Does anyone own and love, have destroyed, regret buying or have a chance to fire one of these uppers? What are your opinions? Do they work well with the PSA PA10?
Wow. No one at all. I guess I will take one for the team and try it out with my next build.
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I only have experience with their AR15 uppers. Never had an issue and found their customer service to be very helpful.
Good Luck! please share your experience.
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i have the 450 bushmaster upper - very accurate and reliable. i wouldn’t hesitate to buy from them again.
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I was tempted on the 450 when it was on sale during Black Friday. Glad to know it runs great.
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Side charger huh? I still have one .223 heavy spiral flute or “bear claw” barrel and it is a Gen2…stay away from the Gen1! Your ch will get loose running it. I have owned several and the only fix for loose ch was a tad longer hex screw w/lock washer. One other thing to consider when you need to field strip and clean, you’ll have to Remove the charging handle. I personally am not fond of the design. Other than that they were good runners. Except for a dedicated 22 upper I had to send back.
Thanks for your input on the side charging handle. I guess the BCG would be proprietary to BCA with limited options.
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I have one in .243.
Locking lugs were very tight to begin with. Took about 50 rounds to loosen up. Haven’t had a lot of range time with it, but so far I am pleased. Fairly confident it will produce sub moa groups
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I went to BCA website and it appears they dropped the Gen1 SCH…which is a good thing! The Gen2 with dowel pin/hex screw design is far better. Note: this is my experience with the AR15 platform.
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Just noticed your user name. Hooah! Death before Dismount!!! Something we used to say back in 11th ACR.
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Was you stationed east of Fulda Gap Blackhorse? Before they moved?
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My older brothers were both there at Fulda. I was with them twice at Fort Irwin back in the 90s.
If you look closely at my profile pic it’s 11th on the left shoulder.
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Brother it’s a small world, l was at Irwin in “79” on a M48A5. Tanks had no heaters, we blew a engine “deadline” for days until a Chinook flew us in a new power-pack…in the middle of December! That is the coldest my body has ever felt. That exercise was when we first seen the A-10 and watched them lite up the hard targets at 4 corners! And later we passed through (days later) when the range was clear, everything was “Swiss cheese”.
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I have had an 18” barreled one for about a year. It fit on a PSA lower nicely and I have shot many sub 1” groups with federal gold medal match and hand loads. I did replace the gas block with an adjustable one. The only problem I have had with it was that the barrel nut was loose from the factory. The only downside is that there is no ejection port cover.
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Thanks for sharing that information and welcome to the forum @Sone570 . Enjoy
My experience should be cautionary. Back on Black Friday I bought a Gen 3 PSA comlete lower and a Bear Creek (BCA) complete upper based on so many people saying they worked fine together. The price was great. The two combined ran just a little over $500. The first BCA upper mated with the PSA lower but the takedown pin was a little tight - had to tap it in with a small plastic hammer the first time. It loosened up a little over time, but never got to be what I’d call right. It fired, ejected and fed without problem on the few shots that I took. I bore scoped it out of curiosity to see what brand new rifling looked like and was appalled. There were chatter marks throughout the entire length of the barrel and the rifling itself was only partially cut in many areas. It looked like it had been done with a broken or worn out rifling tool. No amount of firing was going to clean that up. Despite trying to contact BCA on line I never got a response over several weeks. I had the link to give an review of the product and gave it low marks on their web site. I was descriptive and not acid tongued in my write up. Someone at BCA noticed and offered to exchange it for a replacement. Complete upper #2 arrived and it wouldn’t seat the whole way down on the lower. The rear takedown hole / lug was up about .010" from where it needed to be. I was able to tap the takedown pin part way in - enough that I could see how the bolt cycled. Because the upper was slightly cocked upward, the rear of the bolt carrier bound in the buffer tube and wouldn’t go the whole way back. I did get it to cycle manually on some rounds and several were so tight in the chamber that I had to tap the bolt open with a plastic mallet. I bore scoped the barrel and the rifling was better than number 1, but still not what I’d consider right. Number 2 got sent back promptly. I’m now on complete upper #3. Same problem. The BCA upper would not fully seat on the PSA lower. The upper and lower were striking in the radiused part at the rear. I borescoped the barrel and the rifling looked pretty good on this one. I was hesitant to send this one back since I might get another upper that wouldn’t fit or get a barrel with malformed rifling again. I measured where the interference was occurring and filed the radius of the upper until it fit the lower. It didn’t take much metal removal, but the upper now has a large bright shiny spot on the rear where the anodizing has been removed. The problem I’m having now is that selected reloaded rounds are so tight in the chamber that I have to tap the bolt open to extract them. One round fired, but the extractor pulled the rim off of the case, which was stuck in the chamber and needed to be tapped out with a rod. New ammunition is not a problem and is .002 to .003" smaller in diameter than resized cases. I did a chamber cast and the measurements of the chamber are reasonable although on the tight side. The chamber however is quite rough. Fired cases come out with a frosted appearance and there may be a tight spot near the shoulder of the chamber. At this point I’m awaiting a case gage so that I can see if my reloaded cases are sized correctly and whether that will sort the cases that will fit and those that won’t. I may need to buy a small base resizing die to make my reloads a little smaller to work in this rifle. The 308 brass in question is range brass from two different on line sellers. It’s possible that selected rounds were fired in rifles with unusually large chambers and just won’t resize properly without using a small base die once. I have been pleased with my full PSA AR-15 build. That one functions well and the accuracy is good. The AR-10 combination rifle has been a challenge to say the least. Can I still use the lifetime warranty on my BCA upper? I don’t know. They would be justified in refusing to swap out the upper receiver because I’ve taken matters into my own hands on that. The barrel is another matter. I’m guessing that a small base sizer die may solve the problem [which doesn’t occur on all rounds], but in the end, if the chamber needs to be cleaned up with a reamer, I’d have to see if BCA will still do that. Hopefully I won’t need to do that. I’m following BCA’s break in procedure, so I haven’t fired it enough to know how accurate it will be or to prove that there won’t be other problems. Based on the appearance of the rifling this time, this one has the potential to be a good shooter. There is however no crown on the muzzle end of the barrel. All three examples have not been crowned. Many people on line rave about how accurate their BCA uppers mated to PSA lowers are. There are a significant number of complaints about BCA. If I got one dud from BCA I wouldn’t be concerned because they did honor their warranty - but three in a row with problems… It’s a gamble that your gunsmithing skills can fix any problems from Bear Creek - IF you get one with problems. Then again you might get lucky. If the original poster got a BCA upper I’d be interested in knowing how it worked out.
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I have all-----yes all of there charging handled uppers!! I am working on getting some of there actual full 9mm pistols. I just got done building a .458 socom side charging upper and the ony thing is I just put a lighter buffer a d adjustable gas block on it
I have an ar10 complete 308 side charging from BSA that is awesome with their branded scope. My friends have shot it and love it from 100 yrds out. I have it dialed in at quarter size 5 shot groupings and goes plink on the steel every shoot . All my ar15’s are PSA lowers with BCA uppers, being a 6.5 grendel rear charging that shoots nickle size 5 shot groupings and a 300 blk out that I thought had a gassing issue but appears to be the ammo inc rounds that ftf next round but all other ammo works great.
I do have a 6.5 creedmore upper that I just received and need a lower for. Debating the PSA on sale or just just spend the extra $80 on one I know will fit.
Welcome to the forum @donnie.robersonjr
Which lower do you currently own vs the one on sale? I’ve used PSA $129 lowers with zero issues. The only thing I do is drop in a 3.5 PSA trigger 
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The ar15 lowers are all I own and have 0 issues. It is the AR10 lower that is on sale for fathers day that I am worried about if it will fit with my BCA AR10 308 or 6.5 Creedmoor