BCM RECCE-14 5.56mm

Strict adherence to military specifications and BCM’s reputation for quality should help the new RECCE line of rifles find their way into the hands of the armed professionals of our country. The RECCE shown here is fitted out with a SureFire light, an Aimpoint red dot sight with 3X Magnifier and a TangoDown vertical foregrip.

BRAVO Company Manufacturing, Inc. (BCM) is the manufacturing arm of Bravo Company USA — a retailer of high-quality parts and accessories for the AR-15/M4 family of firearms. While Bravo Company USA has existed for over a decade, BCM was founded in 2005 around the concept of “Professional Grade Weaponry.” Their first offerings were a batch of extremely well-received complete upper receiver groups that included barrel, front sight base, barrel nut, delta ring, and flattop upper receiver finished off with dust cover and forward assist. The excellent reputation of these upper receiver groups was, and is, built on a strict adherence to the military specifications in a market dominated by vendors who so often claim to do so in print but fall far short in reality.

Since then, Bravo has expanded the line to include bolt/carrier groups, complete lower receivers, and most recently nylon load-carriage gear and the excellent BCM Gunfighter line of improved charging handles. Clearly, the time has come for BCM to offer complete rifles, and after much anticipation they are poised to do so.

The BCM RECCE-14 features a flat-topped A3-style upper receiver ready to easily accept optics such as this Aimpoint red dot sight backed up by a magnifier unit.

Initial offerings will begin with various varieties of M4, both 16-inch and 14.5-inch barrels, CAR models with lightweight 0.625 of an inch diameter barrels, 20-inch barreled rifles, and 14.5-inch and 16-inch government-profile barrels with mid-length gas systems. The mid-length gas system is an attempt to reduce pressure by moving the gas port on a 16-inch barrel forward to a position that more closely matches the distance from the muzzle found on the 20-inch and 14.5-inch barrel military issue guns. As it turns out the benefits are even greater when that same gas tube length is carried back to the 14.5-inch barrel guns, provided that the gas port is properly sized to work with the location.

The internals and standard parts of the entire BCM line meet or exceed all standards of the military specifications. Barrel steel on all models meets the requirements of MIL-B-11595E and receiver extensions, bolts, gas keys, receivers and other parts similarly meet the applicable requirements for both material and finish. Both barrels and bolts are all High Pressure Tested (HPT) with spec M197 load or equivalent and then Magnetic Particle Inspected (MPI) to detect both cracks and inclusions. Carrier key bolts are fully and correctly side-staked and the receiver endplate is properly staked in two places (on carbines utilizing the M4 receiver extension; rifles with full fixed A2 stocks do not require staking). Bolt carriers are of the M16 variety and buffers are the 3.6-ounce “H” type, again where applicable. If so, equipped rifles and carbines with flattop uppers utilize the proper F-height front sight base, which is in turn secured via two taper pins only after the barrel has been Parkerized. Barrels of course have a correct 5.56x45mm NATO chamber and the twist rate is 1-in-7 inches.

The RECCE-16 gets an A2 flash hider, while the 14 (shown) gets the Primary Weapons FS556 muzzle-brake/flash-hider permanently pinned to ensure the legal minimum 16” barrel length.

Enter the BCM RECCE line of rifles. There are two initial offerings in this line, the BCM RECCE-16 and the BCM RECCE-14, both utilizing the mid-length gas system on 16-inch and 14.5-inch barrels respectively. As is typical with BCM products, they strictly adhere to the military specification in all areas save fire control (semi-auto versus full or burst) and, in the case of the mid-length, gas system length. In place of the standard plastic handguards, or the military issue Knight’s Armament RAS/RIS, the BCM RECCE carbines include a Troy Industries TRX Battlerail system in 11.0 length to completely cover the low-profile gas block, which replaces the standard front sight base.