Building my first AR 15 what do I need, any advice?

First thing I recommend you need to do is check out calguns.net which is a forum for californian gun owners, they have a quite active discussion on assembling ARs. You can even get around the bullet button option if you like and still be Cali-legal, You'll avoid a lot of the B.S. and FUD found in YA by the uninformed. Depending where you live you can even get help from other members when putting together your AR.

If you can put together Legos you can build an AR, plus you can put it together exactly the way you want. Assembling the lower is pretty easy with very little needed in the way of special tools.Here's a guide I used when assembling my lower: An upper is more challenging, but theres http://www.calguns.net/OLL/assembly.html a lot of very good complete uppers available that can be shipped directly to your house starting at around $400 on up. A quality lower can be built for around $250 or more depending on what parts you get.

JD Machine makes AR 15 parts in San Diego, including stripped uppers and lowers. You can find their stripped lowers for around $99, another good choice is the Aero Precision lower which generally sells for $89.

While some manufacturers of commercial grade parts are quite good, I prefer milspec parts because quality is more uniform.

Here's a list of vendors I use on a regular basis, remember only the stripped lower is considered a firearm and the only thing that's regulated through an FFL, everythng else can be ordered on-line and sent directly to your house, so you can save on state tax and sometimes shipping costs.

http://search.yahoo.com/r/_ylt=A0oGdU20WxFOYw4ANr9...

http://jdmachinetech.com/556.html

http://search.yahoo.com/r/_ylt=A0oGdWlyXRFOvCAA2gt...

http://search.yahoo.com/r/_ylt=A0oGdWm_XRFOvXEA6j5...

http://search.yahoo.com/r/_ylt=A0oGdWn0XRFOcxUAJrp...

It really helps to have a completed rifle to compare to. You will need a minimum of $150 of specialized tools to build an AR-15 from individual parts, plus a couple of hundred dollars of regular hand tools, which you might have. A torque wrench is good for tightening the barrel and a 4" minimum vise is required. My son built an upper from Spikes Tactical receiver, and a 20" YHM barrel. It took most of the afternoon. He gets touching bullet holes at 100 yds with it on his Bushmaster lower and handloads. He has not built the lower yet.

Step 1- Move out of California.

Step 2- Build an AR.

Don't buy the cheapest you can get or bushmaster. You'll regret it.

Look here for more info.......

http://www.ar15.com/

Is this your first AR15?... If so - I suggest you buy an already built rifle.....