BCA Bolt action Upper

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Wolfdog91

Member
Anyone else messing with these ? Wish I waited a little longer and just got the un barreled upper but it's been fun so far. Replaced the factory 16" with a 18" BA SPR barrel could not get it to shoot the heavy 60's better then 1.5'@ 100yd constantly....but seems to like the 60gr vmaxes and 55gr SP's a half decent.
Ooki hard at building a .22 arc with on or if I can find a lower cost .22 creed barrel , they just stared making these uppers for an AR10 platform so...
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I'm thinking about it, going to stop in Saturn's shop and see if I can get a 17 Rem barrel (20-22")with no gas port. None of my other 17's are threaded and I want to shoot a 17 suppressed at night next winter.
 
William Suter said:
Here I am confused again but why would you convert your AR to a bolt action?
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Pro .. Has total modular system with just an assload of aftermarket mass produced options available to it, at good pricing.
Con .. your just punching yourself in the face with the AR magazine, and your married to it's small limited COAL restriction.

Or just buy a side charge upper, or standard AR upper, and just turn the Gas Off to accomplish same thing . I actually did that and hunted with a side-charge upper/zero gas, and surprisingly it worked rather well. very accurate also.

21st century Modular for Bolt Action hunter.. the market is flush with outstanding selection of modular chassis systems now. The market offerings for 'remage' pre-fit/barrel nut systems is pretty big now with large offerings in Caliber and Barrel option also to just build your own.
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The bolt AR receiver is so much cheaper, you can buy multiple barrels to play with. All at home with tools you already have. Everything can ship directly to you, at least for most of us. I haven't had a problem getting loads to shoot min of prairie dog at mag length and shorter from AR's. Lose the gas tube/block and load work will be easier. AR barrels are usually threaded ++++( I have suppressors). I can't afford custom actions and I really like my Thompson Center dimension actions - switch barrels.
 
William Suter said:
Here I am confused again but why would you convert your AR to a bolt action?
Click to expand...
Honestly.....I a weird guy and I thought it was neat lol ! That's like a large part of it.

But one of the main one is as far as a bolt gun goes, it's legit the cheapest route a guy like me could go for a really modular easily adjustable bolt gun.
I LOVE adjustability and being able to not need a gunsmith to do stuff for me.... especially when the closest one that's half decent is like 3hr away. Being 5'1" most stuff doesn't fit me well at all and the AR platform is like that best thing for me.

Also I'm a tinkerer more then a killer if I'm being honest. I like to play with different calibers, barrels , breaks , hand guards ,stocks ect and be cheap about it. This deal uses all standard AR parts.

Also there hair something about shooting a bolt gun I really enjoy. Love my semies too but
 
Long time ago I had a side charger upper, IIRC gave it to SIL. I think it was a DelTon smooth side they machined a slot in the ejection port. I didn't like the idea of the bolt in the carrier and never used it - hard to dis-assemble for cleaning . I sometimes use a single-loader mag in my carbine. I use the 30cal vmax a lot in BO and started using it in 308W. So far pretty good.
 
I was thinking like you Wolfdog and building a 24 inch 22 ARC. I have a Valkyrie but haven't talked myself into the ARC yet. It does gain a little over the Valkyrie.
 
Recently
Actually yes I have been looking at them. Just slow I guess on committing.
I see a lot of advantages with the setup.
No back pressure , gas in face, nor port noise when suppressed, or not.
Suppressed fire will never get around the supersonic crack (unless the round is subsonic, which might as well use a .22LR), but I do enjoy the Varmints being confused when the shot goes off, allows a follow up shot most of the time if needed.
Brass collection is easier.
Ability to seat the bullet to the throat is not limited to mag length with a sled device.
Usually (but not always, I have observed the opposite) more accurate as gas is not bled off for operation, just to mention a few of course there is some draw back going that route. Although shooter dependent they might not be considered a draw back. As the sled could be used with a semi , although still has the brass collection issue.

Liberty / Satarn barrels are really good value IMHO, currently running one on my varmint gun. I picked up the barrel years ago in a 24" 12 twist for the light weight bullets. Deadly to say the least. 55grs or less it's pretty much pink mist action on the trigger pull.

I do like ARC family concept.

What would push me over the edge is that upper set-up with a slow twist (say a 12 twist, I know most want a faster twist to shoot heavier bullets) 14.5' to maybe 18" length light weight profile (keeping the weight down), chambered in .221 FB couple that with a sled (aka SLD, single load device /magazine). To get around feeding issues of that short cartridge. Should work work well I think for a walking varminter setup. But currently BCA offers nothing in that twist for the .224" bore nor that caliber.

I have considered taking the current offering that BCA has and do a re-caliber. Which a re-calber to .221 FB from .223 would be relatively easy. Just a barrel set back (approx 0.400") resetting /indexing the barrel extension, lightly run a reamer for cleanup. Provided the barrel is not nitrite or chrome lined. As there is no gas port to worry about indexing is a breeze. As a few of my lowers are tax stamped a really short barrel aren't a problem to do, for a light weight walking varminter setup as I have described. The stoppage is the twist rate offered.
I do have reasons for the lowly .221 Furball, a good bit lower powder consumption for really close to the .222 performance, easy tunability for loads. The bullet selection is good, price point of light weight varmint projectiles is a good bit lower in that bore. Being able to unclip a semi-auto upper to switch to light weight walking varminter upper means one less gun case to transport. Not a end all be all setup but imho could be a viable solution for many regardless of caliber twist or barrel length.
 
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I purchased one last week. It is in the 223 Wylde chambering with an 8 twist 18" black stainless barrel in bear claw twist fluting. The price was $218 and shipped to my door including taxes for $245. Nice tight fit on a Stag lower. I only have 34 rounds through it so far, but it is shooting in the .75's as is with my normal coyote loads of 50 gr. V-max. Too early to tell how accurate it will be with the factory barrel, but my plan was to switch it too my 16" Satern/Liberty that I normally hunt with. I am shooting it suppressed with a Banish 30 suppressor no matter which barrel I end up with.

It did not feed well with Magpul plastic magazines. I haven't polished the M4 feed ramps yet and that may correct that issue, but waiting until I remove the barrel. It does feed well with ASC stainless mags, but I had to bend the front edge of the lips just slightly to get the smoothest feed. The advantage of the ASC mags is I can go all the way to 2.310 on the COAL if I need to change it to improve accuracy. Disadvantage is they are pretty clinking sounding in your pocket if you carry an extra mag.

I'll update when I get some more rounds through it.
 
Call me crazy, but I revisited BCA's offerings, and noticed the Bushmaster and SOCOM upper without barrel. Immediately I thought hey isn't those caliber's a rebated .473" bolt face.. YEP so they would could support the Remington's BR family (30, 7mm, 6.5mm, 6mm, and 22 BR) as well as 6mm Dasher, 22-250 and a bunch of other short .473 bolt face rim cartridges'. So a M16 barrel (fairchild 601) in .224 caliber 1 in 14" twist or the M16A1 barrel with .224 caliber 1 in 12" twist could be used in a .22 BR Rem or even the 22-250 conversion after a barrel extension set back and re-reaming the chamber. for those interested in just light bullets.



added later in the day remembering I didn't address this
The only issue I see with using a "true" M16A1 barrel is the chrome lined bore. Re running a reamer after Chrome-lining is just not a good practice IMHO. Same with the Nitrided barrel (turn a brand new extremely sharp reamer to a galled mess quickly)
 
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IndexFinger said:
Pro .. Has total modular system with just an assload of aftermarket mass produced options available to it, at good pricing.
Con .. your just punching yourself in the face with the AR magazine, and your married to it's small limited COAL restriction.

Or just buy a side charge upper, or standard AR upper, and just turn the Gas Off to accomplish same thing . I actually did that and hunted with a side-charge upper/zero gas, and surprisingly it worked rather well. very accurate also.

21st century Modular for Bolt Action hunter.. the market is flush with outstanding selection of modular chassis systems now. The market offerings for 'remage' pre-fit/barrel nut systems is pretty big now with large offerings in Caliber and Barrel option also to just build your own.
.
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I run a gasless side charger as well. Makes it legal for pa big game, and its semi in 2 minutes.
 
I thought I would give an update on my progress with the BCA bolt-action. I have not taken the barrel off to polish the M4 feed ramps. I did find a slight milling burr on each of the ramps and was able to correct that with a small Dremel grinding stone. The cartridges now feed okay from a Magpul magazine, but as you know that limits COAL to 2.260. My loading for my 16" Satern/Liberty barrel shoots very well with a COAL of 2.240, but the BCA with that load wouldn't do better than .750 with most running in the .8-.9 range.

As stated in my previous post, I went to ASC stainless mags to get the cartridges feeding better, and bent the lips out just slightly on the end toward the chamber. That worked well for the feeding issue but seemed to make extraction slightly more difficult. After I removed those two slight milling burrs, I didn't need the ASC mag lips bent slightly and put them back like they were originally. It feeds as well and extraction is easier. Still not as smooth as a normal bolt-action, but certainly workable. Since I had the ASC mags I was able to extend the COAL to 2.260 which was a group that was slightly better, then 2.280 again slightly better and finally 2.300 which was even better. I decided to drop my powder charge by .4 grains to see if that made any difference. My velocity was running above 3,300 fps at the shorter COAL, so still had some room to stay in the 3,250 fps range.

I shot a 3 shot group with this load and here is the picture of the target. Range was 100 yds. and group went .316. I wanted to be sure this was not just a fluke since it was only 3 rds. I was using Lake City brass, but it wasn't date or weight sorted. Just the same brass I'd use for general coyote hunting.

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So, I loaded up 3 more shells and shot the same target again the following day making a total of 6 rds. over two days with different weather conditions. Here is the same target after the 6 shots.

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This picture is showing where I wrote the group from the previous day on the target, and those 6 shots gave an overall group of .432. I have now cleaned the barrel for the 3rd time and have 56 rounds through the barrel. Velocity is running about 3,285 fps and I had zero signs of copper in the cleanings. I did clean the barrel well before shooting it. Now I've shot lots of groups over many years that were better than this, but I don't recall doing it over a two-day period. My problem is now I hate to remove the barrel to polish the feed ramps because I might not be able to get it back shooting as well as it is right now. I must admit that I was surprised this cheap BCA outfit would shoot this good. I've read several accounts of problems with BCA's QC etc., but this is my second BCA upper and both of them function and shoot well. The other is an 18" side charger in 223 Wylde as well. My son also has a BCA side charger in 5.56 Nato and he has had some feeding issues with it. I haven't been able to look at it see what the problem seems to be for sure. Anyway, don't know if it will help anyone but I will report back on whether these groups hold over time. I am shooting Ramshot X-terminator powder.
 
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