See more results
for Bear Creek Arsenal on Wikiarms.com
BCA-8 Huntmaster .30-06 AR-10 Style Rifle
Updated
1 month ago
Lots of folks love MSRs or modern sporting rifles, they are the fastest green platform for hunting and for good reasons. Most folks don't know that the AR-15 was marketed back in the late 50s and early 60s as an MSR, and well before it was adopted by the military. Another interesting fact is AR stands for ArmaLite Rifle, not Assault Rifle or Automatic Rifle, interesting history, you should really check it out. Anyway, there is a long list of why it is the best hunting platform in my opinion. MSR, Modern Sporting Rifle.
There has been few options for the larger calibers in the AR platform beyond the 308 and the 65 Creedmoor, although those are hugely popular, but a lot of people are hunting bigger game and they need something like 30-06 or 300 Win Mag. Many of you have heard of BCA, or Bear Creek Arsenal, and they are one of the few companies out there that offer some of the larger calibers, bigger than 308 such as 270, 300 Win Mag, and the 30-06. This is going to get a lot of folks interest, especially for hunting. The only real question is how does it perform? Let's check it out in BCA's Huntmaster in the 30-06.
I'm Drew Case from Beyond Seclusion, bringing you the reviews directly here to gun.deals, where I only give you my honest opinion, and it is what it is.
Take a quick look at the spec and tech and an up close of this, and let's get going.
Specs and Tech
BCA Huntmaster
- Weight: 11.25 lbs
- Magazine Capacity: 5 Round Magazine
- Length: 2
- Profile: Lightweight
- Twist: 1:10
- Finish: Parkerized
- Material: 4150 Chrome Moly Vanadium
- Thread Pith: 5 / 8 x 24
- Caliber: .30-06
- Flutes: Non-fluted
- Gas System: Rifle Length
- Gas Block System: 0.750
- Charging Style: Right Side Charging
- Classification: Rifles
- Platform: BC-8
- Bolt Material: E9310
- Receiver Material: Billet
The gun is so long, it's really hard to do out-of-the-box. Anyway, just want to show you real quick kind of what we've got here, we've got the MAGPUL stock, and this opens up and you've got a compartment there, it's awesome, you can look up the MAGPUL. You do have the ability to do quick detach and so you can put those little inserts in, and that basically gives you four quick detach on the stock, it's got this nice MAGPUL grip, and then just kind of classic AR.
This is a right side charging handle so you do have to unscrew this and this comes out to take the BCG completely out. The BCG, it's huge. They've got a proprietary mag here, it's a five round mag, and I already have the optic on here, and we're going to review that. And then just the forgrip, and then we've got quick detach on both sides, and then we've got a little rail here, we got a whole lot of real estate for M-LOK, and then we have BCA's classic muzzle device, muzzle brake, whatever you want to call it.
Wikiarms.com Search Engine Results
Want to see your products here? Click this
link.
Powered by Wikiarms.com
If you're not familiar with BCA's right side charging, we do have this back here and so when we break it open like normal we just have to take this out and remove that, and then the BCG comes out, other than that everything else is pretty much standard AR. I almost forgot this has a custom trigger, and guys, it is a sweet trigger, and I am a trigger snob. That has a no creep, I almost, if I didn't know better, was a Trigger Tech. Man, the reset on that is crazy stupid short, I love it, that's awesome. Let's just see what we got here for pull, I'm guessing maybe two and a half, three pounds. Three, yeah, I don't have my glasses on, and that one's three and a half, that one was four, that's more like it three, I mean it feels less than three to me, but it doesn't get much better than that. You can go on the web page and see exactly what that trigger is, but we can see it in there. Sweet trigger!
For the optic I wanted something really nice, high end, I'm going to use and review Primary Arms PLX 5, the 6.30x56 FFP ACSS Apollo with the 6.5 reticle. That's a mouthful PA or Primary Arms, makes some really nice optics, this is their Flagship, highest in optic, it seemed fitting for this review. I'm also going to use Hornady ammo, special thanks to Hornady for supplying the ammo for this review, we've got several different loads, I have had outstanding accuracy with their ammo. Let's just get it zeroed, season the barrel, and see what we can get for groups.
Wikiarms.com Search Engine Results
Want to see your products here? Click this
link.
See more results
for Primary Arms PLX 5 on Wikiarms.com
Powered by Wikiarms.com
For how to properly season a barrel I consulted several of the world's top barrel makers years ago and I did a video on that, check that out for specific details.
This is what we're going to use for ammo, we're going to start small or light and work our way up, I'm going to do five-shot groups, let it sort of cool back down for five minutes, and then do another five-shot group, and then we'll move on to the next, and we'll just repeat that, and we'll see what we get.
We got a beautiful morning here before any wind kicks up, we're going to start grouping and see what we get for accuracy. I do want to say for a 30-06, it has very manageable recoil, it's interesting because it is definitely heavier than a 308,and I'll show you here, maybe I'll do a slow-mo, but it's more of a big push. Some of you have shot, and I think some of it depends on the gas system, it feels like a sharp punch into the shoulder, I've had shoulder reconstruction, actually I'm doing rehab on my shoulder again, and so I'm pretty sensitive to that and this does not bother it at all.
That's not too bad!
You want to see what I'm using?
I have no idea how old this is, it's actually in bandoliers, in the M1 mags. I'm guessing 50s, 60s, but this is what I have for Surplus and I know it's probably not recommended, but I didn't have of the good stuff, so for seasoning the barrel you got to check out the groups with this.
I’ll tell you what I'm getting for a field of view, hopefully this will work here, there we go, that's what I'm seeing here at 100 yards. Yeah, that's an awesome sight picture, guys!
What we have here? That says super old military surplus ammo, and then we're moving across, this is the 150, and then the 165, and then the 180. Then there's that Winchester soft point, and then, because I had cleaned, and then we came back, that is actually a really nice group, and that's consistent. We might do another one, maybe a 10-shot group, but that's the 115, it clearly likes, at least in this case, the lighter bullet, and I'm sure the military surplus is probably a 147. Anyway, and then, yeah, we're really fairly consistent here and I think it's just the weight and the barrel just isn't really liking that.
Just want to show you what we have for a field of view at 4 and 500 yards. We dial out a little bit, we can actually see a little bit better. The glass, guys, I mean usually it's terrible with the camera and the phone, but that is crystal clear, the glass doesn't get much better than that, and that's dialed out, we're at about 15 power there.
Something that I find really says a lot about a gun is how fast and accurate you can get shots off at an extreme distance, and for most people, your average shooter, 500 yards is an extreme distance, for sharpshooters, some people with skill that's not so much, but let's see, I'm going to use the five Mark in here, I know that this is for the 6.5 Creedmoor, but let's just see if five puts us on the steel, and then how fast we can get off the shot.
There we go!
I need to go five and a half!
I think five and a half. Let's see how fast we can get four shots here.
Nice!
I wish I had boxes and boxes of 30-06 ammo, we could have an absolute blast. I'm going to let the barrel cool down here and we're going to see what we can get for groups. The only thing about shooting for accuracy you actually want to, and I've got a video out there when I shot the first time in a mile, and I got a professional spotter, the Gunny, and he was walking me through. You actually want to have as little contact with a gun as possible, which means that it's not even necessarily snug into my shoulder, that's when you're shooting like standing or in combat or whatever, but when we're shooting for accuracy I really don't want a lot that is going to make it move, so I want to show you the recoil, I'm going to actually just kind of snug it in like most of you are used to, so that you can actually see the recoil with that. I've got to kind of warm up the barrel here before we get into the good stuff, I've just got some range ammo here. Let's fire off a shot.
And see part of why you try not to touch it, and especially with the bench like this is I've got a really strong heart and you see it moving the retical versus if I really don't touch it. We'll try another one here and I I'll try not to touch it too much. The problem is, and actually it doesn't with this, the recoil is so manageable with this. I was doing a sighting in a 7mm mag once in a Thompson Contender, and I, yeah… Anyway, the scope jumped back and split my brow open because I'm so used to firing semi-autos, and firing for accuracy, anyway, let's just get to work here and see what we can get for some groups.
I just cleaned the barrel between the first five-shot groups, I had the military surplus. Before I dive back into you the higher quality ammo I've got a really old box here, a Winchester that I used to use for hunting with my M1 Garand. Let's see what we get for groups with this and kind of I basically dirty the barrel back up.
What you see here is interesting, you're seeing the groups shrink as the barrels getting broke in up there, and then there, and then there, and it also is confirming that it likes the lighter load. That's really not bad, that's 10 shots, no break in between or anything. This one was interesting because the first four shots were here, I think two were touching somewhere, and then so I loaded five-shot, and then I shot again, and it moved over here, so that one was definitely responding to the barrel warming up, and then that one was just really pretty consistent with others.
I think the barrel is actually really broken in and I did get a new one to try, so what I'm going to do is I want to do five more shots of each with five minutes in between and just see what we get for final groups.
That was the last round of groups, that was the 180 grain, and that's not bad out of the five, those three. I think these were fairly consistent, I we'd have to go back and look, that was the 165 grain. There is two shots right there, so that's five shots, but that was consistent with earlier. This is the new one that I got in the mail today, and, yeah, that's awesome, so that's the fifth shot if you want to call that a flyer, which I really like because this shows with the right ammo, and today is a really crappy windy day, guys, that's why I didn't actually video, but that's awesome, it loves that round. And then we had the 150 grain, just the basically kind of the cheap deer hunting, and that's really solid too, and that was fairly consistent with before, so we take those groups and you can kind of do the calculations and you can figure out what kind of spread you're going to get at 200, 300, 400, 500. Anyway, there you go, it is what it is.
There you have it, guys, it is what it is! I hope you found this helpful, if so, come check me out on YouTube under Beyond Seclusion. Until next time on gun.deals, happy shooting, remember educate our young people to shooting and gun safety, and every time you're on the range that makes you an ambassador for the Second Amendment, so do us all a favor, be a safe and responsible gun owner.
