ARMOURY: CLPD BCM GBBR

OVER THE PAST FEW MONTHS WE’VE BEEN EXTREMELY PRIVILEGED TO HAVE HAD ALMOST UNPARALLELED ACCESS TO THE BCM-LICENCED MCMR FROM VFC IN BOTH AEG AND GBB FORM - AND IT’S REALLY WOWED A NUMBER OF THE AA CREW! BUT WHAT HAPPENS WHEN OUR GOOD FRIEND AND MASTER AIRSOFT-SMITH, CLARENCE LAI, GETS HIS HANDS ON ONE? IN THIS AIRSOFT ACTION EXCLUSIVE, OUR “MAN IN TAIWAN”, STEWBACCA, MET UP WITH CLARENCE TO FIND OUT!

Having recently passed his six month milestone of being in country, and after having seen him a few times since our initial meet up for my interview article back in our ten year anniversary issue (Airsoft Action October, No. 130) Clarence Lai has wasted no time in getting involved in the local community and has already brought to market an ever growing raft of small upgrade components for gas pistols and rifles, both internal and external, functional and cosmetic.

Now he’s venturing into supplying turnkey package deal solutions with his limited edition (with only 199 units in total to be made available worldwide) CLPD BCM MCMR GBBR, which I headed over to pick up from the man himself a few weeks back and the first feature included was most helpful in that regard, a very nice carry case that’s stiffened fabric with a soft liner panel that also doubles as a hook and loop ready attachment point, with repositionable fastening straps and a double STANAG / AR magazine holder panel included to help keep everything in its place. This was an ideal arrangement for getting it home on late night public transport without raising too many eyebrows; luckily most musical instrument cases these days are of similar construction so it’s easier to be a bit greyman, without having to get your Tommy Gun into a violin case!

Upon arriving home I eagerly began opening up all the goodies and taking a look at what’s included beside the sturdy and stealthy carrying solution. The CLPD BCM includes additional upgrade accessories straight from VFC’s officially licensed BCM AIR line, with a stub front vertical grip and required MLok fasteners and allen key in one small bag, as well as a BCM AIR quick detach rear receiver plate that can be substituted in place of the standard multiple sling loop plate already fitted. Personally I didn’t bother taking the time to fit this as I don’t own any QD slings and wasn’t intending on skirmishing or intending on beating on this rifle too much either, what with it being limited edition, and having to be returned without my typical level of testing; this is, as such, a “first look” and impressions article, rather than my usual all out review, it should be noted.

Nonetheless, I continued with the assembly and testing of the MLok vertical grip as well as fitting of the included BCM Warfighter charging handle, which is supplied separately in the box; do be careful when assembling this, as it’s difficult to retract the bolt carrier group to cock the hammer when there isn’t a charging handle present. Using a plastic or wooden tool to lever it back from beneath through the magazine well is probably your best bet to avoid damage to the rifle, or yourself … he says, having had the bolt bite his finger when trying the same approach through the ejection port!

Also be aware that due to the bronze style genuine Cerakote finish being applied, the receiver fit and that of the retention pins might be a little tighter than usual, and again you might need to make use of relatively soft tools to help press them in and out the first few times without scouring them; by the time I had to return the gun, this was less of a problem though, I imagine it’s just a short wearing in period required to bring things into line.

With the receivers apart I could get the charging handle fitted and also take a look inside; the CLPD BCM includes the A-Plus Studios lightened bolt carrier group and upgraded buffer weight and spring, along with their CNC hop unit and upgraded inner barrel

“WITH A FEW GAS POWERED DRY FIRES WITHOUT BBS LOADED THE RECOIL IMPULSE WAS IMMEDIATELY APPRECIABLE, VERY CRISP AND CONSISTENT, WITH A NICE CADENCE AND NONE OF THE TYPICAL ‘SPROING’ SOUND THANKS TO THE CUSTOM BUFFER AND THE GENERAL FIT AND FINISH.”

and hop bucking. You may or may not be aware of A-Plus; being based here in Taiwan they are highly regarded locally as some of the best custom hopup and internals providers, and I know the guys at Archwick used the same set up in their GHK based L119A2 offering, so they must be worth taking a look at, if you’re in the market for high end internals for a GBBR.

With everything back together I retrieved the standard VFC AR magazine (which is one of their latest versions and boasts great gas capacity and efficiency, as well as a solid and easy to handle construction, with a lighter than usual grey finish and reinforced upper insert where the feed lips and gas valves are installed) and I’m very much a fan of the new arrangement on VFC’s rifle and pistol gas magazines, especially given that it protects the gas inlet port from dirt or damage, and removes the need to fuss with the base plate on the likes of their Glocks which makes them ideal for competition or defensive shooting practices, although I have to get used to the change as I’m so ingrained in pumping the gas in the butt plate after all these years!

CYCLING AND CONTROLS

The first few tentative dry cycles of the bolt certainly felt positive compared to the likes of my WE Tech HK416 and T91 the buffer weight and spring rate seemed to offer a lot more resistance, around one and a half times as much, having measured their respective pull weights, and I imagine the tolerances on the VFC internals is somewhat tighter in general. The whole thing felt stiffer at first, but ran very smoothly versus my past experiences of my own AR GBBRs, a very positive forward movement and no appreciable bolt bounce or other shenanigans to be found. With a few gas powered dry fires without BBs loaded the recoil impulse was immediately appreciable, very crisp and consistent, with a nice cadence and none of the typical ‘sproing’ sound thanks to the custom buffer and the general fit and finish.

The controls as well are very positive and pleasant; the BCM Warfighter charging handle has an extended left side locking arm that allows for very positive grip and retraction making initial cycling of the action much easier than some of the standard smaller T-Handles I’m used to. This eliminates the need to cant the gun or reach over to grip both sides, thus making it easier to charge it or remedy any malfunctions with it still in the shoulder, certainly a nice feature from my experience in skirmishing and occasional competitive rifle dabblings.

The fire selector as well is extremely positive and

pleasant to use, giving very definite clicks upon arriving at each position, and being so highly sprung that it can run away from your thumb and put itself in place if you move it slowly; definitely a nice fit and finish feature; having compared it to my teammate Andrew’s brand new standard BCM the internals seem to be of a different format which allow the safety to be engaged with the hammer down, whereas the standard BCM MCMR GBBR is more like a typical AR platform in that the safety can only be engaged with the hammer cocked. I also found that using his version the recoil is much more stout and the action arguably louder, perhaps the result of the standard bolt carrier not having the lightening cutouts, and the latest version internals perhaps including a harder hitting gas valve striker, the CLPD APlus version feels smoother but softer shooting, while the standard BCM really kicks more heavily if you’re interested in a heavier hitter in the shoulder.

Similarly the bolt release paddle isn’t going to go anywhere unless you want it to; entirely too often I’ve been bitten by bolt carriers when trying to remedy issues with other AR models, or had them go home on empty chambers due to the inertia of reloading letting them off early, or just looking at them funny in the reload cycle and them deciding to let loose early… not a problem here, you really have to positively press or slap the paddle in to get that satisfying bolt clack as it chambers the next round after your reload, all of the ASMR funtimes.

All of this talk and we haven’t even gotten to one of the best features yet, the trigger. Having dealt all too often with creepy, sloppy triggers in myriad other rifle, SMG, or pistol platforms, this is definitely somewhere it’s been done right; the trigger is as short and crisp in its break as a real one, and probably a high end one at that, with a very clean and audible reset that made it very easy to do double taps on steel targets when I dabbled in a little range shenanigans with it during one of my usual Action Air sessions at SPPT… and the other guys who handled it and let off a few BBs were equally impressed, and they’re no slouches having also skirmished and done rifle competition for a good while too alongside the pistol work we undertake together.

BBs DOWNRANGE

At the skirmish I gave it its final fielding at I was letting loose with short strings of rounds reliably all day and managed to plant a very nice double tap to an opponent’s chest over a wall in the final round just before getting eliminated myself. It really was a joy to shoot and more importantly to carry! Compared to a quad picatinny rail HK416 setup, the MLOK is leaps and bounds ahead in terms of lightweight and general comfort in handling, so top marks from me!

The internals augment the shooting experience given by the general handling characteristics nicely, with a very repeatable shot placement thanks no doubt to the consistency of the bolt carrier, gas system and the hop unit and barrel; with a little initial practice I was repeatedly hitting the small circular plates of my STAGE ETS system (see the previous issue Airsoft Action No. 131 Nov 2021 for a full review of that) from the other end of the range. I didn’t bother adjusting the hop up at this point due to the limited inside range available, but did appreciate the fully adjustable iron sights that allowed me to zero it nicely and run it well even without an optic fitted, doing a few short drill stages between reloading the long magazine I had with it.

So far, so good! I put about five magazine loads through it that session to zero the iron sights using 0.3g BLS BBs at around 10-15 metres at SPPT’s usual training space, and decided to call it a night and get back to the pistol work, and stretch the legs of the CLPD BCM on the outdoor range at Taiwan CQB Club Linkou. This should also be helped along by the inclusion of Clarence’s own internal magic in the guise of his adjustable floating valve unit in the gas nozzle which allows tuning of the muzzle power output up to as much as a claimed limit of 490 FPS (obviously depending on local site or legal power limits) but this will no doubt allow greater flexibility and consistency in performance to be attained wherever the user is based.

A week or so later I was outside on the Linkou range putting the gun up against outdoor conditions on small steel plates and again found it fairly consistent aside from the inevitable wind issues

“ALL IN ALL, THE CLPD BCM IS A VERY AESTHETICALLY PLEASING AND ENJOYABLE HANDLING SETUP, WHILE I’M NOT THE BIGGEST FANBOY OF AR PLATFORMS IN GENERAL I CAN DEFINITELY APPRECIATE THE APPEAL AND QUALITY OF THE BCM OFFERINGS AND VFC, A-PLUS AND CLARENCE HAVE DONE A GREAT JOB BRINGING A GROWING RANGE OF HIGH QUALITY, HIGH PERFORMANCE OFFERINGS TO THE END USER.”

causing some fliers; we HAD just been through a pretty intense typhoon in all fairness! Nonetheless the CLPD BCM fared well and after some tweaking of the A-Plus hop unit I was getting good shot placement out to around 25 metres looking through the ACOG optic I’d slapped on top for this outing; the full length Picatinny rail atop the receiver is good for that.

The only downside beyond the initial fitment issues I encountered reared its head at this point; the standard VFC BCM GBBR makes use of their innovative new ‘guide hop’ or ‘gas tube hop’ feature, which allows you to adjust the hop unit setting from the front end of their latest pistol and rifle series without having to open anything up. However this feature is unfortunately lost with the use of the custom A-Plus hop and inner barrel setup, although it’s not all terrible news, as it is better designed than the likes of other AR hop units I have had to dismantle a few times lately to clean.

The A-Plus at least features an adjustment grub screw which is below the chamber instead of above it, which is much better thought out and allows you to far more easily adjust it with an allen key using the space where the bolt carrier would be once you have it opened up and the charging handle and carrier out of the way. Adjusting it with the whole thing assembled and the working parts locked to the rear is possible with a custom-bent allen key, but you don’t get the same range of motion that way, and it can be a ballache to get the tool in place.

So, with a few tweaks left and right and test shots between, I finally had the hop unit set where I wanted it to nicely lift my 0.3g BLS BBs and managed to get them all hitting fairly close to my crosshairs by the end of the session. I’d be very happy to get behind one of these again in future and do a more exhaustive test and see how the hop unit properly beds in and the internals fare over the longer term.

All in all, the CLPD BCM is a very aesthetically pleasing and enjoyable handling setup, while I’m not the biggest fanboy of AR platforms in general, only having two of my own due to Heckler & Koch and Taiwanese service rifle reasons, and preferring oddball setups most of the time, I can definitely appreciate the appeal and quality of the BCM offerings and VFC, A-Plus and Clarence have done a great job bringing a growing range of high quality, high performance offerings to the end user; if it was me, I doubt I’d hesitate to drop the money on one of these!I can certainly see it making you happy whether you’re hanging it on your wall for visual appreciation, your plate carrier for skirmishing, or fielding it for competitive shooting on paper and poppers.

And as a final arm twist, if I haven’t already convinced you, you also get the neat John Wick themed dog patch from Morale Patch Shop, run by everyone’s favourite in-country gent from Tennessee included free with the package deal!

Many thanks to Clarence for letting me get hands on with his new offering, I’m also looking forward to more of his new products, in particular those for my competition KJW CZ Shadow 2; he’s already fronted me a whole gamut of replacement internal springs and I’m just awaiting some of his more structural components to return my race gun to top condition! AA