Yet another BCL 102 Review

Hey Jmiddy, taken from the Hodgdon reloading data center. The loads were about the same from the Load Data website.

Manufacturer Powder Bullet Diam.
C.O.L. Grs.
Vel. (ft/s)
Pressure
Grs.
Vel. (ft/s)
Pressure
Hodgdon H4350 .264" 2.750" 35.2 2,464 49,300 PSI 39.2 2,687 60,400 PSI
Hodgdon H414 .264" 2.750" 35.4 2,490 50,500 PSI 39.3 2,693 60,000 PSI
Hodgdon Varget .264" 2.750" 31.4 2,414 51,500 PSI 34.9 2,610 61,400 PSI
Hodgdon BL-C(2) .264" 2.750" 31.2 2,358 52,600 PSI 34.9 2,529 60,400 PSI
Hodgdon H4895 .264" 2.750" 30.1 2,361 48,500 PSI 33.8 2,583 61,200 PSI
 
Horse96 said:
Hey Jmiddy, taken from the Hodgdon reloading data center. The loads were about the same from the Load Data website.

Manufacturer Powder Bullet Diam.
C.O.L. Grs.
Vel. (ft/s)
Pressure
Grs.
Vel. (ft/s)
Pressure
Hodgdon H4350 .264" 2.750" 35.2 2,464 49,300 PSI 39.2 2,687 60,400 PSI
Hodgdon H414 .264" 2.750" 35.4 2,490 50,500 PSI 39.3 2,693 60,000 PSI
Hodgdon Varget .264" 2.750" 31.4 2,414 51,500 PSI 34.9 2,610 61,400 PSI
Hodgdon BL-C(2) .264" 2.750" 31.2 2,358 52,600 PSI 34.9 2,529 60,400 PSI
Hodgdon H4895 .264" 2.750" 30.1 2,361 48,500 PSI 33.8 2,583 61,200 PSI
Click to expand...

Hello shoudnt your grains of powder decrease the higher your weight of the bullet increase my book says for Varget
178-180 grain bullet starting 32.0g- Max 43.2g
165-168 grain bullet 32.6g - Max 44.0g
150-155 grain bullet 35.9g- Max 44.9g
so should not a 130grain bullet be above the above
 
Sounds awesome werewolf! I am a picky picky bast*rd when it comes to how my rifle's shoot. I have seen that if you get a good .308 stock barrel, you'll get the same results: 0.5 MOA on a good day, but more like an average of 1.5 MOA. Which is pretty good. I think there are some bummer barrels out there as well, that average more around the 2 moa mark. Which, for me, would be unacceptable. But like I said, I am picky!! Maybe one day soon, for giggles and sh*ts, I'll throw the stock barrel back on and see what kind of accuracy I can get with some FGMM's. The problem is that in all of my wisdom, I took the stock gas block screws off in my office, which has a dark, dark colored floor that are camouflaging my gas block screws...
 
jmiddy said:
Hello shoudnt your grains of powder decrease the higher your weight of the bullet increase my book says for Varget
178-180 grain bullet starting 32.0g- Max 43.2g
165-168 grain bullet 32.6g - Max 44.0g
150-155 grain bullet 35.9g- Max 44.9g
so should not a 130grain bullet be above the above
Click to expand...

lol. I think you're looking at the loads for a .308? Not for a 6.5 Creedmoor.
 
So, I have had my rifle to the range now a couple of times. I was having problems with a round not cycling, the rifle was short-stroking and a round was compressed by the bolt against the feed ramps, if it fed at all. I thought maybe rounds were over-pressured, I thought maybe I screwed with the gas system specs because my new barrel is a rifle length system. I thought that maybe it was a magazine problem, or a mag catch problem. Then I was watching a youtube video and came across the gas ring check test. Basically, you stand the bcg up on the bolt, and if the rings are tight, the bolt will continue to stand and should take force for the bolt to compress into the bcg. Well, my bolt failed miserably. I have contacted BCL through their page as I was directed to by SFRC. If they get back to me asap and take care of the problem, I'll have some faith restored.

I have heard of NEA's poor quality control before. I was reluctant to buy the rifle when I came upon the pre-orders, but the lure of a non-restricted precision AR type of rifle won me over. I could shoot matches with it and take it hunting, not just to the range. Well, pretty soon, the only parts that will be BCL/NEA will be the upper and lower, and maybe the stock. When it works, I know I will enjoy shooting it. It will still be the most expensive stripped upper and lower that has existed, but thanks to our gun laws, it is cheaper than some alternatives. BCL should just sell them as stripped uppers and lowers. They would get them out the door quicker (we'd hope) and people are free to do what they like with them. At any rate, I'd give a buy rating only if the person understands that they will probably end up striping everything and replacing with parts that work.

Which brings me to my next question: which bcg's work in this rifle? I might as well go with something pimp. Any recommendations?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IqId0PMdPYA
 
My new FDE showed up and the bolt will stand up, but I haven’t fired it yet. The gas rings look like crap though. I’ll see how it functions this weekend. If it groups nicely I will keep it as a 308. If not I’ll go with an 18.5” or 20” creedmoor barrel. I have a pile of reloader 17.

How many rounds did you fire before you had gas ring issues?
 
The gas ring issue was present from the get-go.

BCL will probably warranty it. But if their BCG is the problem, it will only happen again.
 
I bought an aero precision dpms gen1 bolt from brownells and some go nogo gauges. Hopefully it will work.
If it does I will post a thread with that message in the thread title
 
So I found some brownells gas rings, installed them, and my bolt now passes the bcg gas ring test. I should be good to go. I gotta say that the bcl oem rings were quite thin compared to the brownells rings. Hopefully there are no problems with the machining inside the bcg. It's only been one day, but I have not heard back from BCL's warranty department. I guess they have been having problems with their online submissions. Growing pains? But on the other hand, the bcg gas ring test is pretty easy to do, and there is no way that my bcg should have left the factory with the bolt that loose. I don't know if they read these threads, but here is a free lesson on quality control, customer service and their relation to profits...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wEBPVQ7W2wg

I also think that the bcg is an armalite pattern, which means that most aftermarket bcg's will not provide the right amount of headspace with the ar-10 barrel and extension. I am not 100% yet on this, but I am assuming so based on: 1) it is an AR102 rifle, which is armalite and not DPMS; 2) there are 3 gas holes on the bcg, while most DPMS bcg's have two holes, like an ar-15. This is not confirmed information, but you will want to take it into account if you buy a stripped upper or want to remove all of the oem BCL 102 parts.
 
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Horse96 said:
So I found some brownells gas rings, installed them, and my bolt now passes the bcg gas ring test. I should be good to go. I gotta say that the bcl oem rings were quite thin compared to the brownells rings. Hopefully there are no problems with the machining inside the bcg. It's only been one day, but I have not heard back from BCL's warranty department. I guess they have been having problems with their online submissions. Growing pains? But on the other hand, the bcg gas ring test is pretty easy to do, and there is no way that my bcg should have left the factory with the bolt that loose. I don't know if they read these threads, but here is a free lesson on quality control, customer service and their relation to profits...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wEBPVQ7W2wg

I also think that the bcg is an armalite pattern, which means that most aftermarket bcg's will not provide the right amount of headspace with the ar-10 barrel and extension. I am not 100% yet on this, but I am assuming so based on: 1) it is an AR102 rifle, which is armalite and not DPMS; 2) there are 3 gas holes on the bcg, while most DPMS bcg's have two holes, like an ar-15. This is not confirmed information, but you will want to take it into account if you buy a stripped upper or want to remove all of the oem BCL 102 parts.
Click to expand...

At the gas rings you bought for a dpms AR10 or Armalite? I don’t know if they’re different
 
I bought the gas rings from a local supplier. They came in a brownell's bag. They work!

I didn't feel the need to use headspace gauges for the gas rings. I function checked and all seemed well. If I changed the bolt, barrel, barrel extension and etc, then headspace gauges for sure. The bolt was able to stand through the gas ring test and it fired and cycled excellently. I found an awesome load for it. I did some more load development with the 140gr hornady ELD match and the overall average for the 30 some shots I fired was 0.713 inches. I mixed in some hornady custom 140gr rounds in with my handloads. The hornady ammo gave me a 0.6 inch group. My best load, with 39.0gr of H4350, gave me a quarter inch group. The best of the day!! It's loaded below max by about 2.5% which, in my experience, is where accuracy happens for ar-type rifles. As I had mentioned before, my stag 3g doesn't shoot factory loads very well (1.5 inches or so), but when I back down by about the same percent, I find the sweet spot to the half-inch groups.

The load you see at the bottom of the pic looks large, but it measured 0.718 inches. It was given by 38.5gr of H4350.

So, the only OEM parts left on my rifle now are really the stock and the bcg. I was tempted to buy the UBR stock for it, but the thing is heavy. I am thinking of putting on the Luth-AR stock. Same functionality as the Magpul PRS stock, but weight is lighter and the price is cheaper.

I was able to get through to BCL's warranty support. They seemed very attentive and are sending me some replacement rings. If they can iron out all of the bugs, they will have a solid product line. It would be nice if they offered a 'precision rifle' setup as an option. With their buying power, they would be able to put it together for cheaper than most of us have been. I am tempted to buy one of the stripped uppers and spin a carbon fiber barrel on it, just for hunting.


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