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The AR-15 market has never given buyers more choices than it does now. The number of companies making them is virtually countless. Price points are equally plentiful, which means that anyone and everyone can afford to own one.
With so many options out there, how does one get started without spending a fortune? There are plenty of “budget” options on the market for first-time buyers, but budget doesn’t have to mean poor quality. It sometimes does, but this is not one of those times.
I was feeling patriotic on Independence Day 2016, so I stopped by my local gun shop, wanting to know what they had in terms of a budget-friendly AR. I was pointed towards a literal stack of boxes containing complete ARs selling for just $425.
At that price, I’d have been a fool not to pick one up – especially with the then-near-certain victory by Hillary just a few months away.
The rifle in those boxes was a Del-Ton DT Sport Lite. It has a 16-inch lightweight, Melonite barrel with 1:9 twist, a six-position M4 stock, CAR handguards with single heat shields, an enhanced trigger guard, and an A2 front sight post and flash hider.
What you didn’t see in that list was a rear sight, forward assist, or a dust cover. The rear sight was an easy fix. I picked up a Ruger Rapid Deploy rear sight off the rack and bingo-bango, good to go. Is a dust cover necessary? No. It’d be nice, but it isn’t essential. As for a forward assist: the bolt has a scallop in it for your thumb to do the work, should the need ever arise.
The DT Sport Lite is well-made and shows no visual signs of it being a “cheap” rifle. The fit and finish was as good as you’d expect for a basic AR-15 rifle. The upper and lower receivers mate well and there was no wobble between the two. Additionally, there were no visible finish blemishes, tool marks, etc.
Before I get into the review, you’ll notice from the photos that the gun is no longer stock as described above. After all, easy modification is one of the appeals of the AR platform. I replaced the hand guard and buttstock with Magpul furniture, the standard pistol grip with a rubber grooved one from Rock River Arms, and stuck a subdued flag over the Del-Ton logo on the right side of the receiver.
Range Time
I visually inspected the gun inside and out to ensure that there were no issues or obstructions, but I did not clean or oil it before getting in some trigger time. I ran it just as it came out of the box: bone dry.
Using the A2 front sight and the aftermarket Ruger rear sight, I had no issues getting the gun sighted in. A little tweaking with the rear sight windage and a couple turns of the front sight post and my shots were grouping nicely. The standard mil-spec trigger is nothing to write home about and won’t win any matches, but it’s more than serviceable on a rifle in this price range.
When using PMC Bronze 55-grain FMJ rounds, I was able to print groups that were all within my 3-inch red circle at 100 yards. That may not seem like much to you, but it’s pretty good for me when shot with open sights at 100 yards while standing. I’m no professional marksman, I’ve had no formal training, and this isn’t a competition gun, so your mileage may differ.
My use of this gun would be for self-defense, so I wasn’t looking for groups under an inch. These results prove that all of the rounds can hit center mass at a distance.
Some rifles can be picky about ammo and magazine reliability. The Sport Lite came with one 30-round metal magazine. I used said magazine as well as some Magpul PMAGs I had lying around for this review.
I fired 250 rounds of various ammo through the gun with no problems. Some were brass, some were steel. The bullet weights varied, but it didn’t matter to the Sport Lite. Same for the mags. Some rifles don’t like certain brands, or they have problems if you load a full 30 rounds. Not so with this gun
Summary
For the price and for what it is, this rifle is hard to beat. Del-Ton recently upgraded this model to the “DT Sport – Mod 2” and added a couple of features to the gun. That version ships with a rear sight, forward assist, and a dust cover. Still, it can’t be beat.
Specifications: Del-Ton DT Sport Lite AR-15
Caliber: 5.56 Nato
Barrel: 4140 Steel, 16″ Length, 1:9 Twist, Threaded Muzzle, A2 Flash Hider
Bolt & Carrier: Phosphated 8620 Steel Carrier Assembly
Handguard: Carbine Length Aluminum Delta Ring
Upper Receiver: Forged 7075 T6 Aluminum Hard Coat Anodized
Lower Receiver: Forged 7075 T6 Aluminum Hard Coat Anodized
Buttstock: M4 6-Position, Commercial Buffer Tube, Carbine Buffer
Weight:5.9 lbs. Empty
Length: 36.375” Fully Extended, 32.625” Collapsed
MSRP: $649 (about $425 retail)
Ratings (out of five stars):
Reliability * * * * *
It’s an AR-15. Some ARs are finicky, this one was not. I had no failures to feed or eject, or any issues with different magazine brands or ammo. I also didn’t find myself wanting for a forward assist and did not need to utilize the bolt scallop.
Ergonomics * * * *
It’s an AR-15. If you don’t like a certain aspect of the gun, change it out like I did. Now, if you’re someone who finds the whole AR platform uncomfortable, well, that’s another story.
Customize This * * * * *
It’s an AR-15. There’s a reason people call them “adult LEGOs.”
Aesthetics * * * *
It’s an AR-15. They won’t win any awards in a beauty contest where the judging is weighted on design, but the Sport Lite is far from an ugly gun. The fit and finish are good and the gun had no internal or external blemishes.
Overall * * * * *
If you’re looking to buy your first AR-15, I’d heartily recommend the Del-Ton DT Sport. It’s a no-frills, reliable gun and it’s affordable. Mine was $425.
Logan Metesh is a firearms historian and consultant who runs High Caliber History LLC. Click here for a free 3-page download with tips about caring for your antique and collectible firearms.
All photos by Logan Metesh for TTAG
And why it wins the wars it fights. 
The technology that binds all of these other systems together is the Israeli soldier. Since 1948 (and even before) Israel has committed the best of its human capital to the armed forces. The creation of fantastic soldiers, sailors, and airmen doesn’t happen by accident, and doesn’t result simply from the enthusiasm and competence of the recruits.
The IDF has developed systems of recruitment, training, and retention that allow it to field some of the most competent, capable soldiers in the world. None of the technologies above work unless they have smart, dedicated, well-trained operators to make them function at their fullest potential.
Since 1948, the state of Israel has fielded a frighteningly effective military machine. Built on a foundation of pre-independence militias, supplied with cast-off World War II weapons, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have enjoyed remarkable success in the field. In the 1960s and 1970s, both because of its unique needs and because of international boycotts, Israel began developing its own military technologies, as well as augmenting the best foreign tech. Today, Israel boasts one of the most technologically advanced military stockpiles in the world, and one of the world’s most effective workforces.
Here are five of the most deadly systems that the Israeli Defense Forces currently employ–the foundation of why Israel is a military power no one wants to mess with.
Merkava:
The Merkava tank joined the IDF in 1979, replacing the modified foreign tanks (most recently of British and American vintage) that the Israelis had used since 1948. Domestic design and construction avoided problems of unsteady foreign supply, while also allowing the Israelis to focus on designs optimized for their environment, rather than for Central Europe. Around 1,600 Merkavas of various types have entered service, with several hundred more still on the way.
The Merkava entered service after the great tank battles of the Middle East had ended (at least for Israel). Consequently, the Merkavas have often seen combat in different contexts that their designers expected. The United States took major steps forward with the employment of armor in Iraq and Afghanistan (particularly in the former) in a counter-insurgency context, but the Israelis have gone even farther. After mixed results during the Hezbollah war, the IDF, using updated Merkava IVs, has worked hard to integrate the tanks into urban fighting. In both of the recent Gaza wars, the IDF has used Merkavas to penetrate Palestinian positions while active defense systems keep crews safe. Israel has also developed modifications that enhance the Merkavas’ capabilities in urban and low-intensity combat.
Indeed, the Merkavas have proved so useful in this regard that Israel has cancelled plans to stop line production, despite a lack of significant foreign orders.
F-15I Thunder: 
The Israeli Air Force has flown variants of the F-15 since the 1970s, and has become the world’s most versatile and effective user of the Eagle. As Tyler Rogoway’s recent story on the IAF fleet makes clear, the Israelis have perfected the F-15 both for air supremacy and for strike purposes. Flown by elite pilots, the F-15Is (nicknamed “thunder”) of the IAF remain the most lethal squadron of aircraft in the Middle East.
The F-15I provides Israel with several core capabilities. It remains an effective air-to-air combat platform, superior to the aircraft available to Israel’s most plausible foes (although the Eurofighter Typhoons and Dassault Rafales entering service in the Gulf, not to mention Saudi Arabia’s own force of F-15SAs, undoubtedly would provide some competition.
But as Rogoway suggests, the Israelis have worked long and hard at turning the F-15 into an extraordinarily effective strike platform, one capable of hitting targets with precision at long range. Most analysts expect that the F-15I would play a key role in any Israeli strike against Iran, along with some of its older brethren.
Jericho III: 
The earliest Israeli nuclear deterrent came in the form of the F-4 Phantom fighter-bombers that the IAF used to such great effect in conventional missions in the War of Attrition and the Yom Kippur War. Soon, however, Israel determined that it required a more effective and secure deterrent, and began to invest heavily in ballistic missiles. The Jericho I ballistic missile entered service in the early 1970s, to eventually be replaced by the Jericho II and Jericho III.
The Jericho III is the most advanced ballistic missile in the region, presumably (Israel does not offer much data on its operation) capable of striking targets not only in the Middle East, but also across Europe, Asia, and potentially North America. The Jericho III ensures that any nuclear attack against Israel would be met with devastating retaliation, especially as it is unlikely that Israel could be disarmed by a first strike. Of course, given that no potential Israeli foe has nuclear weapons (or will have them in the next decade, at least), the missiles give Jerusalem presumptive nuclear superiority across the region.
Dolphin: 
Israel acquired its first submarine, a former British “S” class, in 1958. That submarine and others acquired in the 1960s played several important military roles, including defense of the Israeli coastline, offensive operations against Egyptian and Syrian shipping, and the delivery of commando teams in war and peace. These early boats were superseded by the Gal class, and finally by the German Dolphin class (really two separate classes related to the Type 212) boats, which are state-of-the-art diesel-electric subs.
The role of the Dolphin class in Israel’s nuclear deterrent has almost certainly been wildly overstated. The ability of a diesel electric submarine to carry out deterrent patrols is starkly limited, no matter what ordnance they carry. However, the Dolphin remains an effective platform for all sorts of other missions required by the IDF. Capable of maritime reconnaissance, of sinking or otherwise interdicting enemy ships, and also of delivering special forces to unfriendly coastlines, the Dolphins represent a major Israeli security investment, and one of the most potentially lethal undersea forces in the region.
The Israeli Soldier: 
The technology that binds all of these other systems together is the Israeli soldier. Since 1948 (and even before) Israel has committed the best of its human capital to the armed forces. The creation of fantastic soldiers, sailors, and airmen doesn’t happen by accident, and doesn’t result simply from the enthusiasm and competence of the recruits. The IDF has developed systems of recruitment, training, and retention that allow it to field some of the most competent, capable soldiers in the world. None of the technologies above work unless they have smart, dedicated, well-trained operators to make them function at their fullest potential.
Conclusion:
When considering the effectiveness of Israeli weapons, and the expertise of the men and women who wield them, it’s worth noting that for all the tactical and operational success the IDF has enjoyed, Israel remains in a strategically perilous position. The inability of Israel to develop long-term, stable, positive relationships with its immediate neighbors, regional powers, and the subject populations of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip means that Jerusalem continues to feel insecure, its dominance on land, air, and sea notwithstanding. Tactics and technologies, however effective and impressive, cannot solve these problems; only politics can.
Robert Farley is a senior lecturer at the Patterson School of Diplomacy and International Commerce. His work includes military doctrine, national security, and maritime affairs.He blogs at Lawyers, Guns and Money and Information Dissemination and The Diplomat. Follow him on Twitter:@drfarls.
This first appeared in May 2015 and is being reposted due to reader interest.
Image Credit: Creative Commons 2.0.
Categories
Guns You Didn’t Know that Exist
Bonnie packing both a Smith&Wesson and a ColtPistol
The Easter Sunday Murders
April 1, 1934, was idyllic Easter weather in Dallas. 26 year-old Edward Wheeler, a Texas highway patrol officer, and his young wife, Doris, shared a biscuit-and-gravy breakfast and made plans to celebrate after Edward, whom most called E.B., completed his shift on motorcycle patrol that day. Just across town, 22 year-old Holloway Murphy was also up early,excited to begin his first day on the job as a THP motorcycle cop.
This would be, he thought,his next to last Sunday living at the local YMCA, before moving into an apartment with his fiancé, 20 year-old Marie Tullis. Marie might or might not have noticed that Holloway placed a handful of 12 gauge shells in his pocket rather than in the chamber of his shotgun; he wanted to be careful about riding his motorcycle with a loaded gun, in case he took a spill and the gun went off, hurting a civilian. H.D. and Marie were to be married 12 days later on April 13.
Both Wheeler and Murphy set about that Easter day thinking that their lives were yet in front of them, not knowing that the plans they were making would soon be waylaid. By mid-afternoon, the two young motorcycle patrolmen, following senior patrolman Polk Ivy, were casually cruising along state highway 114 just north of Grapevine, northwest of Dallas. About 3:30pm, they noticed a lone vehicle, black with yellow wire wheels, parked 100 yards up a dirt road.
The patrolmen U-turned their bikes, rolled up toward the vehicle; it appeared that the occupants were stranded and in need of assistance. Polk Ivy continued down Hwy 114 for some distance, until he realized his two junior officers were no longer behind him.
Farmer William Schieffer heard the motor bikes coming from a distance. He had been doing Sunday chores on his hardscrabble lot that bordered the dirt road, and around 10:30am he observed a young couple “necking” in the roadside grass. He was only 30 feet away at that point, hauling rocks from his orchard.
The girl was “petite with bushy hair,” and holding a white rabbit in her lap. Easter picnic, he figured. As he pushed his wheelbarrow across his orchard that morning, he watched the couple stroll down to the highway — and back — as if looking for someone.
Now, the day was getting on and Farmer Schieffer’s two daughters came out of the house to call their dad in for Easter dinner. That’s when they spotted the two motorcycle patrolmen stopping their bikes just a few paces from the mystery car. From approximately 100 yards away,
the farmer and his daughters—Miss Isabella Scheiffer and Mrs. Elaine Adams—saw the officers dismount and stroll towards the parked Ford. Before the officers could even reach the vehicle, they were abruptly felled by shotgun blasts. E.B. was killed instantly, but Murphy survived the initial volley, falling on his side. Stunned, Schieffer and his daughters watched
both shooters — including the young woman wearing brown riding pants and boots — walk up to the dying man and fire upon him again, at point-blank range.
In seconds, two families were destroyed so that Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker, two of the most notorious criminals in US history, could evade justice a little longer.
Investigators and others look at the scene of the ambush along Hwy. 114 in what is now Southlake.
Schieffer and his daughters were not the only witnesses that Easter day. Jack Cook, a lifelong resident of Dove Road (who died in October of 2013) saw a young couple, male and female,
at the site just prior to the shootings. Shortly after, a Mr. and Mrs. Fred Giggals had been on a Sunday drive along Hwy 114, some distance behind Ivy, Wheeler, and Murphy. Speaking on behalf of his wife and himself, Mr. Giggals reported that they heard the initial shots
after they drove past Dove Road and turned around to see what had happened. According to Giggals, he and his wife exited their car briefly and saw what they thought were two men, with the taller
shooting into one of the prostrate bodies.
The Giggals were only within sight of the shooters for a matter of seconds, approximately 100 yards away and with their view obscured by grove of trees. Mr. Giggals said the shooters looked over and saw them, at which point the couple beat a hasty retreat to their car and sped away.
*****
The Texas Highway Patrol (THP) was a nascent organization in 1934. After the brutal
execution of Wheeler and Murphy, chief Louis G. Phares took quick and decisive action, issuing a $1000.00 reward for the killers and assigning his entire force of more than 120 officers to search for them.
Phares also sought out the services of legendary former Texas Ranger captain Frank Hamer—who, unbeknownst to Phares, was already on the killers’ trail and assigned another former Texas Ranger, THP trooper B.M. “Maney” Gault, to work with him, at Hamer’s request.
By the time Murphy’s young fiancée wore her wedding dress to his funeral, efforts to deflect responsibility away from the killers were already underway.
Clyde Barrow himself wrote a letter to the prosecutor in which he placed the blame for the Grapevine murders on his former partner-turned-nemesis, Raymond Hamilton.
This ruse was briefly successful, likely because Hamilton was traveling in an identical Ford V8 with Bonnie’s younger sister and doppelganger, Billie Mace. However, they were soon exonerated due to validation of their whereabouts at the time, physical evidence at the scene, and forensic evidence directly linking the true killers to the crime.
The Barrow and Parker families also attempted later to recast the blame for the Grapevine murders, albeit in a manner that, ironically, contradicted Clyde’s own story.
Clyde’s family claimed that he told them his associate Henry Methvin was the lone shooter in Grapevine and killed both officers with a Browning Automatic Rifle (BAR). Bonnie’s mother also claimed that Methvin had “confessed” to her.
But these claims, which are unsubstantiated hearsay at best, are contradicted by the available evidence. First, Methvin reported to the FBI that he had been asleep in the car all day while Clyde and Bonnie played with the pet rabbit in the grass and
that he was awakened by gunfire. Methvin’s statement jibes exactly with the sworn witness accounts of Schieffer and his two daughters, all of whom consistently stated that there were two shooters and that one of them was female and matched Bonnie’s general description. Second,
the theory that there was a lone shooter using a BAR cannot be reconciled with the ballistics evidence from the scene (six large buckshot shotgun shells, five .45 auto pistol cartridges, and only one 30.06 shell casing).
Still, there are those today — a good many — who passionately defend Bonnie Parker and claim that she never fired a gun at any point during the Barrow Gang crime spree.
Yet, even a year before Grapevine, a police raid on an apartment in Joplin, Missouri led to another account of Bonnie Parker firing a weapon. This time, as Clyde, his brother Buck, and W.D. Jones, fired on and killed a detective and a constable, Bonnie laid down cover with a Browning Automatic Rifle (BAR).
The fusilade forced Highway Patrol Sergeant G. B. Kahler to seek cover behind an oak tree while the .30 caliber bullets shredded the other side.
Patrolman Kahler would later report, “That little red-headed woman filled my face with splinters on the other side of that tree with one of those damned guns”.
Protestations of Bonnie’s alleged innocence are, for the most part, strictly teleological in nature, rather than accurate assessments of contemporary perspectives and evidence.
They are also, more often than not, heavily influenced by romanticized popular culture and media depictions of the pair. It is true that Clyde Barrow introduced Bonnie to robbery and murder, activities which she took to with enthusiasm
according to numerous eyewitnesses from across the country. In fact, on two occasions Clyde was known to have chastised her for shooting too
quickly, thereby placing them in greater danger of getting caught.
Bonnie had long been attracted to and reveled in the criminal lifestyle, and she showed no regard for the gang’s many victims. She wrote numerous letters and poems demonstrating as much, repeatedly asserting her intention to continue their crime spree until death and insisting that she and Clyde would “go down together.”
The truth is that Parker and Barrow were not anti-establishment social anti-heroes standing up against banks and oppressive authorities and sharing their booty with the poor and oppressed like some sort of 20th century Robin Hoods.
Their criminal careers predated the Great Depression by almost half a decade, and Clyde only robbed three banks during his eight-year criminal career. Under Clyde’s hair-trigger leadership, the gang scraped by primarily by stealing cars and robbing individuals, families, and small independent businesses struggling to stay afloat, often murdering their prey or officers to avoid arrest. The simple
fact was that they preferred to steal rather than work and to kill rather than risk being caught, as even Clyde’s own sister and mother attested to after his death.
At Eastham Prison Farm, Clyde once had a fellow inmate chop off his toe with an ax so he could get transferred out of work detail. Bonnie had dreamed of being a Broadway or movie star (she adored Myrna Loy); front page photos, stories, and her own published poetry provided her the fan base she had dreamed of as an impoverished West Dallas girl. She called the American people “her public.”
But did Bonnie Parker actually pull the trigger at Grapevine? The physical, forensic, and eyewitness evidence from the time indicates that she did. The only sources for claims to the contrary were Barrow and Parker’s families who were obviously not present at the scene and obviously not unbiased; a number of their family members—including both their mothers were soonafter convicted and sentenced to federal prison for aiding and abetting their fugitive relatives.
******
The contemporary evidence of Bonnie’s culpability includes the clear and consistent
testimony of eyewitnesses to those murders and the ballistics analysis that matched Bonnie’s custom altered shotgun— a weapon she was frequently photographed with that was found in the death car after the ambush.
Various published claims that William Schieffer’s testimony was later “refuted” or “recanted” have failed to produce any contemporary evidence to support such contentions. Furthermore, Bonnie Parker was, in fact—and again, contrary to published claims—under indictment for the Grapevine murders before she died; original documentation of this fact recently resurfaced as part of an archival digitization project.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6684095/Texas-court-clerks-indictments-Bonnie-Clyde-old-records.ht
Flawed analysis and facts regarding the Grapevine murders also undermine the claims of Bonnie-apologists, such as assertions that the key eyewitness was “several hundred yards away” from the scene, leading them to erroneously conclude that he could not possibly have made a reliable identification.
In fact, he had been as close as 10 yards to the killers at least at one point earlier in the day, and was—along with his two daughters—only 100 yards distant at the time of the murders. The three Schieffers provided investigating officers, the press, and later in court, consistent and detailed descriptions of the shooters and their activities leading up to and during the crime.
As the people who were present the longest, closest to, and had the clearest view of the scene, their key eye-witness accounts should not be discarded in favor of claims by those with dubious objectives who were not present.
Finally, the focus on disputing Bonnie’s role in Grapevine ignores her lengthy and violent criminal career: at least ten other shootings, two jail/prison breaks, eight to ten kidnappings, and more than a dozen armed robberies. Her crimes left six more men dead and eight wounded, and left widows and children to survive without their husbands and fathers in the midst of the Great Depression.
Arthur Penn’s celebrated 1967 film, a well-deserved cinema landmark, used some real-life names but was never intended to document the real-life crimes and the very real human costs of the choices made by members of the Barrow Gang. Nevertheless, most modern Americans have received what little they think they know about the homicidal duo—on which the film was very loosely based—from that work of fiction. Still others have been misled by those seeking to exonerate Bonnie out of some misplaced sympathy, often influenced by an antiestablishment narrative.
Whatever the motivation, the effect is to erase the experiences, perspectives, and memory of the many victims and their families, thereby compounding the injustice inflicted upon them. Friends and family of Marie Tullis report that “she was never the same” and never married. In the words of E.B. Wheeler’s widow, Doris, “[P]opular culture…made heroes of the gang who killed my husband . . . . nobody ever thinks about those of us who were left behind.” Doris
lived on, to the age of 96, but “the anguish never ended.”
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