What are the BAD AR BCGs?

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  • CraigAPS

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    I know everyone has their favorite BCG. Be it BCM, FailZero, PSA, etc, everyone has the brands they stick with for their own reasons. My question is what are some brands that you've had problems with? What are some that you've had fail/break during use or after a relatively small amount of use? In short, what are some BCG manufacturers one should steer clear of? Thanks!
     

    AngryRooster

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    There's going to be several people that disagree and hate what I'm about to say.

    PSA is on my list of BCG's to never buy. It goes back to a discussion on ARFCOM several years ago. Some of the pictures in the thread are gone now because the user has deleted them from their picture server. I have an old archive of it saved to my hard drive with all the original pictures. Please keep in mind this was during the time when BCG's were almost unobtainable and came at a premium. You were lucky to find any at all regardless of price. I'll also add that I've used plenty of PSA things in the past up until that point. I've had their premium BCG and it was great. The problem came when they changed things to save money and crank out production without regard to quality just to fill demand. Most manufacturers did the same thing at that time though. I also didn't like the way PSA handled the thread toward the end of it. IMO it was completely unprofessional. I haven't dealt with them since then.

    Their quality may have improved and went back to the way it was, I don't know. I moved to BCM and never went back. Extremely pleased with them and have no regrets.


    Here's the discussion for those who are interested. If you start it, read it all. There's a lot to absorb in that thread. Everything from the BCG's themselves to the way members act over there, the attitude of the mods and the way they handle things compared to here, how PSA responds to issues and it's users (no well IMO).
    https://www.ar15.com/forums/t_3_118/610107_Received_the_PSA_BCG_Pictures_included.html&page=1
     

    CraigAPS

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    There's going to be several people that disagree and hate what I'm about to say.

    PSA is on my list of BCG's to never buy. It goes back to a discussion on ARFCOM several years ago. Some of the pictures in the thread are gone now because the user has deleted them from their picture server. I have an old archive of it saved to my hard drive with all the original pictures. Please keep in mind this was during the time when BCG's were almost unobtainable and came at a premium. You were lucky to find any at all regardless of price. I'll also add that I've used plenty of PSA things in the past up until that point. I've had their premium BCG and it was great. The problem came when they changed things to save money and crank out production without regard to quality just to fill demand. Most manufacturers did the same thing at that time though. I also didn't like the way PSA handled the thread toward the end of it. IMO it was completely unprofessional. I haven't dealt with them since then.

    Their quality may have improved and went back to the way it was, I don't know. I moved to BCM and never went back. Extremely pleased with them and have no regrets.


    Here's the discussion for those who are interested. If you start it, read it all. There's a lot to absorb in that thread. Everything from the BCG's themselves to the way members act over there, the attitude of the mods and the way they handle things compared to here, how PSA responds to issues and it's users (no well IMO).
    https://www.ar15.com/forums/t_3_118/610107_Received_the_PSA_BCG_Pictures_included.html&page=1

    Wow. So, that particular PSA rep talks to customers/potential customers like they're 5 and the ARF mod got upset and started yelling at the OP. Yeah. Those are not the best ambassadors for those groups. If the mod knew he was having a bad day, one might think he'd just refrain from posting, but that's just me...
     

    hopper68

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    Nov 15, 2011
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    There's going to be several people that disagree and hate what I'm about to say.

    PSA is on my list of BCG's to never buy. It goes back to a discussion on ARFCOM several years ago. Some of the pictures in the thread are gone now because the user has deleted them from their picture server. I have an old archive of it saved to my hard drive with all the original pictures. Please keep in mind this was during the time when BCG's were almost unobtainable and came at a premium. You were lucky to find any at all regardless of price. I'll also add that I've used plenty of PSA things in the past up until that point. I've had their premium BCG and it was great. The problem came when they changed things to save money and crank out production without regard to quality just to fill demand. Most manufacturers did the same thing at that time though. I also didn't like the way PSA handled the thread toward the end of it. IMO it was completely unprofessional. I haven't dealt with them since then.

    Their quality may have improved and went back to the way it was, I don't know. I moved to BCM and never went back. Extremely pleased with them and have no regrets.


    Here's the discussion for those who are interested. If you start it, read it all. There's a lot to absorb in that thread. Everything from the BCG's themselves to the way members act over there, the attitude of the mods and the way they handle things compared to here, how PSA responds to issues and it's users (no well IMO).
    https://www.ar15.com/forums/t_3_118/610107_Received_the_PSA_BCG_Pictures_included.html&page=1


    :wow: Did the mod clean up his post after he realized he was having a bad day? He should have.
     

    AngryRooster

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    I read that arf.com thread. Never buying from psa again.

    Wow. So, that particular PSA rep talks to customers/potential customers like they're 5 and the ARF mod got upset and started yelling at the OP. Yeah. Those are not the best ambassadors for those groups. If the mod knew he was having a bad day, one might think he'd just refrain from posting, but that's just me...

    At one time the PSA stuff was good. During that time frame just about everyone was cranking out everything they could to meet the demand, and failing. Quality suffered for quite a few companies and products. Even mass produced ammo sucked when you could get it. The stuff they offer now may be back to high quality, I don't know. I know I've read some bad things about the PTAC stuff they offer. The thing that killed it for me was not only the lowering of the quality, it was the way they threatened their customers with legal action for discussing it. That pissed me off to the point it didn't matter what they did from that point forward. Completely uncalled for. I don't know how else to take it when a company on an open forum says
    To suggest to "know" otherwise based on observation is either an exercise in ignorance, or outright slander. As we have provided this information, future speculation will be treated as slander and referred to appropriate channels.




    Pretty good read AR, thanks for posting the link.

    I really wish the archived thread still had all the pictures linked to it. So many of them are gone that it really deflates the article. In many of those missing pictures you can really see the difference in quality and what people were talking about. The OP of that thread said he spent $179.99 on that BCG. Looking at it I don't think I would have given $50 for it. I was part of the original thread when it took place and since I owned PSA stuff in the past was interested in the outcome. I was also the one that called out the mod after he made his nasty statement. (And there are those on INGO that think our mods are rough. :):) I can't say if PSA actually had a hand in getting the thread shut down, but I do remember other threads where they did. If you look at the time stamps on the last page you will see that it was shut down for "personal attacks" at 9:58am. Go back up a little and find the posting from PSA that starts out "There is so much inaccurate speculation". It was posted at 6:13am that same day. Less than 4 hours difference and at NO time were there any "personal attacks".

    I still have a zip file where I saved the entire site, original pictures and all. I'll dig it out of my back up drive and see if I can post it to a dropbox link. I can send the link in a PM for those that would like.
     

    dagibson1507

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    Also all of the reviews on psa's website are moderated. Any bad reviews are simply not posted. This goes for their forum on arfcom as well. I would say go with spikes or bcm.
     

    Salty

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    Hop

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    I have a couple premium PSA marked bolts from that era and they don't glide through the upper as well as my others but they seem to work OK.
     

    dagibson1507

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    Here's them sensoring me when I brought it up. I would assume the one you listed was by accident. I recently bought an upper from them which was supposed to be a non-freedom upper which is their cheaper line. They sent me the freedom upper instead and tried to play it off like it was just as good despite the large price difference. I left a bad review and it's disappeared. Screenshot_2017-01-20-11-14-38_zpsvgqrwldf.png
     
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    Dec 29, 2008
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    I bought a couple bolts and a complete BCG from a company in MN, I think the name was Red X, or something like that. Anyway, one of the bolts was not machined correctly and would not properly feed rounds. I tried to contact them by phone and email dozens of times over 6 months or so, and not once did I get a reply. The good bolt works fine to this day, but I'm still stuck with the bad one.

    I wouldn't have purchased them, but it was during a mad rush where nobody had BCG's and prices were through the roof.

    Btw, I've got 6 PSA BCG's, including a Nib, and they all run flawlessly. Some are older, some are newer, but all work well. A couple old ones probably have pretty good round counts on them, including lots of crappy Russian steel ammo I've shot through a "beater AR", which happens to be a complete PSA rifle I built. That rifle has been 100% reliable on a wide variety of ammo, including the steel cased. I've never experienced PSA's customer service, because I've never needed it. Everything I've ordered has shipped quickly and had excellent fit/finish. The BCG's look as good as the BCM's I've inspected. I'll keep buying from them until they give me a reason not to do so.
     

    Old Dog

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    PSA seems to take a lot of hits for a variety of reasons but my experience over the past 3 years has been good. 3 to 10 days on shipping, depending on the season and silly mad rushes. Everything purchased for several dozen builds has worked well. I don't expect next day delivery or the most premium and pretty parts for the prices I am paying. I am satisfied with everything I have from them and will continue to buy until they fail me and don't make it right. If anyone has PSA stuff that you are not happy with, just PM me, I will be happy to accept your donation and make it run.
     

    AngryRooster

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    Okay, I found one of the archived files but it's not the oldest one so it's still missing a couple of pictures, but it has several that are gone from the linked page now. Here are a few comparisons that were posted by AJBello. It compares the newly designed (at the time) PSA compared to a BCM.


    11gkh06.jpg


    PSA Left
    w85279.jpg


    PSA Right
    34he6ig.jpg


    PSA Right
    51q4uf.jpg


    15dq2xd.jpg





    Here is what the older PSA Premium BCG looked like. This is like the one that I had several years before the change. I would have no problem if they had left them alone. This older version was $125 when I bought it a few years before Sandy Hook. After SH they were charging $180 for the one pictured above. Take a look at it again and compare it to other BCG's now. Look at the quality difference between even a simple AIM BCG and tell me that they didn't cut every corner they could so they could crank these thing out at inflated prices. By the way, the BCM carried was $199 at the time. A $19 dollar difference.
    As someone who has seen the good quality from PSA, the above BCG is unacceptable and shameful, that's not taking into account the legal threats for just discussing it.

    okpcv5.jpg

    2llozyh.jpg



    To keep things on topic and not just about PSA, the BCG's I have personal experience with are Colt, BCM, LMT, CMT, PSA & AGS. All of them have been excellent and durable, I would buy any of them again at full price if I needed another one. A friend had a Model 1 upper many years ago. He was having some reliability problems at the range. We swapped out his factory BCG for my CMT and the problems went away for good. He bought a different one (can't remember the brand) and his problems went away. The rifle was 100% after that.

    The BCG is one of the critical components of an AR. It's one place you don't want to skimp on.
     

    bwframe

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    I think maybe further details are in order. Just because a BCG has been good for years doesn't really give us that much useful info.

    How many range trips with how many rounds fired? How many classes or competitions have they been run through to truly test under serious pressure?
     
    Last edited:

    M67

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    Jan 15, 2011
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    In my DI 5.56 rifles I have Spike's Tactical, Rainier Arms, and Aero Precision.

    All 3 of those have served me well and I haven't had any issues out of either. The only thing with the Rainier is the YFS screws but Rainier doesn't put their name on stuff that isn't quality so I trust it.

    For the money IMO Aero is hard to beat.


    I do have 1 Colt BCG but it's just a spare/show piece. It doesn't have any forward assist notches :)
     
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