BCA Bolt Action AR15

[Johnch]

Wait a minute. Shooting wasps with rice loaded in .45 LC cases is weird? No way! Everyone does that...right?

Millet works better than rice
At least on Horse Flies

John

[1lnbrdg]

I like the thought of a 45ACP bolt gun, was looking at that in a thread earlier. I have a BCA 45ACP PCC now that I love. Friend has the PCC 10MM, both have been totally reliable.

[Wolfdog91]

So stuff I found on YouTube and there website


Sent from my motorola edge 5G UW (2021) using Tapatalk

[T_Williams]

Had me an early Christmas gift at the door this morning. BCA 350 legend upper is here. pictures will follow as soon I can get them small enough to upload. First thing I did was a full tear down and here are some of the conclusions.

-The bolt is a mil-spec AR bolt which means multiple caliber options.

-The BCG is a has a straight hole for the cam pin which means that the bolt does not turn automatically when moved backwards. the action of the handle, lifting up and back brings the bolt out of battery.

-There is a spring behind the bolt in the bcg keeping the bolt fully extended. when moving the BCG forward, the spring compresses as it goes into battery. Kind of like an Enfield bolt action.

- The rear part of the Bcg is cut off, removing length and weight. i assume this is done to allow the upper to run on a lower without removing the buffer spring and weight.

- The bolt handle, unfortunately, is all one piece. so it will not be possible to change the bolt handle. I might have to get with a cnc guy to see if a handle with threads can be made.

- The Barrel is a regular AR15 barrel, with a gas port. But BCA has put a Collar over the hole with a set screw.

That's all for now. hopefully Ill get some range time in the near future and will post a range report.

[steve urquell]

Had me an early Christmas gift at the door this morning. BCA 350 legend upper is here. pictures will follow as soon I can get them small enough to upload. First thing I did was a full tear down and here are some of the conclusions.

-The bolt is a mil-spec AR bolt which means multiple caliber options.

-The BCG is a has a straight hole for the cam pin which means that the bolt does not turn automatically when moved backwards. the action of the handle, lifting up and back brings the bolt out of battery.

-There is a spring behind the bolt in the bcg keeping the bolt fully extended. when moving the BCG forward, the spring compresses as it goes into battery. Kind of like an Enfield bolt action.

- The rear part of the Bcg is cut off, removing length and weight. i assume this is done to allow the upper to run on a lower without removing the buffer spring and weight.

- The bolt handle, unfortunately, is all one piece. so it will not be possible to change the bolt handle. I might have to get with a cnc guy to see if a handle with threads can be made.

- The Barrel is a regular AR15 barrel, with a gas port. But BCA has put a Collar over the hole with a set screw.

That's all for now. hopefully Ill get some range time in the near future and will post a range report.

[jaysouth]

Hurry up .223. Anyone have a .223 AI reamer?

[Dantiff2]

That's awesome! Thanks for clearing up some things. If the bolt was directly connected to the bolt carrier group, I don't understand what the spring is for though? Does the bolt handle rotate the BCG??

[hollywood63]

What are the chances of posting some pics of the BCG??

[Dantiff2]

What are the chances of posting some pics of the BCG??

^^^ YES^^^ That would help, I was anticipating the bolt being connected to the internal bolt through a window but into the bolt carrier but then there would be no need for any sort of spring.

[T_Williams]

[Dantiff2]

Perfect! Thanks! Definitely not a mil-spec carrier just chopped short. Oversized body like that of a pistol BCG with no wear rails. This is proprietary.

[hollywood63]

Perfect..........just f,in perfect now I need 2 more uppers

[dverna]

Perfect..........just f,in perfect now I need 2 more uppers

Oh heck...it is the time of giving and it is only money...LOL

[BK7saum]

OK, so does the BCG rotate inside the action?
If so, the upper looks like it is also proprietary as well as the BCG, in order for them to function together. I was wondering if somehow the bolt handle interacted only with the bolt, but it appears from the photos that the bolt attaches solidly to the BCG and the BCG and bolt are connected to eliminate any radial movement, but the bolt can telescope within the BCG. The spring between the bolt tail and BCG doesn't seem to have a function except to add tension to the BCG/ bolt handle and force it rearward to minimize movement and help with tension to provide unwanted rotation of the bolt.

*******Is there anything to eliminate an out of battery discharge? ******

Can the bolt be held forward but not rotated downward and the firing pin still fall and strike the primer?

If so, I have some serious concerns regarding safety of the setup. The cam pin rotation of the standard AR15 prohibits an out of battery discharge as the firing pin cannot reach the primer until the bolt has fully rotated and locked into position. Turn-bolt rifles (rem 700, mauser, etc) prohibit an out of battery discharge due the inability of the firing pin reaching the primer until the bolt lugs are locked into position.

I hope I (and not the upper) am missing something in the safety department. What if the bolt is pushed forward and only rotated into battery 1 degree? Can the rifle still fire? What happens then as it shears off the corners of the lugs and is forced backwards by 55,000 psi?

There must be something I am not seeing or understanding about this setup...hope I am wrong.

Brad

[35 Rem]

I can't imagine putting up with the clunkiness of an AR without having the ability to rip off a large magazine of ammo as fast as you can pull the trigger. I finally got an AR recently (Ruger SFAR in 308) and that is the only reason I bought it. Good power, high capacity and ability to fire fast with aimed shots. But the darned AR design is about as clunky as a pipe wrench welded to a sledgehammer. All that weight and mass hanging down under what would normally be called a "receiver" and the controls are scattered all over both sides. I can't see any appeal to make one prefer this to a normal much more sleek traditional bolt action, and I'm not talking about aesthetics at all. A traditional rifle is so much faster to get to the shoulder and it aligns between the shooters two hands automatically. Any pistol grip rifle tends to feel like it's top heavy and wants to teeter side to side above the trigger hand. I do see the point about the telescoping butt stock being nice for instant adjustments for different shooters.

One other point. Does a bolt action AR "Run" or "Shoot"? All these AR nuts constantly talk about how their guns "Run" - drives me crazy - I've yet to see a gun "Run". All mine "Shoot".

[T_Williams]

OK, so does the BCG rotate inside the action?
If so, the upper looks like it is also proprietary as well as the BCG, in order for them to function together. I was wondering if somehow the bolt handle interacted only with the bolt, but it appears from the photos that the bolt attaches solidly to the BCG and the BCG and bolt are connected to eliminate any radial movement, but the bolt can telescope within the BCG. The spring between the bolt tail and BCG doesn't seem to have a function except to add tension to the BCG/ bolt handle and force it rearward to minimize movement and help with tension to provide unwanted rotation of the bolt.

*******Is there anything to eliminate an out of battery discharge? ******

Can the bolt be held forward but not rotated downward and the firing pin still fall and strike the primer?

If so, I have some serious concerns regarding safety of the setup. The cam pin rotation of the standard AR15 prohibits an out of battery discharge as the firing pin cannot reach the primer until the bolt has fully rotated and locked into position. Turn-bolt rifles (rem 700, mauser, etc) prohibit an out of battery discharge due the inability of the firing pin reaching the primer until the bolt lugs are locked into position.

I hope I (and not the upper) am missing something in the safety department. What if the bolt is pushed forward and only rotated into battery 1 degree? Can the rifle still fire? What happens then as it shears off the corners of the lugs and is forced backwards by 55,000 psi?

There must be something I am not seeing or understanding about this setup...hope I am wrong.

Brad

you had an interesting point about out of Battery Discharge so I ran a few tests. I found that even if the bolt is not completely forward and down, the trigger will fire. when you push the bolt forward, you feel tension from the spring and when rotated down there isn't a lot of "meat" on the lug to hold the bolt fully forward. After a certain amount of use, either short or long term, I believe that the receiver part that holds the bolt in battery will fail. I might put in a call to BCA in the future to give some feed back. I think if they cut the bolt handle lug a little lower and reoriented the cam pin to coincide with the extra radial throw of the bolt handle could make it more safe.

The upper is proprietary to the Bcg due to the internal cuts for the radial turn of the bolt and groove for the cam pin. the BCG and handle turn as one. when the bolt handle is lifted, the cam pin turns with it into a groove that runs the length of the receiver. There is also no hole for the gas tube in the receiver.

[BK7saum]

you had an interesting point about out of Battery Discharge so I ran a few tests. I found that even if the bolt is not completely forward and down, the trigger will fire. when you push the bolt forward, you feel tension from the spring and when rotated down there isn't a lot of "meat" on the lug to hold the bolt fully forward. After a certain amount of use, either short or long term, I believe that the receiver part that holds the bolt in battery will fail. I might put in a call to BCA in the future to give some feed back. I think if they cut the bolt handle lug a little lower and reoriented the cam pin to coincide with the extra radial throw of the bolt handle could make it more safe.

The upper is proprietary to the Bcg due to the internal cuts for the radial turn of the bolt and groove for the cam pin. the BCG and handle turn as one. when the bolt handle is lifted, the cam pin turns with it into a groove that runs the length of the receiver. There is also no hole for the gas tube in the receiver.

Thank you for checking that out. I had hoped I was wrong, but there isn't any cam or other safety design included into this BCA bolt action AR upper to prevent a slighlty out of battery discharge. The spring at the tail of the bolt prevents a full out of battery, but a full out of battery could be accomplished nonetheless.

With careful use, it should function just fine. However in order to facilitate making this work as a bolt action, they removed or circumvented the safety features of the AR15 bolt/BCG assembly as well as the traditional bolt action rifle. I do hope anyone and eveyone using one of these is safe, but having shot Rem 700s and other bolt actions my entire life, I have had the occasional bolt back with lost round, as well as a click when trying to fire due to the bolt rotating slightly out of battery. Thankfully, the design saved me and the gun from injury and damage, but how would that have been different with this BCA design.

Just thinking out loud here, but if they had kept the standard AR15 bolt/BCG, and kept the bolt to bolt handle attachment, pushing the handle/BCG forward would cam the bolt and prevent the OOB discharge. Of course, there would not be a "locking" mechanism to hold the BCG/handle forward, but the safety feature of the camming of the bold would eliminate the possibility of an OOB discharge.

The straight pull bolt action does include the safety feature of the bolt/cam pin/ BCG interaction. I guess it isn't quite as sexy as a turn bolt AR.