Is there any difference between the BCM 16" middy that MI sells for $419 vs the seemingly indentical upper for $499 on BCM's site? They seem to be the same setup...any deviations I should be aware of?
the 499 one is a bhf. meaning its hammer forged barrel. its the one i use. im getting sub moa with mine. hammer forged ones are heavy duty machine gun type barrels designed to withstand extreme abuse.
Exactly the info I was looking for. Thanks! Searching deeper into BCM's stock I now see that they have the same setup for the same price. Now to figure out which I want....how much difference in weight? I'm not a super high volume shooter (and shooting will get spread out over multiple ARs), so I'm thinking maybe the light barrel.
i got my wife the 419 one since she is doing he same type of shooting as you seem to be looking to do. hers is just as accurate. i actually misordered as i was trying to get the light weight pencil barrel and ordered the bhf by mistake. i didnt catch the error until it showed up.
I got the $419 light weight BCM midlength barrel, not BFH. Honestly I can't see any big difference between it and my Daniel Defense CHF (cold hammer forged) barrel. I'd say you'll be fine with the $419 model. IIRC the LW 16" version is about 5 oz lighter than the government profile 16". The BCM and DD both are LW and the only real difference I see between them and my HBAR ArmaLite is from a rest the first cold shot or two don't group as well with others after the barrel heats up. Not a big deal to me but noticable. For someone wanting groups, a quick shot or two to warm the barrel would help.
Sounds like the $419 LW BCM upper is where I'm strongly leaning. Add a Magpul rear MBUS, BCM bcg, Gunfighter ch, MOE hg, and I'm at about $700 for the whole upper. Not bad. The only other uppers I'm considering are Noveske ML (with BCG/CH/MOE) for a little over $800 and a Spike's ML (BCG/CH/MOE) for $510 from JoeBob's (out of stock). If I go the Noveske route I'll get it through ROG, a board vendor. That Spike's is awful tough to beat for the money, but who knows when it'll ever be in stock...or more specifically, if I'll happen to be at my computer for the 10mins that they have it in stock. It'll be a 16" ML, with DE MOE furniture. I'm leaning toward a Vortex red dot. PSA has a deal where you can get a Sparc or Strikefire + Magpul MBUS for like $180.
That's exactly the configuration for my midlength upper from BCM. I'm very pleased with it. It's also the same configuration for my Daniel Defense upper from a year earlier.
That 16" Noveske Basic MOE can actually be had for sub $800. PM me for details. With that said, the BCM set-up you are looking at is a very attractive one. You are spot on regarding Spike's...they do not stay in stock for long and are hard to get back in stock. You'll need to get an iPad and have constant wifi to be able to react quickly enough to email notifications for Spike's stuff.
