Tom Clancy's The Division AR15 Build

I've been wanting to build a video game themed rifle for a while now. I finally found the game I wanted to mimic, Tom Clancy's The Division. Once again, New York City has been decimated, this time by a smallpox virus. The whole city tore itself apart, and calls on The Division Agents to help restore civility to the city. If you've played the game, then you probably know more than me. I mean, I play it, but not as hard core as some others. Any who, lets get onto the build.

I had a spare lower laying around, and it was aching to be built into something more than a paperweight. Like I said, I wanted to build a rifle with a video game theme behind it. The hard part was trying to figure out a game. There were a few games on my list, but The Division kept being my number one choice. I initially didn't want to the The Division because it would be too plain. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that sometimes simplicity just looks better. Adding too many accessories or colors could make it look like a 15 pound toy gun. Why not simply a battleworn look to it? Black, but worn to orange.

I chose a plain "standard issue" rifle look, like something that you would see any military or police officer use. 16" barrel, fixed front sight, mil-spec look, and topped off with Magpul furniture. The first step was to get all the metal parts together and assembled. First the base paint coat, Hemi Orange, which matched closest to the game's color.



It looked like a large metal Dodge sponsored Nerf gun. After a short enough time for that to harden, I topped it over with a Low-Gloss Black. The hardest part I think was the Phoenix logo. I printed the logo out, and started cutting away using an X-acto knife. Using that as a stencil, I was able to spray it onto the lower.



The next day, I started with the steel wool. I found that rubbing alcohol worked very well with sanding back the black, but leaving the orange color in tact. There were a few places on the lower that were accidentally sanded back to silver. I wasn't about to start over, besides, it adds to the look.



Once I was happy with the look of the paint, I had to let it sit for a week while the engine enamel cured. Then came all the plastic furniture. I regret not taking pictures of this step, but the concept was simple. The furniture I had was new, in fact too new and non abused that it just didn't look right when I installed it. I had to make it look worn as well, so out came the sand paper. Let me say that Magpul makes some great products, and trying to wear them down to a worn look proved to be more difficult than you would think. It finally took coarse sandpaper to do the trick. These parts will never be on a safe queen ever again. After assembling everything back together, I was thoroughly impressed.











Now, I am a very nitpicky kind of guy. I hardly am ever satisfied with any of my projects. I always see somewhere I could have improved on, even when everyone else around me says it's perfect. This build however, I can safely say I am satisfied with. It turned out great, and I have no regrets on it. Why did I decide to do this project, just because. It was something that sounded fun to do, so I did it.

And the usual disclaimer when people make anything with a company theme: I am in no way affiliated with Ubisoft, Magpul, Tom Clancy, Everlast, Ryobi, etc, etc...