Bear Creek Arsenal Complete Uppers

[beastep]

Good to hear they did something.

[Crracer712]

Put 3-9*40 scope on my BCA Grendel upper and got out to sight in today. Using some AE 90 grain TNT JHP, I started at 25 yards to get on paper, then 50, then 120. I shot a total of 53 rounds. The last 3 were at a new target at 120 yards, measuring .864. Should been tighter, but it's windy, didn't really concentrate on 3rd shot, first two were overlapping. 50 yards I was putting 5 shots in a nickle.

Extremely pleased with this upper, not a single issue. It's the 24" ss barrel version.

For magazines, when I ordered the upper from primary arms, I also bought one RZE unimag. That magazine is supposed to work with most all the ammo the the AR15 has been calibured in. I think it's supposed to hold ~24-25 rounds of 6.5 Grendel. I packed 24 in, had issues inserting, it was bulging a bit too much..

I had ordered from midway USA, two 10 and two 25 round AR Stoner mags for use with my 224 Valkyrie, the follower is grey, labeled 6.8. I removed 9 rounds from the unimag and put them in the AR Stoner 10 round mag. It wouldn't hold 10 rounds of 6.5. That magazine functioned flawlessly. The unimag worked fine only having the remaining 13-14 rounds in it. I loaded up a 25 round AR Stoner mag with 23-24 rounds of 6.5, zero issues with it as will. I was extremely pleased with those cheap AR Stoner mags, will be buying more.

[1Shot]

Good to here you have a good shooter. While so many misguided souls were marching demanding that my constitutional right to own a firearm that my 4 great and 3 great grandfathers fought the king of England and his followers to provide me with. I decided to do my own kind of protest of these misguided souls. I assembled a dedicated lower with a 3.5 lb. POF trigger to use on my BCA 20" upper. If it will ever stop snowing, raining, wind blowing feeling like it is coming off a block of ice, I may actually get to go to the range to shoot my rifles.

[Crracer712]

This evening I had my oldest son, 20, assemble a lower for me. He's interested in gun smithing, of which I'm not much help, but I walked him through the lower assembly. Then he admired/cleaned his AR and sig 522(I think that's the model) and put them back in the safe.

We live in a completely different world than these cities with the marches going on today. If it's not raining tomorrow, we will do a little more shooting.

[ported45]

I shipped my bad shooting upper back to BCA on 3-12-18 about noon and I received it back today 3-22-18. There was no explanation as to what they found with the old barrel of what did but they put a new barrel on the old upper. From looking at the barrel especially the muzzle end it looks like a MUCH BETTER barrel. The other barrel had chatter marks on the muzzle so it probably was a bad or not square crown. It will be a few day before the weather gets good enough to go to the range and shoot it and my NEW build 18" Oden barrel Grendel.

They got mine on the 12th and I have not heard back since. All they needed to do was lengthen the throat 0.025". Guess the guy running the lathe is on vacation.

[rickt300]

I bought a M4 copy upper and it has shot well after a bit of a break in period. Actually better than I expected.

[1Shot]

Well it warmed up and stopped raining today but the wind was still blowing 15-20 mph with gust around 25 but I could not stand it any longer so I went to the range. With the BCA 20" upper: Using Hornady 123 SST factory ammo it took 5 shots to get on paper at 100 yards and then I cleaned the bore and got quite a good bit of jacket flecks on the patches. I then fired 5 more shots and it shot a little better than the old barrel about 4". I cleaned again and still got jacket flecks but not as many as before. I fired 5 more shots with 4 in about 3" with one flyer or the wind blew it out to about 4". I cleaned again and then decided to see if shooting more than 5 shots if it would start to group better so I fired 8 shots and after the first 3 shot the rest went into about 2 1/2". I then fired two of my reloads that I was giving a try in my OdenWorks barreled upper that I will give a report on next. These were with 120 Sierra Pro Hunter with 27.4 grs IMR 8208, Hornady once fired case, CCI 450, COAL 2.250 and I used a medium Lee Factory Crimp on it. Three of these shot right at 1/2" in the OdenWorks. I do not know if it was a fluke or what but these two shots touched. I then shot two rounds with the same load but with 120 Nosler BT and they went about 1" apart. The OdenWorks did not like this load, it put 3 in 1 1/2". I had 2 more handloads of 2 rounds each left from what I was shooting in the OdenWorks. They were with 28 and 28.5 grs IMR 8208 with 123 SST, Hornady case, CCI 450, Coal 2.250 and Lee Factory Crimped with a medium crimp. Three of each went into less than 3/4" in the OdenWorks. They shot just a little bit better than Hornady 123 SST factory. I will have to do MUCH more shooting with this upper but I am thinking that it just does not like the 123 SST bullet. I will load up some more 120 Sierra Pro Hunters and give them a try again as well as some different loads with 120 BT because I know that this bullet is accurate. If I can't get this BCA upper to shoot reasonably well I will probably just get another OdenWorks barrel and replace the BCA barrel.

OdenWorks 18" upper that I built from scratch: Between getting on paper at 25 yards and then getting on at 100 yards I fired 5 shots Hornady 123 SST and did not have to do any adjusting of the tunable gas block because function was spot on. I then cleaned the bore and if there was any jacket flecks I could not see them. I then fired 5 more Hornady 123 SST. First shot from clean bore was a high left about 1/2" out from the next 4 which went into just under 1". I then tried some of the handloads that were described above as well as two loads using 100 gr Sierra HP with 29.6 H335 and 30.7 W748. With the H335 I had two out of the 5 rounds jam and push the bullet back into the case but the other three went into 1.010". That 100 Sierra HP has a wide flat point HP and would be suspect about functioning well. With the W748 load it ran perfectly and 5 shots including the clean bore shot Went into 1" exactly with three in a ragged hole. Now these loads were just middle or the road powder charges and different bullets except the 123 SST IMR 8208 loads that I was seeing if they were going to be ok in this gun, just to break in the bore with a shoot 5 and clean regimen for 20 shots like OdenWorks suggested. I am VERY HAPPY with the OdenWorks because it shot all but two of my handloads under 3/4" and the other two were under 1 1/2" and doing it in the swirling gusting wind. I can't wait to get down to doing some serious handloading work on a good weather day with the OdenWorks.

[alaska_guy]

I wanted to report I was able to shoot my BCA 18" fluted barrel with 5R rifling today. I sighted in @ 25 yards using the magazine as a rest. I was able to group both wolf and 123gr Amax around 1 - 1.5" I pushed it out to 50 yards and it opened up a little bit more, but not terrible.

Moved down to 100 yards and the rifle was shooting the size of a pie plate 8-12"? To be fair, I didn't have a good rest... I am using a 3-9 Diamondback scope and I absolutely HATE the eye relief and eye box on this scope. I was basically trying to time my breathing to shooting as I was using the magazine as my rest. I was fatigued from my eyes trying to look through the scope and trying to balance the rifle and decided to pack up.

I plan on purchasing an adapter so I can attach my harris bipod to the rifle next go around and see how it does. I have 200 rounds of the Hornady bulk ammo on the way. I don't want to blame the groups on the barrel quiet yet as I know I was struggling to stay steady and fighting with the ability to see through the scope.

I also brought along my trusty 6.5 creedmoor ruger predator. This thing shot lights out at 100 yards. Bullets were touching and it seemed "easy". I was using a front bag and was using my left hand to steady the butt of that rifle and I felt nice and solid. I am using a Leupold VX-3i with CDS and windplex. Absolutely love this scope and rifle combo.

I had ZERO function issues. Rifle performed flawless, just need to dial in on accuracy.

[calvarez]

Well that's how mine started, and then it got accurate. I'm also using the same scope, and also hate it. I got a smokin' deal so I can probably sell it and break even. Definitely before deer season.

[grayfox]

1Shot, on a couple of my latest, well, more budget-type barrels, I applied one patch of JB non-embedding Bore paste/compound inside the barrel, swishing back and forth a few times and I have to say it smoothed out the inner bore and has improved how they shoot, from 1-1.5 down to 0.5-0.9 inches/100 yds. Plus it just feels smoother now when pushing the cleaning cotton-patch through...
I haven't done it to all barrels and this is the first time I even considered doing this... but for those couple it seemed to definitely improve them. If you have a small tub you might try it on the BCA to see if it helps. I don't know if it would improve a melonite barrel however, b/c that treatment super-hardens the barrel...

[1Shot]

I don't have any JB but a buddie does so I might borrow some and give it a try. My barrel is just plain stainless with conventional rifling. Yes there is a big difference felt when pushing a patch down the BCA compared to the OdenWorks. Oden is like greased glass and BCA is like somebody mixed sand in the grease. You should not have to shoot 50 to 100 rounds in any barrel to get it to group.

[PeterD]

Apology if this video had been posted before, I couldn't see it in a quick skim through the history.

I had a short lived interest in BCA when trying to research and learn whos who in AR barrel manufacturing. I came across this video during that time and didn't have the same level of interest after that I had before.

https://youtu.be/VaMfplsgZiY

It could explain the variable experiences you are seeing. Good barrels could come out but so can bad and because more then likely the bore inspection and hand lapping and other processes are being shipped in the name of reducing costs throughout the process as much as possible the bad ones end up in the market with a higher frequency.

My memory isn't that great but I'm pretty sure I read from a barrel designer who who was trying to impress on the readers that the material a barrel is made from, the rifling method used to create the rifling, etc., that we as barrel buyers endlessly focus on the minutia details of when selecting a given barrel have little impact on getting an accurate barrel as the single most influential component is the process selected by the manufacturer and the attention to detail throughout that process chosen that impact a barrels accuracy most.

By that the beauty is you may get a good shooter but you have to wear the risk that instead you may get a real doozy quality wise at the lower price points.

[grayfox]

I don't have any JB but a buddie does so I might borrow some and give it a try. My barrel is just plain stainless with conventional rifling. Yes there is a big difference felt when pushing a patch down the BCA compared to the OdenWorks. Oden is like greased glass and BCA is like somebody mixed sand in the grease. You should not have to shoot 50 to 100 rounds in any barrel to get it to group.

10-4, let us know if it helps, if you decide to do it...

[Crracer712]

My 24" ss barrel looks pretty good, feels the same running a patch down as any of my others.

I'm curious though, if a particular load shoots good through it, why not use that load? I've got kind of a standard load that all my 556 shoot good with, some better than others. Not too much of a big deal, I'm still hitting what I'm aiming at.

[1Shot]

I got the time and had a wonderful day to go to the range today and shoot my Grendel's. First off was the BCA 20" that I had to send back because it would not group. I got it back and after shooting it 50 times it is starting to show some promise. First off I have discovered it HATES 123 SST BULLETS. It does not matter factory or handloads it will not shoot them better than about 3 1/2". What it is taking a liking to is 120 Sierra Pro Hunter bullets. With 27.3 and 28.5 grs IMR 8208 it is doing average 1 1/2".

My Oden Works 18" is a whole different story. I think I may have hit the jackpot. It LOVES 120 SIERRA PRO HUNTERS. With 28.5 grs IMR 8208, Hornady case, CCI 450, COAL 2.250 and crimped with a Lee Factory Crimp Die. At 100 yards the first two shots cut each other then I got on the trigger a little bit and called pulled the 3rd shot a touch left. Then proceeded to put the last two into the same hole as shot number two. Total 5 shot group size outside to outside measures .924 - .264= .638 But 4 of them grouped outside to outside .408 - .264 = .144 This loads average velocity is 2532 ES 38.32 SD 14.98 I think that should kill deer well out to 300 yards.