I hear ya Beach. The different patterns that are emerging into the 308 world of AR's can be frustrating as hell. Especially to complete greenhorns that go into these things just thinking that they're just another AR. Unfortunately, I don't think that there's any way that we can entice the manufacture's or retailers to be more specific on the patterns of the parts that their selling. Obviously, some manufacture's/retailers are more helpful than others. And your story of the piss poor customer service is completely unacceptable. Unbelievable that that guy would be such a prick to a customer over the phone. Guys like that, aren't helping these large frame AR's at all. Overall, that's probably why most of us around here try to encourage guys to take their time and read, read, read up on these things before jumping in. As far as proprietary parts and patterns, everybody knows that I'm a BIG Armalite guy. And like Blue stated, I don't really waste my time trying to correct people at first. Mainly cause they'll just think that I'm some kind of Armalite snob (just keep your mouths shut all of you jokers out there). Luckily, I waded into the water instead of just diving in. I bought my first AR-10, and kept reading and trying to learn as much as I could about the platform as a whole. And that led me to not having any issues for parts when it came to building the other 10's that I have since that first purchase (short of breaking parts, that is). With that being said, I've slowly (still am) gathering parts for a Black Rain Fallout-10 (DPMS pattern) that I'm planning on building. Bought a POF P-308 (mostly DPMS with some of their own proprietary parts). With the POF probably the last fully built rifle that I'll ever buy. So I've also dipped my toe into the DPMS side of the platform also. It all comes down to knowledge of the platform itself. And that's why all we can do, is try to keep spreading the word and continue to try and help guys (or gals) that don't have the experience yet, building or working on the large frame AR.