BCL 102 catastrophic failure

Grapeshot said:
BB635-B69-4-F22-430-B-8-FB4-2-A84-B7623587.jpg
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sawzall said:
Untitled by Eric V, on Flickr
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Just read this stem to stern.

I'll be dragging my BCL-102 from the back of the lock up in the morning.

I'd be interested to know what type of fitment the index pin has on the receiver on these that hasn't been torqued on by a gorilla. If there is slop between pin and the slot, and the pin is shallow enough, it is conceivable that the torquing of the barrel dragged the pin under the receiver threads in addition to the noted potential torquing of a muzzle device while clamping the receiver.
The abortion of a barrel nut isn't supporting the barrel as it aught to, and it likely didn't take too excessive of torque to create the above condition.
 
BattleRife said:
The barrel nut (or equivalent bushing) is torqued onto the receiver, so if the assembler supports the receiver there should be no torsion on the barrel, aside from a little bit from friciton of the barrel nut. However, if the assembler chooses to support the barrel, either with old style barrel vise jaws or with a reaction rod, the barrel will stand still while all the torque applied to the receiver causes it to twist, with just the index pin in its slot to resist that torsion.

The thing is, that scenario would cause the index pin to bear on the right hand side of its slot, in this case the index pin has dug into the left hand side of the slot. The most common situation that would cause that is if someone put a whole bunch of torque on a muzzle device while supporting the assembly via the upper receiver.
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Yup. That's the weird thing about this. If this had happened during barrel nut torquing, the pin would have gone under the other side of the slot. So this happened during muzzle device torquing.

Barrel nut probably wasn't torqued very high, and the muzzle device installation torque was probably comparatively much higher. And they didn't install the muzzle by fixing the barrel like they're supposed to, they fixed the receiver.



Not only is the barrel nut design flawed, their installation methods are flawed too.



What kind of washer is used on those muzzles, crush washers or peel washers?
 
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I got paranoid so I checked mine, it has had like 1 stove pipe out of 1000 or so shots and shoots great so I don't want to mess with the gas block so I took photos around the tube, only thing I noticed was it looks like one of the gas block threads??? (no pins so I guess these two threads hold it on?) is sticking out a bit but its really tight and I don't want to force it in more. Other than that all looks good.

Gas Block:
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Receiver and what its supposed to look like:

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gun looks filthy but its mostly oil with a thicker grease on parts with visible wear. I clean it after every use or second use so I don't care about the extra carbon buildup extra oil causes. I use it in rain often hunting so I am trying to stop rust and wear.

Anyway it looks like OPs incident may be a freak accident and hopefully this isn't a common thing people find. Mine is stamped 2018 as well I got it Aug 2018 straight from the factory. I lucked out it seems and got a good one.
 
kcampbell said:
I got paranoid so I checked mine, it has had like 1 stove pipe out of 1000 or so shots and shoots great so I don't want to mess with the gas block so I took photos around the tube, only thing I noticed was it looks like one of the gas block threads??? (no pins so I guess these two threads hold it on?) is sticking out a bit but its really tight and I don't want to force it in more. Other than that all looks good.

gun looks filthy but its mostly oil with a thicker grease on parts with visible wear. I clean it after every use or second use so I don't care about the extra carbon buildup extra oil causes. I use it in rain often hunting so I am trying to stop rust and wear.

Anyway it looks like OPs incident may be a freak accident and hopefully this isn't a common thing people find. Mine is stamped 2018 as well I got it Aug 2018 straight from the factory. I lucked out it seems and got a good one.
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Checked the barrel alignment on both of my rifles and they are perfect. BCL has a bulletin out that explains how to check the barrel alignment and to inspect it before shooting. They have 6 confirmed cases of rifles with a barrel misalignment.
 
slash547 said:
Guess mine was a Friday afternoon build before a long weekend. Roll the dice and take your chances LOL
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I used to be a strong defender of BCL since I got a gun that is perfect and many of the original issues people had seemed to be from modified parts and or second hand stories but there has now been enough people with issues and especially now after reading this dangerous issue I can no longer recommend the gun to friends.

There is no excuse for what happened in your photos, assuming you never removed or replaced your muzzle device on your own if it was BCL who torqed it on that damn tight without supporting the barrel that is just pure negligence and lazy craftsmanship. Only credit I can give them is it seems they owned up to their mistake and are offering replacements without blaming users.

I hope they get their crap together, it is an awesome rifle when it works. Got a nice little buck with mine last season. It's a little heavy but nothing a sling can't help.

I think at this point it is clear they raced to market and have been playing catch up ever since making one mistake after another.

Edit: I just noticed there is severe brass marks/wear on the right side where cartridges would not have rubbed against if it was aligned how it is in the photo the entire time. It looks like OP fired several rounds successfully prior to it moving out of alignment. Makes me kind of think he may have changed the muzzle device himself and knocked it out of alignment not supporting the barrel? Not saying this for sure but it just really looks like it was not out of alignment a long enough time to get brass wear/rub marks where they should be?
 
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Dietz said:
Yup. That's the weird thing about this. If this had happened during barrel nut torquing, the pin would have gone under the other side of the slot. So this happened during muzzle device torquing.

Barrel nut probably wasn't torqued very high, and the muzzle device installation torque was probably comparatively much higher. And they didn't install the muzzle by fixing the barrel like they're supposed to, they fixed the receiver.



Not only is the barrel nut design flawed, their installation methods are flawed too.



What kind of washer is used on those muzzles, crush washers or peel washers?
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I made the mistake of ordering a 3 pack of BCL 308 crush washers to round out an order, the crappiest washers I've ever seen, way undersized, thin as tin, takes no effort to crush them but you only have about 1/8 turn of adjustment if that.
Right into the garbage with those.
 
kcampbell said:
Edit: I just noticed there is severe brass marks/wear on the right side where cartridges would not have rubbed against if it was aligned how it is in the photo the entire time. It looks like OP fired several rounds successfully prior to it moving out of alignment. Makes me kind of think he may have changed the muzzle device himself and knocked it out of alignment not supporting the barrel? Not saying this for sure but it just really looks like it was not out of alignment a long enough time to get brass wear/rub marks where they should be?
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It does look like that's a possibility. Regardless this should have never happened simply because of changing a muzzle device (if that's what caused this).

Soft aluminum and a barrel nut with a hole in it in a critical location is the only thing that can be blamed. If the barrel nut was solid it would never have happened, especially from simply torquing a muzzle device, and I don't care what method you use to do the job.

It's plain and simply the fault of the product materials and design. Nothing else could possibly be to blame.

OP's just lucky he didn't get hurt from this. If I were him I'd be dumping the new replacement unfired as fast as I could and never touch one again.
 
Why would it not be the barrel nut install that caused this? Both flash hider and nut torque on the same way...righty tighty, which would cause the pin to crush right side.
Once the nut is hand tight, it's going to cause friction on the barrel extension when torqued to spec. I think that last bit of torque by a monkey is what caused the pin to crush the receiver threads.
 
kcampbell said:
Edit: I just noticed there is severe brass marks/wear on the right side where cartridges would not have rubbed against if it was aligned how it is in the photo the entire time. It looks like OP fired several rounds successfully prior to it moving out of alignment. Makes me kind of think he may have changed the muzzle device himself and knocked it out of alignment not supporting the barrel? Not saying this for sure but it just really looks like it was not out of alignment a long enough time to get brass wear/rub marks where they should be?
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Nope. I did not, I would admit that had I done so. Hell, wish I had the skill and confidence to do a barrel swap. Only change I did was put a UBR gen 2 stock on which did catch the detent pin contrary to another post.
 
Not to say that yours didn't come from BCL with a misaligned barrel, but it could easily happen post factory, or when a rifle is assembled from parts. Because of the nature of AR type rifles, there is lots of work done on them by enthusiasts who have limited skills or understanding. It says something for the industry in general that an unskilled hobbyist can buy all the parts from various manufacturers and assemble a rifle which almost invariably works.
 
slash547 said:
Supposed to be building me a new rifle next week. In their reply to me they said my new rifle should not let the barrel go out of alignment suggesting it happens post factory. Find that hard to believe
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Yeah me too. If the receiver is soft enough that the rotational force of the bullet going through the rifling caused that they need to get some better aluminum lol.
 
tiriaq said:
Not to say that yours didn't come from BCL with a misaligned barrel, but it could easily happen post factory, or when a rifle is assembled from parts. Because of the nature of AR type rifles, there is lots of work done on them by enthusiasts who have limited skills or understanding. It says something for the industry in general that an unskilled hobbyist can buy all the parts from various manufacturers and assemble a rifle which almost invariably works.
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I purchased new from Marstar last May. I wouldn’t be getting a BNIB FOC rifle otherwise
 
slash547 said:
Wow, they are saying it happens from normal use. I put about 60 rounds total from new when my KB happened. Would owners need to check alignment after every shot forever?
Hard to believe they would honour a warranty if someone changed barrels or barrel extension and did not align them.
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IMO they should be recalling those swiss cheese barrel nuts. They are the root cause of these failures, and failures will keep happening as long as the flawed parts stay in circulation.

The possibility of catastrophically damaging your rifle (and yourself) from normal use or by doing a routine operation like a muzzle device swap is unacceptable.
 
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