners in this country are never going to put their rifle through even match type conditions. They are going to take it out a few times a year fire 500 or so round in pristine conditions at targets under 200 yards and 99% of the rifles in their hands are going to be up to the task. More malfunctions I see with rifles and handguns are operator error vs equipment failure.