Thoughts on BCA barrel.

[NCFED]

So how’d it do Splatt?

[StoneHendge]

I bought a black matt finished barrel from BHW and when I cleaned it brown color came out of the bore and black from the outside.
Greg from BHW said the brown and black was residual from the black finishing method. No more has come out after the initial cleaning and the bore is so shiny I can see myself in it.

3 of the 4 BHWs I have up and running had the brown. The 3 with brown were black shot peened. The one that didn't is the stainless 308. I am amazed everytime how quick they are to clean. I let them get pretty dirty and the first couple of patches with Bore Tech C4 are black and then it's done. Shinier than Mr. Clean. I was truly shocked when I learned they aren't hand lapped. I'll be at six once I get my Grrrrrrrr pistol together and once my 243 LBC arrives to rebarrel my 18er. Greg dun saved me more money than Joe Bob!

[Splatt]

I blew my back out 2 weeks ago.
LOTS of pain.
The last weekend's, I've done nothing but relax, and ice my back.
I'm mending, so we'll see when I can just go shoot it.

[BluntForceTrauma]

I blew my back out 2 weeks ago. LOTS of pain.

Been there, done that lifting a medium heavy box. Pop! For whole next week I had to carefully slide out of bed with my teeth gritted, crawling on my hands and knees into the bathroom . . . not fun.

[bj139]

Splatt,
Rest up and take it easy. The Grendel will be there when you feel better.

[Splatt]

It's still screaming at me.
I had to make an appointment with Spine Colorado yesterday, just in case the chiropractor doesn't work.
Got a teeter hang ups yesterday. Hopefully , that will help.
Surgery, is the last resort to stop the pain in my butt, and done my right leg. I also can't lift the toes off the floor with my right foot.
Not good....

[cwlongshot]

So sorry to read of the back troubles... It can be so debilitating people don't know who haven't been there. People mitigate pain differently. I tend to plow thru it, its been a companion so many years now. Its been same here for almost thirty years. I spent 19 years bent over a light table working in the printing industry... the day we entered Kuwait I blew a disc, that was the start of my back issues. In 2003, I Broke it @ L11 and tore three ribs out of my spine at the roots... car accident. Worst part... took almost THREE MONTHS to find out why I couldn't sleep or even laying down.

Good luck, take it slow. The human body can be amazing. I truly believe pain is fear leaving the body.

CW

[1Shot]

The chiropractor keeps me going. I go for an adjustment every 3 weeks. I discovered that it was most likely when I was about 13 years old I was at my cousins new house and was not familiar with the area and we were riding bicycles after dark and I went around behind the house and ran into a clothes line. I was standing up and hit the wires chest level and it knocked me back and I came down and centered that rounded bar at the back of the banana seat with my tail bone. I fell off the bike and could not move for a few seconds that felt like minutes. Then I started to tingle in my legs and arms and then regained my feeling. I could not sit on a hard surface like a church pew without switching cheeks for very long for years. When I was about 41 years old I mowed my yard with the riding mower and there was a little depression/hole in the yard where a buried pipe coming from a down spout emptied. When I ran over this at just the right angle with one of the back tires it jerked me to the left smartly. Everything was OK at that time and I finished mowing but when I got off the mower and bent over to pickup the tarp that I covered it with when I stood up l looked around to see who just ran that rusty butcher knife in my back. That is how the pain felt. I had to walk about 100 yards to the house in this pain. I had knots from muscle spasm pop out as big as my fist. That night I hurt so bad with those spasms that laying on my back it would draw my knees almost up to my chest involuntarily. My wife helped me get out of bed and I held to the wall and walked to the living room which got the worst of the spasms to stop. I set propped up with pillows on the couch all night. One of my friends I contacted took me to her chiropractor the next day. All he did that day was just take pictures to see what was going on. I went back the next day and he put me on the table and laid me on my left side and turned me so he could knee me in the hip. When he did this my back popped and it sounded like you had broken a hickory ax handle and I had instant pain relief. He told me that I had knocked my pelvis of line when I was younger and I had grown with one hip higher than the other all these years. That jerk on the mower was the straw that broke the camel's back. I tried to go without the regular chiropractor visits a couple times but within 6 months I was back in that bad pain. Learned my lesson, every 3 weeks keeps me pretty good but have learned to watch what I do and how I do it so as to not mess up the back. So I know what you are going through. Hope you have found a good chiropractor that can fix you.

[Splatt]

I'm doing lots better, thank you.
I'm still sleeping, ah, if you call it that, on several couches. Mornings ate terrible with my butt, and down my leg pain, but what is scaring me the most, is the numbness, and lack of mobility of my right foot.
I cannot lift my toes off the ground.
The nerve that controls that function, is pinched.
Between the chiropractor, and a teeter inversion, I'm mending slowly.
I'm also wearing a back saver belt. I just took it off and pain started in my back, so I'm going to see what happens if I leave it on.

[bj139]

When I eliminate wheat from my diet, ALL my joint and back aches and pains go away. Might be just me.

[NCFED]

I always manage blowing my back out doing something innocuous like picking up my infant son or getting a briefcase out of the back seat.....it's never doing something like moving heavy boxes or getting into a use of force at work. Hope you mend soon

[cwlongshot]

I'm doing lots better, thank you.
I'm still sleeping, ah, if you call it that, on several couches. Mornings ate terrible with my butt, and down my leg pain, but what is scaring me the most, is the numbness, and lack of mobility of my right foot.
I cannot lift my toes off the ground.
The nerve that controls that function, is pinched.
Between the chiropractor, and a teeter inversion, I'm mending slowly.
I'm also wearing a back saver belt. I just took it off and pain started in my back, so I'm going to see what happens if I leave it on.

GOOD TO HEAR!!

I havet hit the range with my replacement yet either. Hoping to this weekend.

CW

[Gman6.5]

Splatt hope you feel better, and can head out to the range soon!

Don't feel too bad, I had a $300 fluted Faxon barrel last year that looked like the rifle button must have been on its last legs! I had to do the exact same thing with flitz polish, but I'm afraid it didn't do any good because that barrel still had lame accuracy with everything I tried including my handloads. Back it want to Brownells. Thanks to their great return policy!

Go easy and get better soon!

[Splatt]

Thanks for all the best wishes here.
Doing much better.
Chiropractor has me on a table that is like a midevil rack. It's stretching my spine, then he does his cracking, 3 times a week.
Back still wakes me, as evident by this posting time !
I'm going to get out this weekend. Sick of this stealing my life.....

[Kswhitetails]

I know what you're going through, and I hope that you recover soon, and fully. Take care of your back, it holds the rest of you together.

Rest well.

KS

[03Bullseye]

I just built a Grendel using a bca 16" m4 contour barrel. This is for my daughters Christmas. I test fired today and can't get better than about 5" @ 100yds. This is using factory horn add black eld-m. Granted, I'm using a leupold 1-4 with hog reticle, but I'm still able to bag it and get a good rest. I've only shot 15 rounds and wonder if it needs more break in. I've just scrubbed with job bore paste and kroil. My gunsmith told me to tear it all down and retorque bbl to 30#. Previously I had 45#. I don't know how that would change the grouping but I've done it. Not gone back to shoot yet. Any advice appreciated.

[A5BLASTER]

I just built a Grendel using a bca 16" m4 contour barrel. This is for my daughters Christmas. I test fired today and can't get better than about 5" @ 100yds. This is using factory horn add black eld-m. Granted, I'm using a leupold 1-4 with hog reticle, but I'm still able to bag it and get a good rest. I've only shot 15 rounds and wonder if it needs more break in. I've just scrubbed with job bore paste and kroil. My gunsmith told me to tear it all down and retorque bbl to 30#. Previously I had 45#. I don't know how that would change the grouping but I've done it. Not gone back to shoot yet. Any advice appreciated.

Best advice, get rid of the bca barrel and buy a group buy or AA barrel.

[Klem]

I just built a Grendel using a bca 16" m4 contour barrel. This is for my daughters Christmas. I test fired today and can't get better than about 5" @ 100yds. This is using factory horn add black eld-m. Granted, I'm using a leupold 1-4 with hog reticle, but I'm still able to bag it and get a good rest. I've only shot 15 rounds and wonder if it needs more break in. I've just scrubbed with job bore paste and kroil. My gunsmith told me to tear it all down and retorque bbl to 30#. Previously I had 45#. I don't know how that would change the grouping but I've done it. Not gone back to shoot yet. Any advice appreciated.

You can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear.

What is your definition of accuracy? By that I mean what size groups do you expect out of your AR barrels?

[1Shot]

First thing to do is call BCA Warranty dept. and see if they will refund your money if not then get a pick up ticket and mail the barrel back to them and have it replaced for a latter try. Some people on here have had to do this 2 or 3 times to get a barrel that would shoot even reasonable. In the mean time while you are jumping through these hoops with BCA go to the Group Buy section of this forum and get you one of the barrels there and put that on your daughters rifle and you can have it done before Christmas. I had bad experience with BCA upper that shot the same 5" or worse groups with every shot acting like a flier. Did the return and it shot around 2 1/2" but after about 50 to 60 rounds down the tube with the right load, it is picky, it got down to 3/4". In the mean time jumping through hoops with BCA I just ordered me a Oden Works 18" barrel kit and built a whole new rifle. It is hard to find a load that will not shoot MOA or under with it. Like Kelm said "you can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear." I will never fool with anything from BCA again.

[grayfox]

I had 2 barrels very questionable results from bca, could not get them to group. I dumped them and moved on, life is too short for me to mess with stuff like that. (I also have another Co that gave me the same squirrely bbls, in diff calibers, dumped them too. Like I said, life is too short...)
Go for a group buy, Odin, Faxon or Ballistic Advantage, you're still in a mid-price range but performance is way better.
Maybe someday the Sow-ear companies will move to silk, but I'm not in the mood to wait for them or to let them do it on my dime.