I purchased a BCM MK2 BFH 11.5” upper and immediately had it professionally cerakoted. After getting it back from being cerakoted I noticed that the barrel was not centered in the handguard. At first I thought that the handguard wasn’t reinstalled correctly onto the barrel but, however the top rail of the handguard and upper receiver are perfectly aligned. I reached out to the cerakoter and he said that “the barrel journal in the upper is slightly crooked. Has nothing to do with the handguard or barrel nut.” The crooked appearance of the barrel is driving my brain crazy. Does anyone know if this is something that BCM will inspect and address for me or am I out of luck now that it’s been cerakoted by a third party?
And what measuring method would the ceracoter have used to determine this? And did he advise prior to finishing the upper?
I have a bushmaster flat top upper that I’ve barrelled twice, but both times the windage adjustment on the irons is too much for me to accept. I guessed that the upper was broached slightly crooked. But I don’t know a good way to check.
Unfortunately not. I received the upper and handed it over to the Cerakote shop the same day. I wish I had given it a better inspection before handing it off.
UPDATE: I contacted BCM and they paid for me to ship the upper to them. While inspecting the upper, they discovered that when my cerakoter reinstalled the handguard, a burr was raised on the barrel nut which forced the handguard to cant making the barrel appear not centered.
The tech replaced the barrel nut with a new one, reinstalled the handguard, and test fired the upper group for functionality. I’m very grateful for BCM’s second-to-none customer service.
I reached out to the cerakote guy today. He accepted blame and apologized when I told him what the BCM tech discovered. He’s a hard worker that does a lot of good in the community. He’s taking it as a learning experience. In spite of that, I’ll be hesitant to go back to him. However, BCM definitely gained me as a customer for life.
I bet the cerakoter didn’t use a proper fixture to reassemble and clocked the barrel. It’s shocking how many “professionals “ don’t assemble guns properly. If the upper and barrel extension weren’t supported, this could have caused your problem.
Anecdotally, it is one of the things I have been very impressed with about BCM.
The barrels are always nicely centered in the recievers/handguards.
I have had uppers from Bushmaster, Colt and others that required 15+ MOA of windage to zero. However, I’ve now had 11 BCM uppers and these have been extremely consistent with centered barrels. Brand new red dots at mechanical windage zero, only require elevation adjustment, shocked me the first time. It’s happened 3-4 times with new uppers now.
It simply shows how consistently high their QC is.
FYI this was mounting optics directly to the reciever for zero not the rail.
Cam
I’m right there with Cameron, I have never had an issue with ANY BCM uppers being out of alignment, and I’ve owned them from when they first started coming out, to the very newest ones not even released.
As a note:Prior to shipping, all BCM upper receiver groups are test fired for function, laser bore sighted with a Milspec carry handle for sight alignment within Mil-Specs, and then batch samples are test fired for accuracy.
Canted front sights and the early internet days got Bushmaster and it’s customer service an outstanding reputation because they would take it back and get everything lined up.
That lasted for a few years until the frequency of that good customer service was noticed and the question was asked as to why they didn’t just do it right from the start.
High regards for BCM, however, … You had no visual of the cant prior to the cerakote job. I’d be hard pressed to put it on them. Can’t imagine the alleged “burr” not being there before hand. This is assuming your cerakoter is highly experienced with ARs. Sounds like cya to me.
