LOL, you had me worried there for a minute. I'm returning one of my 102's for warranty because there is excessive movement between my upper and lower receivers. BCL has been prompt to answer all my emails and even sent me a return label to ship it back to them. IMHO, BCL is saddled with all the problems that were NEA and it may take some time for them to find their own way. I support them because they are a Canadian company and I feel they are just going through some growing pains.
BCL 102 catastrophic failure
- Thread starter slash547
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LOL, you had me worried there for a minute. I'm returning one of my 102's for warranty because there is excessive movement between my upper and lower receivers. BCL has been prompt to answer all my emails and even sent me a return label to ship it back to them. IMHO, BCL is saddled with all the problems that were NEA and it may take some time for them to find their own way. I support them because they are a Canadian company and I feel they are just going through some growing pains.
I just checked to see if they have an FRT and they don't have one yet.
No it isn't. In identical kabooms with identical settings, pressure levels and gas paths, 6061 will have also failed if 7075 fails. The reason most 6061 receivers don't act the same way as 7075 (other than the fact that all of these kabooms are anectodal and uncontrolled) is because manufacturers build their 6061 receivers MUCH thicker than their forged 7075 counterpart. That plays a big role in this.
Because they are such a minuscule potential eventuality, kabooms are not a good base to set material parameters on. Design paramaters in case of kabooms are more important and the AR15 has had these design inceptions since day one. Most of which are quite obvious if you look at it's parts. It's part of all firearm design.
A gun made of good kaboom materials would make a poor working gun.
The #1 reason a manufacturer selects 6061 over 7075 is cost. Cost of material, tooling, machining time, etc.
BCM has been working on a new design of forged receivers for a while now, with strenght and kaboom as it's main design parameters.
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An AR barrel is chamfered at the mouth of the chamber. In the event that the rifle is fired with a barrel obstruction, the case will fail in this area (by design), and the high pressure gas will be vented out through the ejection port and down through the magazine well. Quality receivers manufactured from properly heat treated alloys will bulge and crack; inferior ones will break or shatter. Premium receivers are frequently machined from 7075 forgings, properly heat treated.
Ever see what happens when a .300 BLK is fired in a 5.56 rifle? This is one of the times that the forward assist is of value - it is needed to get the breech shut when the .300 is forced into the 5.56 chamber. The rifle will be ruined, the receivers bulged and cracked; an extremely long .224 bullet is formed and lodged in the barrel. When this happens in a quality rifle, the shooter will likely be unharmed, because of the design of the breeching and the materials used.
While the OP's rifle is damaged, he has not reported any injury. This indicates that the rifle handled the damage is a manner that protected the shooter.
Ever see what happens when a .300 BLK is fired in a 5.56 rifle? This is one of the times that the forward assist is of value - it is needed to get the breech shut when the .300 is forced into the 5.56 chamber. The rifle will be ruined, the receivers bulged and cracked; an extremely long .224 bullet is formed and lodged in the barrel. When this happens in a quality rifle, the shooter will likely be unharmed, because of the design of the breeching and the materials used.
While the OP's rifle is damaged, he has not reported any injury. This indicates that the rifle handled the damage is a manner that protected the shooter.
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BCL is NEA, nothing has changed but the name, still pumping out problem rifles.
Do you have any idea how long they've been in business? They are way past growing pains, they're just incompetent.
Look at the photo of the face of the fired cartridge case.
The primer shows a normal firing pin strike.
How does that happen out of battery? Op already stated the lugs are still on the bolt carrier, so short of the firing pin being stuck forward, it would not be able to strike until the bolt had rotated and locked. The case would not look the way it does if it was in battery when it went off.
Of course I don't like BCL, I've been watching and reading about them putting out products of this quality since they started and we're just lucky no one has gotten killed by one of their mistakes. I've owned their AR parts in the past and still have an NEA receiver set. Other than the receiver set I have everything else I've owned of theirs has been crap, I only bought the receiver set because it was super cheap and was used so I knew that it was at least in spec and my parts would fit.
You can like them if you like but I let their track record, reports and pictures from other owners, and my personal experience with their products form my opinion. I don't just ignore the negatives and disregard years of history because I spent my money on their stuff.
Go back in the forums as far back as you like and you'll find threads from guys who bought NEA and had issues, it's not just one or two every 1000 units.
Come back and tell us how impressed you are with their product when you have a few thousand rounds through your rifle. My bet is that it won't make it to 3000 rounds.
Regardless of my opinion of BCL, this thread is about trying to help this guy figure out what happened to his rifle. Unfortunately until he takes it to someone who knows AR's really well we're never going to figure it out. There's only so much you can figure out looking at pictures and asking questions.
This is not true according to Ryan at SFRC. Interested to hear where you get this information.
