Home Forums Hunting & Shooting AR and Tactical Rifles Thoughts on Bear Creek 6.5 Grendel Uppers

Thinking about buying a Bear Creek 20" heavy barrel upper for $225.88 as an inexpensive way to try the 6.5 Grendel.

If you have experience with Bear Creek uppers, I'd appreciate hearing what you think of them.

My other options are a 20" PSA for $400 or maybe a complete Radical rifle for $430.

I have a custom built AR in 20P.that I won, I didn't care for the long barrel 20P and put 16" BCA 223 upper on it. It has been accurate, feeds 62gr SPs and 52gr HP handloads reliably, no complaints. Handy on my MC for.coyote hunting.

I bought exactly the upper you are looking at. Mine is better than MOA and has never failed to feed or eject. The original plan was to put a 6ARC barrel on it if it didn't shoot but that didn't work out. Make sure you clean it thoroughly before you shoot it.

Thanks for the information. I went ahead and ordered one, now I just need to find a 4-round magazine so that I can use it to shoot whitetails in a couple of months.

Do you have any pet loads that you'd care to share?

OP,
Good luck w/your BearCreekArsenal?

Purchase a Satern/Liberty barrel or upper assy...thank me later.

Manufacturer Load Data-
https://shootersreference.com/reloadingdata/65-grendel/

If the BCA upper doesn't work out I can always try something else. But for less than $250 delivered it seems like a good way to dip my toe in the 6.5 Grendel pool without much of an investment. Liberty doesn't show a 20" complete upper on the site that you provided the link to and the prices before shipping are more than twice what the BCA complete upper cost. As a cold warrior I had an M16A1 assigned to me and while I have a couple of M-4 pattern ARs, I prefer the longer barreled ARs probably due to my long attachment to the longer platform.

I have the radical rifle and I absolutely love it. That beind said I had an 18" grendel from BCA and i liked it too. Mine was a lefty side charger. My only complaint was that it was a little on the heavy side. You will love the Grendel though its my favorite cartridge. I have owned several Grendels and i will say that all of the ones I have had shot the 123 ELDM bullets the best

I like the longer barrels because they are a bit quieter and give a few more fps. I might add that the factory SST has given mediocre accuracy in every Grendel I tried in it bout 1.5 inch groups work for hunting. Mine shoots the 120 gr. Matchburners on top of 29.5 grains of BLC2 into tight groups. Fed small rifle primer, forget the number. 2511 fps. Mild in my rifle. To add this upper is no flyweight with a 10x SWFA SS on it and a Sinclair bipod.

my experience with bear creek has not been good ( accuracy) not only not good but down right thd worst I've ever personally experienced. not in one barrel but 2 both 6.5 grendel..
now my PSA, Faxon barreled built , in Ruger American and 6.5 Grendel all shoot awesome..

I hope that mine will shoot at well as rickt300's and not as poorly as your two.

A member here that's highly regarded and can afford any gear he desires told me awhile back that he's been perfectly satisfied with his BCA uppers. No, they're not uber in all regards. And certainly they're not for everyone. But, he's killed the chit outa piggies with his at short- and mid-ranges... I personally sold the few BCA items I had after reading the horror stories here. LOL + Cumbaya.

I hope you have good luck too..

I got the Bear Creek upper and, because they were on sale for $99, a PSA lower that I've cleaned and mounted/bore sighted a Leupold VX1 2-7x33 shotgun scope. Now I'm waiting for 100 rounds of Hornady 123 grain SST ammo to arrive so that I can take it to the range. I might swap the collapsible stock for a rigid stock to get a better, for me, cheek weld, but I'm going to shoot it as it is currently configured first.

I just bought an AR stoner side charging 16" grendel upper from midway for $171 bolt and all. I says bear creek right on the side of it.

I don't have high hopes for it but the kids like shorter AR's so of it shoots ok I'll let them hunt with it. I try to get them to use bolt guns I've put together for them but they always ask to use an AR and my 18" bhw barreled grendel is a bit too heavy for them.

I just put together a light weight 300 hamr with a Wilson 16" super lite barrel on aero m4 upper and lower with the 12.7" s one handgaurd and a ctr stock. It will be my kids closer range hunting ar and hopefully the little grendel will shoot well enough with my 129g ablr handloads to work for them on longer shots.

If not they'll just have to use the mini howa in the mdt lss I had them use last year. It's 1/2 moa with the 129 ablr load I developed for it and I've hit a coyote over 300 with it and rabbits past that. I'll try to get the cheap bear creek grendel to the range this week. I put together 2 other ar's today and an aero m5 6.5 with a Wilson fluted 18" 6.5 Creedmoor. So I'm going to have 4 ARs to sight in.

Bb

Like rickt300 recommended, I detail cleaned my BCA upper before shooting it. I took it to the range and shot it with Hornady 123 grain SST factory ammo. Not quite MOA at 100 yards, but that might be due to the stiff trigger on the new PSA lower. I think that it has potential for a truck gun. Soybean harvest has started, so I'll be running around the country quite a bit and expect to see a few badgers and coyotes that will need to be removed.

Still thinking about trying the BCA upper with a fixed, M16A1/A2 style, stock in place of the collapsible M4 style stock, but the collapsible stock packs down into a handier package.

I thought collapsible stocks were pretty cool when they first appeared, but after using a few of them for a decade or so I decided I prefer the A2 style. It's not as prone to snagging stuff, I get a little better cheek weld, and I like having the little trapdoor storage compartment.

I did a similar thing to try out 5.56. The upper works but the heavy profile weighs a bit much for carrying around, I suppose it matters what sights you will use. Functionally it seemed fine to me. It will give you a cheap "in" to trying the grendel... start budgeting for the "nice" one you will be buying or building within a year of using the BCA.

Sanders Armory in FL builds a great 20”upper for the $$
I could be wrong, but I thought they used Satern barrels.

I agree that the metal handguard is heavier than I'd prefer, but if it shoots close to MOA with factory ammo, that is good enough to meet my needs for shooting called predators and whitetails within +/- 200 yards. I'm planning to use it to shoot some anterless whitetails during our early season in a couple of weeks, so that should be a good start at scratching my 6.5 Grendel itch.

I was gonna pull the trigger on a 6.5 Grendel Bear Creek upper. After doing some research and reading reviews I bought a
Sanders Armory 6.5 Grendel upper. I'm very happy with it. It shoots great. It's a very nice upper for the money.


https://sandersarmoryusa.com/product-category/ar-upper-assemblies/6-5-grendel-ii-upper-assembly/