Bca uppers....nothing tight.

varminter .223

Active member
My new 243 was only shooting about 1.5" and was short cycling. GB was loose and barrel nut only hand tight. I like their sidecharging stuff but just figure your gonna need to disassemble and reassemble.
Probably better check my 350 legend upper.
 
Last edited:
After we talked about my “scrap parts” upper that arrived four days ago it was returned for a replacement upper. I let customer service know your GB was loose as well. BCA’s customer service manger told me they recently have had a lot of turn over with their assemblers and there are mainly all new employees out in their shop currently. She saw the pics below as I emailed them to her. She said that upper should have never been sent out. I told her I wanted to make sure someone that has been there assembling for some time and knows what they are doing to check over my replacement upper and make sure it’s flawless before sending back so I won’t have to return it for the 2nd time. She linked my email to the shop manger to oversee the replacement upper. They were very apologetic but it’s still inconvenient to send an upper back for replace the right off the bat.

My pitted GB and where someone pinged my receiver by the forward assist. I had a big scratch on the other side of the receiver they blued over and a clear spot of bare metal on the barrel where the bluing didn’t take. They obviously did some poor hiring and grabbed the first available bodies with zero gun knowledge to assemble these. Hopefully their employees catch on quick and/or get better training. I blame the hiring manager over the improperly trained employees in most given scenarios. The BCA assembly/shop manager should be more involved and walking around inspecting every assembled product before it leaves their shop till he/she is confident their new employees are go to go without supervision.





tj9CDrz.jpg


qclelyX.jpg




What loads did you try? I’d be sending it back as they have a MOA guarantee. I’m sure without any questions they would just put a new barrel on it as I don’t think they have anybody there talented enough that’s going to take it out to try and shoot MOA groups with it.


I was shocked with the condition of my upper because the last I received looked perfect.


I guess I should’ve ordered it last year when I ordered my other upper when they had long-term employees in tact. The only issue I had then was none of them knew how to pack a box. The first two uppers came damaged with the barrel sticking out of the box because all they did was put their uppers in a foam sleeve. Now they at least pack them in between two pieces of egg crate type foam so they don’t move during shipment. Ups still managed to dent up my box pretty good. Ups is completely worthless as well. No one has any prove on their work anymore. I blame it on the millennials.
 
Last edited:
I tried some 55 ballistic tip h4895 handloads that probably shot an inch and a half and then I tried Dogtown ammo which shot inch and a half or worse. I happen to have another 20 in 243 BCA Barrel here that I had bought before they came out with the ambidextrous 20 inchers. I put it on it this morning and I just shot five of them under an inch after zeroing so it's night and day difference. That's two of them I have now that shoot great with the dogtown ammo. Guess I could send this other barrel back idk....I am having occasional ejection issues still though. My first upper extracted fine after they sent me a new extractor and spring assembly but even this one slobbers brass out every now and then with that bolt carrier group so I've got to get that fine tuned yet.
 
Last edited:
I'm wondering if over gas could be causing the ejection issue. The issue is an occasional stove pipe with the round fed under it jamming the spent round against the receiver roof in a horizontal stove piped position.
I'm wondering it the ejector is biting into the brass? Ejector edges are chamfered.
 
Last edited:
i'm not making excuses for their (OR ANYONES!) shoddy QC at the moment but a couple things to consider


1) you're shopping at a budget product manufacturer. and we all know the old saying you get what you pay for. therefor paying attention to stuff and giving anything you buy from them a solid once over should be the expectation, not the exception. They get a lot right, but its no mystery they also get a fair % wrong too.

2) the firearms industry right now is running at 150% speed or more to supply the current demand. firearm sales are at an all time high right now - even higher than after sandy hook and the last election. the batfe processed 3.7 MILLION background checks in march. thats like 13% higher than dec 2015 previous record and a 33% increase over feb 2020. and i'm sure april's numbers are going to be even higher if the industry can keep guns on the shelf to sell to people anyway. BCA - and everyone else - is probably hiring anyone who even knows which end of a hammer is the business end - or can even identify a hammer by a picture - to help stay up with demand.

point being = QC oopsies ARE going to happen. They happen under normal business times.. in times like this....

its not that they do happen that should be the thing, its how a company handles them once their brought to their attention.


just some perspective.
smile.gif


stay safe, try to stay positive, make sure your family is smiling as much as they can. Those are the critical things in life right now
smile.gif
 
I ordered mine a week before the stupidity panic buying started so they had QC issues prior to the rush,

Glad to hear your other barrel shoots good. I’ll make sure to take mine out to my property and test it right away to make sure it feeds and functions fine. My return won’t get there till Monday so I would assume they’ll send a replacement out mid week. So I’m sure I won’t see it till the following week.

My other BCA upper shoots extremely well for a price leader AR and I’m hoping my 20” upper will shoot just as good if not better. One grain over max with the same powder you tried varminter 223 is my goto load. Mine is a 1/9 twist vs your 1/8. For some reason BCA assembled last years 22” stainless uppers with the slower twist which I wanted. For some reason they only offered the 1/8 with the loose 22” barrels.

I’ll have to load up the three powders I tried again with 55 grain Nosler CT’s so I’m all ready to go when it shows up.
 
Last edited:
I have a 22" stainless 9 twist that shoots great as well. Just to heavy for my liking so it sits on the shelf. I sold the rear charging upper it came on from Midway.
I could care less how they put mine together as long as they dont damage it because I have no issues reassembling one. As a matter of fact I would prefer to assemble it myself. Im cool with loose stuff at their low price and I fully expect it.
 
Last edited:
Yup, for as good as my 22 inch stainless upper shoots I won’t get rid of it either. I’ve never assembled an AR upper before. But have disassembled my POF many times for cleaning so I’m assuming it can’t be very hard to put one together. Guess I’m probably gong to learn how to when my upper arrives. I did buy an “AR” wrench off eBay last year collecting dust I can put to use if needed. Hopefully after my phone calls and emails they will send back a replacement upper that someone put some pride and TLC into so I won’t have to worry about It.
 
Last edited:
Originally Posted By: crapshootYou will want an upper and lower vice block to go with that wrench.

Well if I really need it for my replacement upper Bear Creek should supply the vice blocks if they didn’t put it together properly.

...I’ll have to order some.
 
Last edited:
As far as assembling a milspec upper once you have a means of holding the upper, a torque wrench and the crow foot wrenches the only thing you have to do is torque the barrel nut so it is indexed properly for handguard alignment. Some barrel nuts do not need to be clocked properly and some do. The rest of the parts just bolt on. Really no building to it. Just torquing a nut and screwing a few parts on.
 
Last edited:
https://www.proformparts.com/product-det...um-construction

I use one of these because I already had one. Clamp it in a vise and I put cardboard between it and the lower.

You learn pretty quick that once hand tight the spot on the barrel nut that needs to index straight up needs to start just past the 11 o'clock position. I start off around 50 ft lbs. and creep up in ft lbs. until it indexes. If it wont index between 30 and 80 ft. lbs. a shim is required. Im not a fan of torquing below 50. A fresh set of threads will burnish in and will go a hair farther each time torqued for the first few times at the same torque spec. as well. I use a moly based lubricant.
I think on an AR10 90 ft. Lbs is max recommended. My first barrel indexed at 90 the second one I had to hit 96. This upper appears to have grease on the threads. Moly based lube will reduce friction more putting more preload on at the same torque.
 
Last edited:
The more I think of the one I returned I wonder if it was the one they fired in their YouTube video or a show and tell upper that got fired in their shop quite a bit. The reason being the bolt face had a solid layer of brass coated on it like it had been put through the ringer. I’ve fired a couple hundred rounds through my POF and other BCA upper and have never seen brass build up like there was on the bolt face of my upper I returned. I wish I would have snapped a pic of it as well. I know they test their uppers before they get sent out. I have had a very a light little brass ring on the bolt face of all the midway BCA uppers that were sent to me but this one looked like someone pained the bolt face with brass. The other thing I noticed is the action was bone dry. All the midway BCA uppers sent to me last year were “wet” to the point they were over oiled. This was when I had a the barrels braking through the boxes and returned the first two. I did remove them from the boxes to inspect and repackaged them to shop back. Midway claimed they never opened the boxes and were packed right from BCA. BCA doesn’t ship the “three” empty test casings with their uppers anymore either for some reason.
 
Last edited:
They must be putting a lot more rounds through their current uppers vs my previous purchases. Would make sense with your GB loose as they probably fired quite a bit more during testing it to get it to function properly...and still didn’t get it fixed.
 
I bought a BCA 7.62x39 that shoots 1 1/8 groups 100 yard groups with WOLF ammo. I mean every group , some times 4 holes touching out of 5. I am stunned by this $365.00 out the door price the week of 12/9/19. I stocked up with 4000 rounds of WOLF AMMO before xmas at 18 cents around....So lucky.... This gun has been my favorite of 5 AR15 Guns I am lucky enough to own. I was planning on buying a 308 now but going to hold off till things get back to normal. They are not turning over employees in a 10 % unemployment market and a 30 % increase in gun orders. They are being swamped with orders and hiring desperate workers and not giving them training or taking the time to inspect their work. Trying to have the assembler or machinist check their own work. Not good. They should have another employee check their work and stamp it as good. If i loose my job as a MFG Manager might see if they need some help. MD.
 
Last edited:
Back
Top