BCA Bufferless 9mm
Updated
43 months ago
Good morning, everyone, hope you're all having a wonderful day today. Today, we're taking a look at the fairly new Bear Creek Arsenal Bufferless 9-millimeter setup.
Full disclosure on the separate receiver, this upper receiver and kit really was sent out to me by a subscriber of mine, personally, on my personal channel. I had absolutely no affiliation with Bear Creek Arsenal for this review, they do not work with me personally any longer, so this review has nothing to do with them. However, I didn't pay for the upper receiver, I received it from a viewer. Some of the damage that you'll see on the upper receiver was from the original customer, not for me.
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With the Bear Creek Arsenal Bufferless system we have the entire recoil system contained within the upper receiver and this little adapter in the back. This one here was bought as just the upper receiver and adapter, I believe the cost on these is about 350 bucks and that's the complete upper receiver, recoil system and adapter. It doesn't come with any sort of brace or anything else like that, just a rear Picatinny shelf, so you can attach your favorite 1913 brace or stock on the back if you so desire. This one here is the 4.5 -inch version with a 4-inch M-LOK rail out front, very standard Bear Creek Arsenal-type stuff. This one here is also the right-side charger with their Gen 2 side charger which is very good because it is literally bolted to the bolt itself, it is reciprocating, so you will watch it go back and forth.
Currently, at the way I have this setup, as I went out and I bought one of the Aero Precision EP9 lower, so this is a Aero Precision lower with Glock magazines. I did have a few issues with magazines, not with the upper receiver, but this one here was fed with Glock Max. A few of the Glock mags, the extended stick mags that I had, did have some issues, but that's because those are bad magazines.
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Because the entire recoil assembly is contained in the upper receiver and their adapter block, that means you can use your side folding braces or stocks or what have you, and the gun will still run perfectly because it doesn't utilize the buffer tube or anything like that, meaning that with the 4.5-inch version you get a complete package that is very bagable, it is very hidable, it is very compact, so you can carry this in a lot of places where, if you had a standard buffer tube at the end, this doesn't fit in a lot of backpacks and you got to get a specialized pack or whatnot, so with this folding setup that doesn't utilize a buffer tube, not only does it still retain full function, even in the folded position, but it's very concealable, very portable, which is an attractive set of features to a lot of people.
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At the end of the day, this is still a 9-millimeter AR-9 at heart, so it has a 4.5 -inch barrel, so in terms of like ballistic performance, it's not going to be anything special, that's going to be the love-hate relationship of 9-millimeter PCCs, is it still a 9-millimeter PCC, you're not going to get 300 Blackout or 5.56 performance out of a 9-millimeter cartridge. The advantage of something like this, Glock mags are fairly ubiquitous, we all have a lot of them, you can get extended mags, you can get drum mags, so on and so forth.
Before we get into performance, reliability, accuracy, you guys probably want to get at least a somewhat better idea of how it all works. Getting it together and apart can be a little bit awkward as it is different, you can't hinge it on like a standard AR-9 or AR-15 upper receiver. In the back, what we have here is exactly, as I said earlier, it is basically a chopped down 9-millimeter BCG where they quite literally take about two inches off the back side and that allows you to have a lot more space inside of the upper receiver itself for the recoil to happen, so you only need a little bit of extra room on there to be able to get the full cycle of the bolt.
One very interesting thing about this bolt is it doesn't really look like they've added all that much weight, normally with a 9-millimeter blowback system, which is exactly what this is this, it is just a blowback 9-millimeter AR-9, you have a very, very heavy bolt to slow down the opening process because the only thing holding that cartridge in the chamber is the weight of the bolt itself, so as soon as you pull the trigger and that recoil starts to happen, it happens very quickly so to not get an out of battery detonation, where the side of the case blows out, usually you have a very heavy bolt.
Really, the only additional weight on the BCG itself, to try and make up for everything that's cut off, is the area where the recoil and guide rod actually fits into, which is bolted onto the top of the BCG, so as far as weight goes I would speculate that it's at least 1-2 ounces lighter, if not a little bit lighter even than other 9-millimeter bolts. As a result of that it didn't have any sort of reliability issues with the ammunition that I was using, which was 115 grain, some Sterling imported Turkish ammunition and some 124 grain Ball as well. I didn't experience any issues with any of that ammo, though your mileage will definitely vary depending on what ammunition, magazine, so on and so forth.
As I mentioned, it's a little bit awkward to get off and on, fortunately, you don't really need to do it once you get it all set up, so looking at the back end here, this little adapter piece here in the back comes with the kit and it actually goes on very well, this is a solid block of aluminum, it's a very simple machining job, it's not particularly elegant or refined, though Bear Creek Arsenal is looking at a very price-focus customer base, so I really don't think they needed to go anything special on it whatsoever.
Basically, you have a very small tube that will screw into the back of your lower receiver, then you have this big aluminum plate that slides over top, a single screw that screws down on top and then it's locked into position, very simple to install, if you do have a standard AR-15 lower receiver and you're using a mag block and not an Aero EP9 or something like that, you are going to need to take off your own buffer tube, unstick the castle nut, so on and so forth, get all that off and then install this. Fortunately, the installation process was very, very simple because you just screw one little piece in that fits into where the buffer tube would normally go on an AR-15 lower receiver, slide on the adapter block, screw it in place and then you're good to go.
Getting these guys back together can definitely be the more awkward part because you kind of need to angle it around a little bit, make sure that you get it all the way in there and then try and get it around. It could be a little bit awkward, it's not terribly difficult and once you've done it a couple times you can kind of get the hang of it, but now we get a full bolt travel and we can't, on this Aero EP9 lower, lock the bolt back, it doesn't have a last round bolt hold open, but you can lock the bolt back if you so desire and that means that we have full travel of the blade BCG or the bolt in this case, which means that we assembled it correctly.
There is a single, very small spring and no buffers or anything else like that to kind of slow down the bolt, so the action is very light, it does not take a lot of force to get it to full lock back, certainly less force than like a full-on carbine spring and carbine spring with buffer to help kind of slow it down a little bit, so in this case you get a incredibly fast action if you were to put this on a full auto lower, I'm sure the rate of fire would be absolutely insane if you could actually do it without horrendous bolt bounce that you're going to get off of something like this, and there is no buffer to try and reduce bolt bounce on something like that, there's only that very small spring, it's not really anemic because as we'll get to performance, reliability, it was 100% reliable, it is just a little bit weaker than what I'm used to on something like an AR-9.
Getting into performance, how it was to actually shoot this thing. The recoil feels great, it basically does not move whatsoever, that action is so fast that while, yes, it is snappy, basically all that happens is the gun comes up and then the bolt slams right back home and brings it right back down onto target, meaning that what you get when you're looking at it when you're shooting quickly is you get a motion that looks almost like a little jittery but it's really not moving all that much, so while, yes, it is snappy, the recoil, the entire recoil cycle is happening so fast that there's basically no movement on target, meaning the inside of 10, 15, 20, 25 yards, depending on your personal skills and target size, you can basically pull the trigger as fast as you want to without much felt recoil.
I should say there's a good amount of felt recoil, but at the end of the day, there's not that much actual recoil because your sights are not moving all that much in between shots, they rise up a little bit, that bolt slams home and then it goes right back down onto target.
The only issues that I had where was some of my extended magazines, not Glock factory extended magazines, some KCI and SGM mags, that really haven't worked well in any gun that I've used them in, even like a stock Glock, that's not a stock Glock, but other stock Glocks, they haven't really performed all that well and some of the extended mags,I did have some feeding issues, one of them wouldn't lock into the lower, but that is a lower receiver issue with the Aero EP9, not an issue with the upper receiver. As far as reliability goes on factory Glock magazines, reliability was 100%, so in terms of reliability the system might seem a little bit weird in how it works and a little bit different from what I'm used to in other AR-9s, but reliability was 100% so I don't have anything to complain about that whatsoever.
When we talk about accuracy, I didn't do any like accuracy testing I was just using some pretty cheap imported brass case ball ammo. One thing I will say about the accuracy on one of these barrels, so the barrel is 4.5 inches 1:10 twists 41.50, I believe it's just a phosphate finish is, what it looks like.
If this were in a pistol this would be a bull barrel, a very, very heavy barrel, as it's kind of just a standard profile for an AR-15, but for a pistol this would be a very, very heavy barrel. At 25 yards, for zeroing, I was able to get three rounds touching each other at 25 yards using just this Vector 1X prism, which is actually an excellent optic. At 100 yards I could probably squeeze out a three to six inch Group, which we're talking about short barreled 9-millimeter, which 9-millimeter is not a particularly accurate ammo to begin with, but the accuracy that I was able to get out of this just for my own purposes with very cheap ammunition was what I would consider to be excellent.
At the end of the day, reliability with stock Glock mags was perfect, shooting performance was great, it was very fun, the ammunition is cheap to shoot, it's fairly plentiful to find right.
Reliability 100%!
Accuracy very good!
Cost, 350 bucks for the upper receiver and the adapter, so fairly inexpensive if you're converting a AR-15 lower that you already have laying around, in this case I went out and bought an Aero EP9, so that add to the cost, but even with that the buffer tube, brace, Midwest Industries adapter, you're probably looking at about six to seven hundred bucks, which for a complete package isn't too terribly bad and remember that we are getting a side folding package that goes with very, very short, with the bufferless recoil system, so that for about 700 bucks.
The only other thing, literally I think the only other thing that could compete with it is a Stribog, and Stribogs, from what I've seen, have been less reliable overall, though I don't have that much ammo on this, only about 200 rounds at this point, and the Stribogs are going to have some different feature sets, some of them can take Glock mags, so this is an interesting concept and it certainly is very inexpensive if you're already converting an AR-15 Lower that you have laying around or an AR-9 lower that you have laying around.
Overall, though, for me personally, I do think that this is a very cool option. What it's going to come down to is whether or not you love or hate 9-millimeter PCCs and whether or not you want something that can fold and shoot at the same time.
So, if you're looking for an AR-9 that can fold and shoot at the same time, takes your standard Glock mags and can work with AR-15 lower receivers, has AR-15 controls, AR-15 triggers, handguards, all that sort of fun options, anything you want to mount on it you totally can, it's a pretty great way to go from what I've seen so far, subject to change if I get more ammunition on it, which I probably will be doing more testing on it in the future and we'll see how reliability holds up.
