BCM 14.5 Mid Length T&E/Range Report

[markm]

I’m going to jump right in here and skim through the initial impressions so that we can get to some shooting….

This upper is the BCM 14.5 middy with the DD Lite 12.0 rail system and permed PWS 556 brake. I had planned to post the review in entirety at the end of the evaluation, but as I was writing up the first part of the eval, I realized it might get too lengthy for one giant post. So I thought it would be better to break the review into sections.



Initial Impressions:

The upper comes packaged well, in bubble wrap and well oiled. As usual BCM included stickers. And a hat comes with the uppers. UPS didn’t take the time to mash the box up.

Here’s the upper out of the wrap. This is also a good pic of why the rail system is so light.



The upper also came outfitted with the GUNFIGHTER MOD 4 Charging handle.



Here’s a pic of the rail and the lo pro gas block which is set screwed to the barrel. Incidentally, the barrel comes test fired and I gave it a quick cleaning before firing a round. I typically do this to any barrel, test fired or not.



The barrel is nicely marked with “HP MP 1/7 556 NATO”. The PWS is permed with a welded over blind pin.



The basic goals of this evaluation are:

Carbine Buffer comparison and functionality
Performance observations compared to the Standard M4 14.5” barrel
Low Light shooting with the PWS
Accuracy with Match Ammo, and
Any other interesting ideas that come up.

Oh yeah.. and full auto controllability compared to the standard M4.

Some of the Test Ammo:

[markm]

Here's how the upper will run in the initial tests and a 14.5" Colt Carbine for comparison.

There are sights on the upper as well as a weapon light in a Gear Sector Mount now, but this is the upper as shipped.

[markm]

Day 1 Testing:

Iraqgunz and I finally got to get some shooting done this weekend. Now that I’ve finally fired the 14.5” mid length, I can say it’s undeniably a smoother running set up than the standard 14.5” M4. The first thing I did with this upper when I got to the range was load a single round of M855 into a Pmag and fire it. I could feel the difference on that very first shot.

According to several of my Quickload charts for .223 loads, the port pressure is 15 to 18 percent lower than that of the standard M4 gas system. Pressure reduction at the port is between 3000 and 3500 PSI on the load examples I have. You’d expect the middy to run smoother. And the buffer tests (below) seem to show that this is indeed the case.

CARBINE BUFFER COMPARISON:

I’ve seen a lot of posts on the forums asking which buffer to run with the 14.5 middy. That was one of the first things I wanted to test. So Iraqgunz and I headed out to the range. 108 degrees out, and there was no shade for the shooters or rifles. Just holding the rifle and touching my nose to the charging handle was uncomfortable due to the heat. It was absolutely miserable weather for shooting, but that’s what I wanted for at least one of the testing days.

(All buffers tested using Colt Stainless Steel, standard carbine action springs.)



H BUFFER:
I decided to start off the evaluation with a Colt carbine lower that has a factory original H Buffer installed. The first 30 rounds were fired for both a general function check and to get the irons quickly dialed in. Ammo was “real deal” M855. I wanted to start off with full powered ammo and work my way back from there. No surprises… flawless function.

H2 BUFFER:
No significant difference in cycle or brass ejection. After 20 or so rounds of the same flawless function and more neat little piles of brass at my 4 o’clock position, I decided to move to the next buffer.

H3 BUFFER:
More of the same! 20 rounds of M855, and the upper still runs perfectly. I can start to feel the recoil impulse change a little, and brass is still piling up neatly at 4 o’clock.
Seeing that there was little chance of functional issues with the upper and Military ammo, we decided to try some commercial and training ammo with the H3 in place.

The first ammo we tried was Hornady Steel cased 55 grain training ammo. This was jaw dropping for both Iraqgunz and I. With the H3 buffer and training ammo, the carbine shot about like an AR with a rimfire conversion installed. It was freakishly soft… Not that the upper didn't already shoot very smoothly... but I could feel the bolt group cycling slower as we were pushing the limits of mild ammo and a heavy buffer. I could feel that “whick-whack” of a slow moving bolt group when you’re starting to approach short stroking. The bolt did however lock back each of the three times we fired the last shot in the mag.

After the Hornady ammo, I tried 20 rounds of mild hand loads and 20 rounds of Walmart Federal bulk pack with the H3 buffer. Both of these rounds got the cycle speed back up and functioned very well. All of the buffers yielded tight little piles of brass. The upper cycles and ejects very consistently and flawlessly.

CONCLUSIONS on the carbine buffer system were this:

Iraqgunz commented that if he knew he had a solid supply of Mil spec or 5.56 Hornady ammo, he’d just run the H3 buffer. I think I’d be quite comfortable running the H2 buffer for everything, commercial or Military ammo. When I first got this upper I was all hot and heavy to run a fixed stock/rifle buffer on it. But now, I feel like it’s almost pointless to run the rifle buffer because the upper runs so good with the carbine buffer system.
When I run some Match ammo through it on test day 2 or 3, I’ll use an A1 stock/rifle buffer and update this portion at that time.

[Stickman]

Without people shooting it themselves, its difficult to really get out into words how well this setup fires.

[rob_s]

Agree with you Stick. I was at a class where I wasn't firing the BCM the whole time but put a mag through at the end of the class. The instructor wondered why I had such a big grin on my face when I was done, until he shot it himself!

I'm working on setting up another class at the same facility to get a lot more trigger time on this gun. I want to do some of the same function testing Mark did but with Wolf and other known low-pressure ammo.

[markm]

I really want to get some full auto strings on the upper, but half of the state is shut down for shooting due to fire restrictions.

[markm]

More stuff hanging off of this rail:

[Paulo_Santos]

Good review and nice looking upper. Looking forward to see how she shoots in the accuracy testing.

[markm]

I'm going to get some 77 gr black hills to run through it next week. (I can't believe I'm buying 77 gr ammo.)

At this time we don't have a precision optic to stick on it, but I hope to get some 100 and 200 yard match ammo groups with irons. The DD front sight gives a great, sharp sight picture.

[Paulo_Santos]

I'm going to get some 77 gr black hills to run through it next week. (I can't believe I'm buying 77 gr ammo.)

At this time we don't have a precision optic to stick on it, but I hope to get some 100 and 200 yard match ammo groups with irons. The DD front sight gives a great, sharp sight picture.

What's wrong with the 77 GR ammo? Besides the price of course. LOL.

[markm]

I'm old school to the bone. M193 is all you need!

[Paulo_Santos]

I'm old school to the bone. M193 is all you need!

Yep, good stuff. Pretty much all I shoot is the Hornady 55 GR FMJ that I get in the 6K pack. Cheap and very accurate.

[markm]

Day 2 Testing:

We took the upper out last night. Hopefully Iraqgunz will post a pic of how we configured it... On that note... this upper is VERY versatile. The only limitations are what you can afford to attach to it. You can go from a CQB set up to something else with a few quick changes.

With the flip of a couple of throw lever mounts, we had the gun set up for precision shooting.

We put a Leupold Mk 4 magnified optic with luminated mil dot reticle and Harris Bi-pod on it to try some rough accuracy testing. I say rough because the available shooting spot we've been going to isn't flat, we didn't have a range finder to exact our distance, we had to shoot off of the hood of a Chevy Suburban, and it was friggin DARK OUT.:p Other than that, it was perfect precision shooting conditions. We had to illuminate the target with a Surefire Turbo head flashlight just to get the shooting done.

Gunz used 55 grain ammo to walk the Scope onto paper and get a decent zero. At that time we were just getting mediocre groups, and had about given up on anything very productive coming out of the test.


But then we loaded up some Fiochi 69 grain Match King ammo. WOW!!!

The group size shrunk dramatically. The 5 shot group was a third of what we were getting with ball ammo. It was about this time that we switched to an A1 fixed stock with rifle buffer, and got excited to try some more good ammo.

Next loads tested were TAP 75 grain 5.56 and 77 grainBlack Hills. The groups got even better with these loads. We saw 3 of the holes touching dead nuts in the bullseye with the other two very close. Again, I can’t make any MOA accuracy estimates since we weren’t on a square range with exact distances, but we could definitely see that the barrel is capable of good accuracy with good ammo.

Since we were in low light, I was able to observe the PWS with various loads while Gunz was doing the shooting. Flash from the PWS isn‘t bad at all with any of the ammo. I could see a 4 or 5 inch star shaped flash on the worst flashing ammo we shot. Some flashing was worse than others… even within the same kind of ammo, but considering that this is a BRAKE, flash was very acceptable.

As far as loudness goes… Gunz forgot his ear pro on the first shot of one of our groups.
It wasn’t pleasant to say the least. There’s no doubt about it. This brake is LOUD.

CONCLUSIONS for Day 2:

The upper is quickly adaptable to many configurations due to all the rail space. 14.5 inch is my favorite barrel length because it’s short enough for Home Defense, but long enough to shoot 400 yards plus. If I was looking for one “Do All” upper, this would be it.

The barrel has expensive tastes in ammo. Although it’ll run fine with anything we feed it, the Match loads bring this thing to life. If fire restrictions don’t get lifted soon (we need rain), I may have to go to a public range and do some quantifiable accuracy testing.

The PWS has a very reasonable flash signature for a brake, but it’s very loud. You know it’s loud when the people you’re shooting with get crapped out every time you step up to the firing line to shoot. From the shooters position, the noise is manageable with any ear protection, but I’d hate to have to shoot it without ears on.

Lastly… The upper runs good with the fixed stock/rifle buffer with .223 and 5.56 ammo. No surprise there.

[markm]

[markm]

DAY 3 Quick preview.

Finally got to run some Full Auto through this upper. I ran M855 at 30 feet. I hope to get the video and more info up this weekend.

I don't shoot full auto on a regular basis, so it took me a little bit to settle in. I was firing in 5 round blocks for the test, and you can see here that all 35 rounds were at least on the target.

I picked 30 feet thinking it would be just far enough away where some shots could drift off target.



I thought I was doing pretty bad until I fired the standard 14.5" upper. The last two round of the first 5 round string walked off the target completely.

There is a HUGE difference in controllability between the Middy and the Carbine.... Keep in mind there's a PWS 556 on the Middy, so it's not a true Apples to apples comparison.

Brass piles for the Middy were 4 yards behind the carbine's pile. The Middy piles brass at 5 o'clock, and the carbine piles it at 2 o'clock.

More to come.