My Bear Creek Arsenal adventure comes to an end.

Tarowah

Tarowah

Everybody’s Honey.... unless you’re an asshole.
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While it is bitter sweet, I finally threw in the towel and ordered a Tromix 16” .458 Socom & bolt in order to make the rifle reliable enough to hunt and trust my life too it.


The BCA barrel has proven itself to be exceptionally accurate and has shot MOA at best and maintaining a 1.5-2 MOA when I don’t bring my A game.


My biggest issue has been with the rifle not going into battery when chambering a round out of the magazine or on follow up shots if it does go into battery after loading the rifle.


If there is any interest, I’ll keep the thread updated as I move forward.
 
I have a BCA 458 Socom upper also. It shoots lights out if you can get the bullets in the chamber. I have read page after page on the internet about problems with BCA 458 Socom rifles. What I am going to do is polish the feed lips on the barrel extension. Not grind but with a bullet shaped cloth with lapping fluid. To blend the feed lips with the upper receiver a little not much. Just to make it slick not grind. Next is to adjust the feed lips on the magazines. To raise the bullets up a little bit. Also to grind the front of the magazine in a moon shape so the bullets won’t snag while being pushed forward by the bolt while loading. My main misfeeding is with the last round in the mag. If all of this fails, my final update is to buy a new bolt from Tromix or SBA. I am hopeful this will cure this upper. I like the side charger and the looks of the entire upper. I like the 458 Socom caliber and it’s hard hitting. Let me go now, I have a lot of work to do…
 
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TheTodd said:
I have a BCA 458 Socom upper also. It shoots lights out if you can get the bullets in the chamber. I have read page after page on the internet about problems with BCA 458 Socom rifles. What I am going to do is polish the feed lips on the barrel extension. Not grind but with a bullet shaped cloth with lapping fluid. To blend the feed lips with the upper receiver a little not much. Just to make it slick not grind. Next is to adjust the feed lips on the magazines. To raise the bullets up a little bit. Also to grind the front of the magazine in a moon shape so the bullets won’t snag while being pushed forward by the bolt while loading. My main misfeeding is with the last round in the mag. If all of this fails, my final update is to buy a new bolt from Tromix or SBA. I am hopeful this will cure this upper. I like the side charger and the looks of the entire upper. I like the 458 Socom caliber and it’s hard hitting. Let me go now, I have a lot of work to do…
Click to expand...
Keep us posted on your progress.
 
TheTodd said:
I have a BCA 458 Socom upper also. It shoots lights out if you can get the bullets in the chamber. I have read page after page on the internet about problems with BCA 458 Socom rifles. What I am going to do is polish the feed lips on the barrel extension. Not grind but with a bullet shaped cloth with lapping fluid. To blend the feed lips with the upper receiver a little not much. Just to make it slick not grind. Next is to adjust the feed lips on the magazines. To raise the bullets up a little bit. Also to grind the front of the magazine in a moon shape so the bullets won’t snag while being pushed forward by the bolt while loading. My main misfeeding is with the last round in the mag. If all of this fails, my final update is to buy a new bolt from Tromix or SBA. I am hopeful this will cure this upper. I like the side charger and the looks of the entire upper. I like the 458 Socom caliber and it’s hard hitting. Let me go now, I have a lot of work to do…
Click to expand...
That setup has more lips than a Rolling Stones concert.
 
Just a quick update on the progress.

I got my new barrel & gas block in on Friday and had the new barrel installed by 6pm, overall the Tromix parts are definitely much better machined and finished, I haven’t attempted to fully chamber a round yet because I haven’t head spaced it, I don’t have a go/no go gauge but a buddy does and I’ll have him check it for me once my muzzle brake comes in, yes I want to do it NOW…. But I’m going to wait and do everything the correct way, I don’t want to trash $400 worth of new goodies being impatient.



The old BCA barrel has the BCA gas block, gas tube, linear comp with the BCA Bolt with a Tromix extractor & one piece gas ring installed, I’m not sure what the plan is for the old stuff, part of me still wants to tinker with it (which I’ll probably never do) and stick it in the parts bin, the barrel is, like I said very accurate when it works, but I now think there are things going on that are beyond my skill level, which is why I bought the Tromix setup.


I hope to get to the range in the next week and sight it back in, once that’s done I’ll report the results here.
 
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TheTodd said:
I have a BCA 458 Socom upper also. It shoots lights out if you can get the bullets in the chamber. I have read page after page on the internet about problems with BCA 458 Socom rifles. What I am going to do is polish the feed lips on the barrel extension. Not grind but with a bullet shaped cloth with lapping fluid. To blend the feed lips with the upper receiver a little not much. Just to make it slick not grind. Next is to adjust the feed lips on the magazines. To raise the bullets up a little bit. Also to grind the front of the magazine in a moon shape so the bullets won’t snag while being pushed forward by the bolt while loading. My main misfeeding is with the last round in the mag. If all of this fails, my final update is to buy a new bolt from Tromix or SBA. I am hopeful this will cure this upper. I like the side charger and the looks of the entire upper. I like the 458 Socom caliber and it’s hard hitting. Let me go now, I have a lot of work to do…
Click to expand...

I went through all the internet fixes, heavier & lighter buffers & buffer springs and combinations of the two, I used a 12 ga mop & polishing compound in the chamber, polished the chamber, bolt & feed ramps, which helped a great deal and even installed a Tromix extractor but the rifle still never made it through a whole mag without some feeding or chambering issue, mostly chambering & extraction issues (if the round didn’t go fully into battery and I couldn’t use the FA to lock the bolt, I’d have to mortar the rifle to get the round out) but at around 500-700 rounds the bolt broke and lost a locking lug.


I contacted BCA and they sent me a new bolt, I tried firing with the new bolt as it came to me, no bueno, I put the Tromix extractor in and I was back to square 1 with the chambering issues, so Tromix got some of my money.
 
Well, I went out on Thanksgiving day and shot the BSA upper after I worked on it. I was using Defender 350 gr Flat Nose ammo. Using a 30 rnd Hexmag. My son in law and two gran kids were shooting. I put 6 rounds in the mag for each person. It shot every one except the last round in every mag. The Hexmag is plastic and I didn’t adjust the mag lips on it. That maybe the reason it jammed on the last round every time. I think that it functioned very well even with flat nosed bullets. I have ordered some 350 gr. Fmj round nose bullets, some Barnes 300 gr. TTSX bullets and some Hornady 300 gr. Hp bullets to reload. If it can load fn bullets it can load these And maybe load the last rounds In the mag. Everyone that shot it loved it and the way it hammered the steel plates at 50 yards. If it is man made then it can be fixed. I will let you know when I get the reloading stuff and make my own ammo how it is doing.
 
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TheTodd said:
Well, I went out on Thanksgiving day and shot the BSA upper after I worked on it. I was using Defender 350 gr Flat Nose ammo. Using a 30 rnd Hexmag. My son in law and two gran kids were shooting. I put 6 rounds in the mag for each person. It shot every one except the last round in every mag. The Hexmag is plastic and I didn’t adjust the mag lips on it. That maybe the reason it jammed on the last round every time. I think that it functioned very well even with flat nosed bullets. I have ordered some 350 gr. Fmj round nose bullets, some Barnes 300 gr. TTSX bullets and some Hornady 300 gr. Hp bullets to reload. If it can load fn bullets it can load these And maybe load the last rounds In the mag. Everyone that shot it loved it and the way it hammered the steel plates at 50 yards. If it is man made then it can be fixed. I will let you know when I get the reloading stuff and make my own ammo how it is doing.
Click to expand...

I have had very good luck with Hornady 325gr FTX bullets, they’re more expensive than FMJs but still cheaper than the Barnes bullets.
 
Sounds like it's the caliber that sucks not the rifle/upper. So you've had the same issue with multiple manufacturers and seperate uppers? Don't sound like rocket science to me. Some calibers just weren't meant for AR pattern rifles no matter how much we want it.
 
I got the Tromix barrel & bolt installed and made it to the range today and I’m happy to report that the .458 Socom AR is 100% reliable and is definitely a shooter, it took about 10 rounds to get everything sorted out and the next 40 were flawless (FINALLY!!!!!’), here is the last 10 rounds at 100 yards (I’m zeroed at 50 yards), the windage is about 1 click off but I’ll sort that out my next range trip, I was just having too much fun blasting away to worry about it haha


Also the Next Level Arms NLX-11C muzzle brake is pretty slick, I’m extremely happy with how it performed as well!



IMG_9124.jpeg
 
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