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Bear Creek Arsenal uppers

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  • kidsoncoffee

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    Just wanted to give a quick review on Bear Creek. I have a pistol length 300 blackout, 16" 7.62x39, and 16" 458 socom. The first two shot wonderfully without any feeding or ejection issues. They're both tack drivers. The pistol was grouping 3 inches at 130 yards with a 4MOA red dot and cheap remington ammo. I had a few FTF issues with the socom and 1 FTE. This was anticipated after reading the reviews on non tromix bolts. After shot #30 it was feeding flawlessly as well as ejecting. I think another 50-75 rounds and it will be broken in with no issues. I am going to order a tromix bolt for it just to make me feel a little better as it's an inexpensive upgrade. All in all I can say without a doubt, for the price, these things are some good quality uppers. They pin tightly to my lowers and the lines line up good. I will be buying more bear creek parts for future builds. Hopefully this changes some of your minds if you're on the fence about the quality of their stuff for their price. For a range/occasional hunting gun, it's hard to beat for their price.
     

    kidsoncoffee

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    What did the 7.62 set you might I ask

    $210 and it came with the BCG and charging handle. I replaced the charging handle with a Radian Raptor-LT ambi I got on sale for $45. I'll eventually be upgrading the BCG to nickel boron as I like the look and it's easy to clean. Check out their website. They have some crazy low prices and the options are endless. There's MLOK, key mod, and regular pic rails as options. The only issues I had are stated above with the 458 bolt. And that was anticipated after all the research I did. In fact, I was surprised at the amount of good functionality after reading a lot of reviews for the 458. The 458 is just a useless caliber to me and it's more of a "because I can" upper. It's just for fun and I don't mind spending a little to dial it in and toy with it.
     

    MarkS

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    Thanks I had read a lot of bad reviews back when they were Moore’s Mill Creek and have been seeing a lot of good reviews since they reorganized as Bear Creek. Nice to read a good review on this forum where I have more faith that the reviewer isn’t an employee or friend of the company


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    kidsoncoffee

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    Thanks I had read a lot of bad reviews back when they were Moore’s Mill Creek and have been seeing a lot of good reviews since they reorganized as Bear Creek. Nice to read a good review on this forum where I have more faith that the reviewer isn’t an employee or friend of the company


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    Like I said. For the money, these are pretty awesome. I see some outrageous prices for some black rifle parts and I'm absolutely puzzled why anyone would pay that much. I don't plan on taking these into combat, nor do I plan on protecting my home with them. Without a doubt though I'd trust the 300 and the 7.62x39 to defend myself if it came down to it. I had some questions and their customer service was able to reply to me within an hour of me e-mailing them. I haven't had to return anything or get any warranty work done so I can't comment on those. Give them a shot if you're looking for a new range or hunting gun.
     

    bowfreak

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    I had a horrible experience with an upper that they made(barrel nut was cross threaded and impossible to remove) BUT.... they made it right and all was well with the world. I was pleasantly surprised and would buy from them again.
     

    kidsoncoffee

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    I had a horrible experience with an upper that they made(barrel nut was cross threaded and impossible to remove) BUT.... they made it right and all was well with the world. I was pleasantly surprised and would buy from them again.

    Glad it worked out. That's some good customer service right there if you ask me.
     

    donr101395

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    I avoid companies who change their name based on their shitty product.

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    Stagman

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    I kicked around the idea of getting a .450 Bushmaster upper from Bear Creek Arsenal, but I ended up buying a PSA 6.5 Grendel upper instead.
     

    FrommerStop

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    I have a bear creek upper in 7.62x39. For $200 I got my money's worth. This has been the experience of other people on the internet. It was over gassed and so required three tungsten wts to slow down the bolt. It needed an enhanced firing pin and I added an extra power hammer spring. I need to do more work with it. With wts it feeds from any 7.62x39 magazine where before from some common mags it was feeding two rounds at one. One would feed into the chamber and a second would stove pipe. not sure what was going on. Added three tungsten wts and that stopped.
    It is said to have a .310-.311 groove diameter. I purchased a spare bolt in case of breakage.
     

    FrommerStop

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    BCA has had many mixed reviews over the past couple of years. Some were good and some not so good. Personally, I will never own a Bear Creek product. I equate BCA to Radical Firearms and I would never own another product from them. I went cheap one time and regretted it. I would much rather put my money is a good PSA upper assembly or spend more to build a much better upper assembly. BCA produces a cheap product and sells them at cheap prices. Fortunately for some, they have been able to get upper assemblies that work, at least for the time being. Others have not been so fortunate. All in all, everyone has different wants and needs, as well as budgets. It is a case of "to each his own".
     

    War-Buff

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    I knew nothing of their past or reputation when I impulse-bought 2 complete basic ARs (1 in 5.56 & 1 in 7.62x39) from BCA (had no real need, but a super-low sale price caught my attention) some time back. I never fired them & ended up selling both here on the forum. I never received any comments back on them, so I hope they worked well.

    Since that time I bought a BCA complete upper in .450 Bushmaster. It works fine and is quite accurate. I also bought their 12.7x42 (aka .50 Beowulf) upper and have had problems with function. BCA customer service is always friendly and eager to help, but thus far they have been unable to help. Definitely mixed reviews here. I probably wouldn't buy from them again. As a side note, I have made several purchases from PSA and have been very satisfied. I did receive one wildly inaccurate barreled upper from them and they replaced it with a suitable unit.
     

    FrommerStop

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    I have installed two uppers in the last year. One I paid $200 and the other $900. The 900 dollars was in 6.5g from Alexander arms and I wanted it to work and be trouble free. So far no drama with it. The $200 one 7.62x39 was just intended as another 7.62x39 to go with the other guns that I have in that caliber and I assume I was taking chance, but it worked well so far. It shoots and does not seem inaccurate.
    What I am seeing here is that even from reputable sources some guns have problems, especially when you get away from 5.56.
    Previously the lower receiver that was used for the bca $200 upper would not work with an older Vietnam era 5.56 upper made of surplus parts that I had. The BCA upper has the cuts, I think that are called M4 feed ramp cuts and once I slowed the bolt velocity down with tungsten buffer wts feeding has been 100%.
     

    SAWMAN

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    I have also been looking at certin BCA uppers also. ( I have read thru all the above post's.)
    The prices for BCA are quite a bit different than the PSA stuff. BCA also has a better selection.
    I am mainly interested in the AR/308 sized uppers,to exclude the 6.5C,and the pistol uppers to exclude the "pistol" chamberings.
    All-in-all . . the reviews sound like the reviews from most other stuff with the possible exception of Rolex watches and Kriegoff Double Rifles.
    Like Wilson Combat,STI,and other high end 1911's,i'm wondering if the owners of these BCA uppers broke them in properly ??
    Anyway . . . I just might give one a try. Any further USER/OWNER comments would be much appreciated. --- SAWMAN
     

    FrommerStop

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    I have purchased a couple of more BCA pistol uppers and they would not properly chamber ammunition. I changed out the bolts at my own costs and chambering is now not an issue. I do need to get a head space gauge. It tells me they are not checking the headspace for minimum chamber spec. I do not have enough rounds down range in them yet to say more than that they work and seem not in accurate. I am also running heavy buffers with them at the moment. I think a heavy buffer is easier on the extractor since it slows bolt speed and also delays extraction longer to when pressures are lower.
    I really do not want to put too much money into something that could be made illegal in a year or two. The BCA uppers that I purchased have just plain steel uncoated barrels. Likely ok with non-5.56 rounds. If you get one in 5.56 you want some resistance to erosion if you are going to have a high round count.
    Nice thing about AR's is that a novice can change out a barrel If I decide I want something else.

    So other then the barrels, likely all of the other materials of the upper are run of the mill and are ok. My lowers are from other sources. The question is the care used to assemble these guns.
    I do have a quality alexander arms upper that will be gun that I will shoot the most.
     

    donr101395

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    I have also been looking at certin BCA uppers also. ( I have read thru all the above post's.)
    The prices for BCA are quite a bit different than the PSA stuff. BCA also has a better selection.
    I am mainly interested in the AR/308 sized uppers,to exclude the 6.5C,and the pistol uppers to exclude the "pistol" chamberings.
    All-in-all . . the reviews sound like the reviews from most other stuff with the possible exception of Rolex watches and Kriegoff Double Rifles.
    Like Wilson Combat,STI,and other high end 1911's,i'm wondering if the owners of these BCA uppers broke them in properly ??
    Anyway . . . I just might give one a try. Any further USER/OWNER comments would be much appreciated. --- SAWMAN



    I’ve never seen a properly built upper need any break in ever. These are AR15s not 1911s. FWIW Outside of a Les Baer I’ve never seen a properly built 1911 need breaking in and Les Baer advertises that you will need to break it in based on their tolerances.


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