im going to offer my 2cent worth here.. it is what I just told a friend last week who bought the AGS from Sports authority for 80 bucks.
DO NOT LET IT DISILLUSION YOU.!!
Its a tiny little thing.. 240 sq inchs cooking grate.. approx 12x20....with real thin steel. You will most likely have some trouble maintaining temps. Also, keep something VERY iimportant in mind.. it being a horizontal cooker, you will need to keep your food out of that hot spot right next to the firebox.. and due to its size, by the time your a safe distance from the fire, you will most likely be about halfway across the food grate. So you've lost a good amount of your useable space. I dont think that the AGS can do a full rack of spares because of its size. You need to use a ribrack and cut the racks in half....if I were to be using it i would put an aluminum foil pan right next to that opening and also put some hot water in the bottom of the barrel. Both will baffle your temps a little bit. The chimney on that comes out the high-middle of the end of the chamber, not the top... so you dont need to extend it down to grate level like the hondo.
I truly hate to shoot down any smoker. We will help with any and all of them, but that little thing I really think will lead to frustration and disillusionment. For the same money, there are better alternatives. For the same price, a weber kettle(silver-22inch, 79 bucks) will most likely have the same capacity and yield MUCH better results. 20 bucks more you can get a brinkman bullet type from HD and for 129 you can get a silver smoker from HD that is more than twice the size, i think Carbroil has a similar version called the sierra or something like that.,. Those are a little more real cookers and will not lend to the frustration as much. I would really recommend looking at those.
