So what parts on a full BCA upper are the biggest kink in reliability? Everything? BCG? Hand guard? If you had one and wanted to make it reliable to your standards would that be possible?
Shoot,
The most frequent issues I've seen, and seen reported, revolve around the most important parts, the barrel and bolt, specifically improperly cut chambers, rough chambers, bad head spacing, and improper heat treating of the bolts.
This is why BCA's the most debated brand on the internet. Some people get lucky and have no issues with these major parts. A large percentage don't shoot 'em enough to realize they have problems. Those who do have problems, and properly diagnose them are into them for a new barrel, BCG components, or both, hence, Tyrone's numbers above.
I have a Midway "Stoner" upper (it's complete blasphemous to put his name on this collection of parts), that's rumored to be made buy, or at least contain parts from BCA. The BGC looks identical to the BCA one's I've seen. It's a 16" barrel with carbine gas, so I wasn't surprised when it was over gassed out of the gate. For the first 100 rounds it seemed fine, but I don't think it made it past 200 before it it started have ejection and extraction issues. The extractor tears the rim off the case, so it's not a small issue, probably barrel related, and give me a good excuse to replace the barrel with something from Criterion. The bolt is still within spec, but it hasn't seen 500 rounds yet, and with the current ammo situation, I'll spend my primers in better ways. This barrel will join an Anderson barrel in the Bin of Shame.
But I know the risks when I bought it. As I recall it was a really good sale which made for a reasonable risk/reward ratio, but after subtracting out the price of the bad barrel, and assuming the BCG doesn't disappoint, I will still have over paid for the usable parts, but I'll get that back in experience (or at least that's what I'm going to tell myself.
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