Built my first lower today. Well actually, I and my brother-in-law set about to build two of them, but only one was completed. Ran into issues with one of them. Had two stripped lowers: an Anderson and a PSA blem. Both were around the same price and since I wanted to build two, I thought I'd try both. The Anderson went together fine.
Then ran into multiple troubles with the PSA. First, the mag well is obscenely tight. Magazine won't slide freely in and out and wouldn't come close to dropping a magazine when pressing the mag release. Something definitely off on the mag well. I should have stopped there with the PSA lower and just sent it back, but thought that it'll eventually wear in and loosen up. Then went to install the bolt catch. Installed that and drove in the roll pin and then observed that it had no spring tension (yes, i had installed the spring and bolt catch detent). So, took out the roll pin and see that the bolt catch detent is completely stuck in the hole. I mean jammed in there. Wouldn't come out at all. At this point, I just completely gave up on this lower. And here I sit with a brand new PSA lower which is basically unusable at this point. I'll call PSA on Monday and see if they will do anything. I'm kicking myself as I should have just stopped when the mag well was obviously way too tight and not to spec. But I continued on and tried to assemble anyways, so I would guess PSA may not let me return the lower at this point, given that it has a freaking bolt catch detent and spring completely wedged in the hole. There doesn't seem to be a way for me to get the bastard out of there anyways! And not even sure if it's worth the effort of returning as I'd have to return it through a FFL I'm sure. Stupid PSA lower will end up being a $110 lower after all of the back and forth through FFLs and multiple transfer fees.
On a happy note, we did get the Anderson lower built. That one went together just fine with a DPMS milspec lower parts kit. We had a couple of fun learning experiences Damn....can detent pins fly off at some hellacious speeds or what?! Absent the flying detents and protracted hand/knee hunts for the same, we got it all together and everything functions as it should. Mated that one up to a NIB DPMS oracle 16 complete upper that I purchased from a member here. Seems like it'll be a great basic carbine length AR.