BCA barrel is choking at the throat

[Mopardoctor]

Noticed at the LGS that about the only 6.5 ammo left was 6.5 Creedmoor so I ordered a 6.5 Creedmoor upper from BCA. Side charging, 18" SS bull barrel. At least I can use the same 6.5 bullets as my Grendel. Checked it out with a Hornady OAL gage and with their 129 G SST the freebore is around .100" short. Factory ammo won't even load. 123g SST is also short. 120 G Federal TFMJ ammo is pressed into the lands. I was able to get 100G AMAX to load at "book" length but not much jump space. PTG Uni-throat reamer is coming soon and then I'll be able to "tune" the throat to longer OAL loads. I'll be checking my Grendel throats also with this reamer.

Mopar Doctor

[A5BLASTER]

I would have saved the money on the reamer and just got rid of the BCA garbage and got something better.

[grayfox]

my $0.02. "BCA" is short-hand for steel tomato stake.

[FLshooter]

[PVBoom]

Is it too late to cancel the barrel order?

[FLshooter]

is it too late to cancel the barrel order?

lol!

[sundowner]

Hope you have a BCA lower the ar10's do not have a standard , many wont match other brands , and yes I replaced a BCA barrel with a Sander's barrel and not looking back .

[Lastrites]

BCA, barrel change again.

[Mopar forever]

[Lemonaid]

A lot more information will be conveyed from a picture of the marked up bullet thus helping in the diagnosis.
A new barrel will sometimes copper foul if the throat is rough from when it was chambered. If you get heavy copper fouling from say 20 rounds that may cause poor accuracy until cleaned out and is why some barrels need a long break in period. Anyway something to check.

[Klem]

Sloppy machining, and poor quality steel - great price, but then the tears.

'You can't polish a turd' (Slate Magazine, 1976).

[Mopardoctor]

Yea, it's a potato stake so far. The short throat I think was caused by the chamber not centered with the bore and I was getting a distance to land length of 2.212. The throat reamer was just nicking a couple of lands and I opened it up to 2.261. Test bullets were still showing scratch marks from the lands so i reamed it out to 2.288 where the reamer felt like it was getting a even cut and chips showed. Bullets are not jamming in the lands now.

First time out with Federal 120G HP the first shot had a pierced primer and the scrap from that was stuck in the firing pin hole. Had a lot of failure to fires after that. Firing pin gauged out later as being .015" too long. Groups were minute of hubcap.

This upper out of the box was unsafe to fire. Fixed the firing pin and cleaned up the throat so we'll see how this poop stick does the second time out.

Mopar Doctor

[Mopardoctor]

Other problems: 1. The HUGE gas block barely fits inside the handguard and was riding at several points. 2. The rear gas plug has to be filed down on the bottom for the rear takedown pin to line up on an Aero Precision M5 lower. 3. The shipping box had the bolt handle sticking out when it arrived and the handle was scarred up and the handle screw was bent.

Midway sells this same upper for $200 more than what I paid for it.

Mopar Doctor

[NugginFutz]

Sloppy machining, and poor quality steel - great price, but then the tears.

'You can't polish a turd' (Slate Magazine, 1976).

Nor can you pick up a turd by the clean end.

Continued finagling with this upper doesn't appear to have a chance at turning out very well. In the long run, Mopardoctor, your time and effort will likely end up costing more than this potato stake is worth. Time to stop fishing and cut bait?

I've heard of BCA taking returns, but your efforts to get it able to fire (reamer, etc) might cause them to refuse.

Either way, be thankful you didn't bite on the Midway USA deal, first.

[FLshooter]