Haha, that’s pretty good evidence that a slightly cut spring may work OK. I don’t think the recoil force really affects the up/down movement of the bolt catch.
Dennis.
I put a BAD lever on an AR-15 for the first time about a year ago. They are now standard equipment on my ARs, and I have never experienced the bolt not locking back after the last round. Combined I have over 10k rounds out of guns that had BAD levers on them, and a decent chunk of those were practicing reloading where I only put 3-10 rounds in a number of magazines. A lot of that ammo was Wolf, which we know is low powered.
So what is the difference that causes issues for some?
In all seriousness, I wish it would have caused a random malfunction so I could have practiced my drills.
It might have become a problem in a course where you are doing more than shooting, who knows.
I guess my upper could be out of spec, but I wouldn’t think it would be since it’s a new, complete BCM upper…but anything’s possible I suppose…
I think my particular issue has more to do with the blue Sprinco spring in conjunction with the H-buffer and bulkier TL lever. But I will confirm that this weekend, since I will have both a new BCM carbine spring and new white Sprinco spring to test out.
I can put the carbine buffer back in it right now and it won’t miss a lick with any ammo or mags, but I would honestly rather run an H buffer, even if it means no add-on battery assist lever.
I threw the new “white” Sprinco spring in with my H-buffer and headed out to the range on Saturday. I started out with the TL lever installed and was using two 20-round Pmags to do 2 round tests to check for bolt lock back.
With Wolf in it, it would not lock back with the lever installed, but would 50% of the time with the lever removed. I had about the same results with PMC .223 ammo, except with the lever removed it would lock back 100% of the time.
Ran about 300 rounds through it and headed home. Before I cleaned it up I decided to test one more thing. I removed the Sprinco spring and installed a new BCM carbine buffer spring with the H-buffer and loaded up two 20 round Pmags with 2 rounds of PMC and installed the TL lever again. I tested it about ten times rotating mags and it locked back 100% of the time.
All I can figure is that my rifle only likes plain old carbine springs…
I had a few other fun things happen while at the range, first my brand new FDE 20 round Pmag crack up at the top along the feed lip. Second thing was a failure to fire, I couldn’t figure out what was going on with one of my Wolf rounds, until I looked closer and realized that they had installed the primer backwards…quality control at its finest, glad that was the last of the Wolf ammo I had left over.
The BAD is one of those parts that most people only have a very small sampling to deal with, and extrapolate that to the entire rest of the universe.
I have all three gens of Magpul BAD. From the prototype, to first production, to current production. I have never:
[ol]
[li]had a failure to lock back
[/li][li]had one come loose
[/li][li]had an ND
[/li][li]had a paddle it wouldn’t attach to
[/li][/ol]
This includes parts/pieces/rifles from a host of manufacturers to include Spike’s, Colt, BCM, LMT, etc. and ammo from Wolf, to Brown Bear, to XM193 and Black Hills 75 and 77.
However, I have witnessed almost every one of the problems that have been mentioned in the thread, on other people’s guns. In most cases that I’ve seen, the problem has been the operator/owner/host gun. and once home remedies start, on home-cooked guns to begin with, things tend to slide downhill.
I’ve ran my BAD lever on both my 20" varmint RRA and my issue M4 without any issues, granted I’ve only had it for a few months and have only put a few hundred rounds down range between the two guns with it on but I feel pretty confident in it.
Cutting springs is always a bad idea. It decreases the number of active coils and forces an increase in spring rate. Always consider the law of unintended consequences before cutting a spring.
I would not cut the spring, as its not very powerful to begin with, and its purpose to keep bolt/bc from locking back when it shouldn’t. That would be a Bad Thing during a serious situation; self defense, or costing time during competition.
Had an issue with bolt/bc dropping with a reload, leaving an empty chamber, after installing a BAD. Suspect my right index finger may have hit it after pressing mag release. Since it was used and I was not going to get much by selling it, decided to modify it. Ended up cutting off most of grooved flat section on tip of BAD, no more issues. Made it a little lighter as well, which is a good thing.
Mark
Sounds like you are one of THOSE guys. You know, the ones that have all the problems so the rest of us can go on trouble free. 
This is one of those times, like Rob said above, where you are screwing with something that will get you &*%$ed. One, cutting coils off springs has no effect on spring rate, unless you have a progressive spring like the disconnector. The spring rate on the bolt catch spring is constant. It should be common sense that if you reduce the overall compressed length enough, that at some point, you will run out of travel to prevent the bolt from locking when it shouldn’t. DON’T cut the spring. If anything you want to increase the spring rate to overcome any additional weight on the bolt catch added by the BAD lever and components. Since this is minimal it SHOULDN’T be an issue. If it was MAGPUL should have provided a new spring with minimal increase in rate. I would suspect their engineers knew that and that was the most important factor as to their low weight alloy design. If someone can document repeated failures with operator error removed, then contact Magpul.
After close inspection of any contact between the BAD & Lower, I noticed the lever was indeed contacting the front of trigger well when I would rock the lever forward. I ‘tweaked’ the lever (after removing from paddle) back a bit, now no more contact. I still had a failure to hold the bolt open on a 20 round pmag this weekend. Only happened once on the 20 round mag (prolly ran 5 times) and not once on a 30 round mag, which was run thru about 5 times as well.
I have had problems with the 20 round mag since I bought it. I had to relieve the follower before I ever used it, as it was too tight in the mag & was binding during loading & unloading. Dunno whats up w/ their 20 rounders–seems like alot of folks have issues with them.
I had the same problem with “pre-mature bolt drops” with the BAD during training, until I trained my finger to go somewhere else during reloading. However, cutting the tip off is a pretty good idea as well!
Dennis.
That’s because you, like me, buy Colt 1911s (with a WW2 Remington Rand for good measure). And gee, they actually work. Go figure. :rolleyes:
I try telling people it’s not the design, it’s the 2,000 manufacturers of them and the 3 million manufacturers of magazines that cause the problems. I keep mine Colt, my magazines Colt hybrid or USGI 7 rounders and they run fine. If I want aftermarket parts I make sure the gunsmith I take them to for installation knows his asshole from a hole in the ground. It’s not rocket science.
I appreciate everyone’s concern here, and I would be the first to tell others/possible newby’s not to do something like this. However, my goal here is to just discuss various possible options from a technical (hence the forum name) and exploratory perspective. This is NOT a duty, self defense, or competition gun. It is a factory Noveske upper on a pre-ban lower (CA rules) that has seen many thousands of failure free rounds down range with many uppers. I actually have a few pre-ban lowers with over a dozen uppers over years that have been failure free, but not with this Noveske with a BAD.
The real problem could be the upper but Noveske basically said that they do not guarantee the upper with a BAD and I cannot blame them. I am just testing out things to see what works mostly out of curiosity’s sake although I posted here to get extra info and some help, and I have received some good input.
So thanks everyone for the help and concern, and don’t worry I won’t be cutting any springs in my duty Glocks, S&W’s, or Benelli anytime soon! Although my auto knives could use a stronger spring
Dennis.
OK…so let me get this straight…it sounds like the consensus is that I picked piss poor manufactures for my upper and lower and should have let a qualified “gunsmith” install the bad lever and assemble my upper and lower. I need to call BCM and Daniel Defense and let them know that their products are pure shit since the rifle doesn’t like to run with an add-on accessory with shit ammo and that everyone else has never had a problem in 10 million rounds…:D?
At least I do have a “Colt” LPK…but I screwed that up by installing a shitty Geissele trigger…
I run BAD levers on my Spike/BCM and my Accurate Armory. I have had zero issues so far. Both ARs have been run during carbine courses as well. I have been pleased over all with the product.
what does the trigger have to do with the BAD?
I think you’re missing the point of the posts.
This topic has been discussed to death here, but there are all sorts of theories, even some good ones, about what makes for a problematic BAD experience vs. a good one. None of them have had anything to do with the brand specifically.
No actually I got the point, I was replying to the couple of previous comments that basically eluded that if people would just buy Colt rifles or let qualified people install their accessories there wouldn’t be any problems…that was just my poor attempt at being a smart ass in reply to those comments that don’t do much for helping figure out “why” some rifles will run fine with a BAD installed and some not so much. I personally think it is most of the time a combination of smaller issues that make for the “perfect storm” of not working. What I don’t believe is that “just because mine has never had a problem” necessarily means that “ours” are shit equipment that are “out of spec”, as some people sound like they believe. If that’s really the case, then it sounds like BCM & others have a hell of a quality control problem since some run and some don’t.
I also feel pretty confident that it’s not “me” that’s causing the problem when I’m test firing the rifle specifically to check for bolt lock back and that’s all I’m concentrating on. Now if it locked back during testing, but when I go to do some shooting with it I start having functional problems, then yeah, it’s probably me sticking my finger where it doesn’t belong…that didn’t sound too good did it?
Until there’s a comprehensive list of - mine works flawlessly with “X” buffer and “Y” spring and “Z” ammo, then there’s no way to really figure it out what the common denominator is, but as you mentioned in a previous reply, there may really be no rhyme or reason for it anyways.
So don’t mind me…it just gets under my skin a little when people are trying to collectively figure out why something does what it does and there’s always that random drive by “it’s because you have a piece of shit” comment thrown in for good measure. I realize there’s plenty of posts on the topic and I have read all of those, but I’m no closer to understanding what’s really going on. It’s not like I’m saying Magpul BAD’s are junk, if that’s how I felt then I would simply toss it in the damn trash can and move along quietly. But you’ll also never see me make a random comment like “well I’d say your Colt piece of shit only works because it’s so out of spec and loose that it doesn’t know any better” :).
Haha, that’s pretty much how I feel as well. The point of this thread really isn’t about buying a perfect rifle, it’s about diagnosing the issue at hand for whatever reason. Hence the forum name “Technical Discussion”.
However, I am heartened by the fact that people are suggesting good quality choices instead of “DPMS/Oly/BM works great for me with 2 BAD’s on it to be ambidextrous :p”. I guess as a group we are getting more informed, although maybe missing the point sometimes in the name of “Tactical/SHTF/Zombie preparedness”.
Now back to the OP intent (mine) I cut 1.75 coils off my spring, basically going slowly to where the catch is being pushed out by 2mm of “push” instead of 3-4mm. This was just an old BM LPK spring I had lying around so I figure it had it coming :)… I actually have a few springs lying around from various manufacturers (yes, I keep track) and they are NOT the same. They look slightly different, and if you install and push down on them you can feel the difference. Maybe not a lot but I would bet at least 1.0 coils worth between the least and most. Of my 5 AR’s with BADs installed, my cut one only feels slightly less powerful than the rest and it is really more a sliding scale and not a hard less/more thing. Of course, all very unscientific but I have tested so many variables I might as well test one more.
Dennis.