Still running 55 FMJ OK, but longer bullets now keyholing.   Looks like time to replace the barrel.

FWIW, PSA 1/7 A2 profile.  Seen a rough life of heavy sustained mag dump fire. Water dumps to put back in the car, and a wide sprectum of ammo (all brass).   No steel.  Took about 5 years to get here.

FWIW, gas erosion is the harshest of erosion.  Since a 10.5" BBL muzzle discharges at high P and with unburned powder, all that high pressure gas ejects at very high velocity when the bullet leaves. Compared to a 16" which will have a notably lower release pressure and gas velocity.   Which is why shorter barrels burn out faster.  It also trashed a cheap Gamma knockoff muzzle break (i.e. not an actually Gamma) which eroded away in about 3000 rounds blasting out the end.  I replaced with a Bravo Mod 0 Gunfighter, which is holding up fine. And has a much more pleasant blast.  Flashy as Hell, but that's a feature

Time to toss the BBL.  Anybody want a 10.5" BBL, slightly used?  

Started the whole project as a race - what will happen first: I wear it out, or they ban armbraces.   So close!

BTW, only real operations affecting mechanical failure in all that is the ejector spring, which shattered into about 5 pieces.  Somwhere around... 8000(?) Rounds or so.
That's pretty much it.

Good work



was it one of their nitride barrels?

Save the barrel and turn it into a knife. That metal still has life left.

I'm curious about this as well. Or was it one of their plain unlined/untreated bbls?

It was nitride.  I'm happy enough with getting 11k rounds through it.  Technically, i can probably keep running it since the 55 FMJ's are not keyholing yet.  Googling, 10.5's typically go from around 3000-10,000 rounds or so; maybe some longer.  Depending of course on the ammo and abuse.  I think 11,000 rounds of such heavy mag-dump use I gave it, is actually pretty good.  (It was this upper that a learned REAL FAST why the USGI spec is plastic handguards with heat shields - takes you about 3 mags fired at the right cycle rate to figure that one out!)

I probably should upgrade to an 11.5, which is the new hotness, but heck - I have a spare untouched 10.5 on the shelf from a prior project, so there we go.  Haven't decided if I'm going to replace the bolt, or just check the springs and keep rolling...

WAIT!  It's a PSA!  I just realized, their customer service is ridiculous enough, they might replace that!  That's a totally unreasonable ask, since this is normal wear and no way should anyone expect for them to actually warrantee that.  ... but it'll be an interesting "why-not?"

Ok... let me look over my purchase history....

ok, scrolling to page 2...

OK.. page 3....

Here it is.  Found it!:
https://palmettostatearmory.com/psa-10-5-5-56-nato-1-7-nitride-9-lightweight-m-lok-freedom-upper-with-bcg-ch-516446396.html


That's a lovely jet-black gas block in that photo.  FWIW, dumping your water glass on the sucker to boil away and make it cool enough to avoid catching your car interior on fire, discolor/rusts the gas block a good bit.  Still runs perfectly great.   Gas tube is fine, barrel and handguard never discolored, even from the water dump abuse.   Rest of the gun is great, bolt is fine, (well, after replacing the ejector springs).  Reliability has been shockingly good.  It's kind of a great little upper.

Only thing I've done is replaced the muzzle device, and threw a Wolverine Red Dot on as the sight.  As to accuracy: I've taken this little guy out to 600 yards, and accuracy kind of surprised me - especially with just a red dot.  Did a temporary rezero (with a whole lot of clicks) and we were passing it around and nailing 10's and X's on a regulation 600 yard NRA bullseye with it, which kind of amazed everybody there.  It stabilized 77gr bullets just fine.  (Obviously a low wind day; as 600 yard wind calls would be tricky with at 10.5")

@PalmettoStateArmory - nice job, this guy lasted easily as long as most "premium" boutique brand barrels and has been a total win; I'd recommend it to anybody.   If you think the worn out barrel is still under warrantee, then let's talk! (ha!)

I did something similar but Im just about to 7000rds. A few years ago I stumbled into 5500rds of steel jacketed Tula for a crazy price at an auction. I bought a PSA 11.5in nitride upper super cheap on clearance. Installed an MI handguard and a cheap lower with a brace and set it up to approximate the feel of my KAC SBR.

Its reasonably accurate, Ive never shot it past 100yds but when I zeroed the reddot I was pleasantly surprised. Ive abused it in unspeakable ways and it just won’t stop. It eats a steady diet of arguably the worst 5.56mm on the market. Tula and the awful 75gr Wolf from years ago thats worthless for anything but banging steel at short range.

I really expected the base model nitride bolt to break by now. We’ll see, in the meantime it will continue to be fed the worst cheap ammo I have.

PSA did me right on this upper. I think it was $179 or something, I don’t remember.

I'm impressed you've only had to change the ejector springs and a muzzle device after all those rounds. I would have guessed the ejector claw would have crapped out too.

Not many folks have that many rounds down the tube so I gotta ask... What's your cleaning regiment like?

Can you see significant wear on the bolt lugs?

Have you tried a no-go gauge on it?

I keep a log-book on it, so I'll dig that out and note the highlights along its life in a follow-up.  Also, I took it out this weekend, and fired about 50 rounds or so more of 55 FMJ at gongs.  Ran fine with the 55's, but I'll probably still pull and replace the BBL... eventually.   As to cleaning.... right, I think we're supposed to do that sometimes...  I used to be good about it, until I realized, you really don't have to with an AR and half-decent brass ammo.  I Probably run a bore-snake and clean the BCG every 500 rounds or so... ish.  I'll look it up, as I do log that too.

Here it is from this winter when a Polish friend living in NJ came to visit.  She doesn't get to shoot stuff like that, and it was a bit cold, so she had to borrow my hat...


I think I even have a video of that run...

(ah Rumble - you aren't youtube AntiAmerican communists - but your video resolution always defaults to terrible.  So folks will need to manually click to the higher rezolution option, if you want to see it better)

Since there's interest.  Here we go.  This is my $24 Sam's club carrying case  (No idea how on Earth those Pelican 1600 knock-offs were that cheap, but best deal of the decade - I bought 4; should have bought 14).  Anyhow, here's the guns home.



Here's the GunFormz insert for the Pelican 1600 (which cost 4X the case)

(modified to house a .30 cal ammo can - which I like)
There's the data book I keep for the gun.

Here's the back of the data book - I make ballistic charts for most of my guns
url=https://postimg.cc/LhTW0cr5][/url]

While I much love the Mk18, terminal ballistics are definitely CQB for most ammo.  800 ft-lb at basically 10 yards with ball.  Heavier does better, with M855 being 800 ft-lb at even 50 yds, and overloaded 73's going as far as 80 yds before dropping below 800 ft-lbs.  Nothing super magic about 800 ft-lb, just a metric some folks use, and this is an indicator.  Heavies can go out to 600 yards before going transonic.  ball does it at about 400 yards.

And here are the noteworthy log entries:

0 rounds - 6.06 # w/ Red Dot sight
200  - Chamber tested with kit:
......  1.4636" GO (barely rotates) PASS
......  1.4646" no rotate (and same for 1.4656, 1.4666, and 1.4676" (which is No Go)  -
......   Conclusion, Chamber is in spec but TIGHT
280   good run
430   1.1 MOA with wolf gold
860   zero jams to date, but 1 no-mag lock today.  Cleaned gun.
1234 Set zero for 200 yards, 1.5 MOA
1405 Win 748 on a cold day in 40 gr loads with a light load did poorly.  many short strokes (this is likely more to do with ammo and 748 in the cold; which ran fine warm, than the gun)
1775 Extension tube came lose (that's on you PSA)  No failures though
1850 (summer - light 35 gr rounds ran fine)
1860 +23 clicks for 600 yard zero, gun shot 10's and X's with 75gr ammo
1980 Action shooting, CLEANED, replaced A2 FH with Gamma Break
2160 New muzzle brea is amazing, but blast so bad I thought I blew up the gun.  Shot 2-3 MOA
2322  Cleaned
2462  Cleaned and started monitoring throat erosion, use a Hornady tool.  This will be "zero"
2630 Gamma break too blasty, replaced with a cheap less efficient konck off, for a little milder blast.
2685 Zero check came back good, changing the break out didn't really move any
2965 throat erosion +0.025" since 2462 rounds (so in 503 rounds)
3760 cleaned, still no jams, throat erosion measured at 0.036" in 1298 rounds
4290 shout out to 400 yards, ran great
4740 Ranch hosts landed the helicopter and handed me a suppressor to run on the gun, so ran that for a few hundred rounds at high rate of fire.  Ran great.  They took suppressor back.
5240 still running great
6215 noted a couple jams, not sure why.  Cleaned
6445 Ran great, cleaned and lubed
7445 ran great, cleaned and lubbed
7721 zero check, all good
8035 ran some reloading rejects to get rid of,  some of which short-stroked.  Almost certainly ammo related
8205 oiled the bolt, running good
8272 Fired an NTIT (simulated 600 yard silhouette run - 30 rounds in 50 seconds), on 200 yard reduced target.  Meh, 50% hit rate (with a 20" 12 lb Service Rifle slinged up firing prone, hit rate is close to 100%).  
8955 Cheap knock-off muzzle break is pretty much shot out, with end flange mostly.  blown open.  Replaced wit BCM MOD 0
9005 ran good
9330 ran good
Cleaned
9500 ran good, blew a primer, so had to pull gun apart to extract that.  That was a reload ammo issue.
9590 A couple stove pipes -0 not sure why
9850 more jams and stove pipes.  AHA, upon inspection at home, ejector spring is disintegrated and there is no tension, hence the above jams.  Replaced, the cleaned bolt and BCG and bore-snake BBL.  No notes on if replaced rings or extractor - I guess not(?)
9880 ran great
10042 ran great
10110 jammed a decent amount.  So rebuilt the entire bolt (ejector, extractor pin, springs, rings and replaced buffer spring (run an H2 buffer the whole time btw))
10130 ran great AFTER removed the O ring.
10160 ran great
10190 ran great
10350 Ran great - hosted some friends and officials who universally loved running this gun above everything else
10450 ran great - a friend put a mag of Wolf Steel through it.. which... is it keyholing that?..
10560 SBR'd and put on real stock - like the extra length of pull better, and more compact package - like it
10803 ran good - a friend put a mag of Wolf Steel through it.. which... is it keyholing that?..
10980 Ran good, but keyholing the hot 73 gr ammo
11030 ran good, 55 ball seems to be running fine.  (It's approaching end of life, but seems to be running fine now)

I cleaned a few more times in there than noted, but generally fairly basic.  Wipe down and lube the bolt, and sometimes boresnake the BBL.  It's a 10.5" - I'm not taking this to 'Perry.

I'll clean and remeasure throat erosion and headspace - might micrograph the inside

Over the life of this gun, jams and failures that weren't obvious reload off-spec ammo issues (which I use this gun to dispose of), or parts that wear out wearing out on schedule: probably less about 3 total.  

I have pretty much the same upper bought with a discount code and landing at $228. It runs fantastic suppressed. Thanks for the long term report.

Thanks for the report, very interesting.  

I have a very similar upper, but I think I turned mine into a semi-permanent .22LR.  It has a conversion bolt, and a cheap gas block that is installed backwards.

Was it that cold in TX?

Just did a detailed scan of just that.  Both before and after a detail clean on this abused barrel.  I'll do the chamber and leade later today, and post how much they grew as well

BCM Muzzle break held up remarkably well.  Can barely tell it was even used.

Here's what the bore looks like at 11030 rounds - this is the photo set BEFORE cleaning it.






















A bit rough in spots.  Well... in pretty much all the spots.  11030 rounds at cooking temperature in a 10.5 BBL is a hard life - this barrel actually held up well, and is still shooting brass cased 55FMJ ammo just fine.

And here is the video of the boresnake going down the barrel (again, this is BEFORE cleaning the barrel)
(you'll want to set that to max resolution)

And here's what it looks like after a pretty detailed chemical cleaning.  Starting with a Free All penetrating oil soak to get the carbon out, and then a BoreTech CU++ hit with many (many) many wet patches, to get most of the copper out.

























And the video of the borecamera going doing the barrel.

To the question on how did the BCM muzzle device hold up to the abuse and high pressure discharge and blast.  Here are photos of it after cleaning it up.  Looks pretty much new.

CHAMBER wear measurements

For reference, my notes state:
1.4636 = GO
1.467 = Civilian No Go
1.4696 = military No Go


At zero rounds: Chamber was 1.4646" (so in spec and on the tight end)
At 11,030 Rounds: Chamber is 1.4656" (still well within spec)
Chamber is holding up fine, and has lots of life left (on that part)  (well.. bolt really, as I imagine wear is more in the lugs, than the actual shoulder of the chamber, but regardless, it's still quite good)

Throat Wear measurements

Measured reference at 2462 rounds.  And then measured again at 11,030 rounds.   And in that ~8,000 round differential, the 5.56 cut throat grew 0.2" , and is now rather long.   For reference, an 80.5 gr bullet I use as my general comparator reference bullet for throat tracking, now won't even fit far enough inside the case neck to engage past the boat tail.


Final Assessment:
To me, this barrel is definitely well worn, but probably will continue to serve for a while yet so long as just feed it 55 ball.  The chamber is still good.  The throat is pretty bad both in length and in roughness; but should be good enough for a 55 ball.  the gas port actually looks better than I expected - I've seen worse in barrels shot less.   And the crown is actually still pretty good.  And it still has rifling, and would seem to be enough to engage the bullet well enough.  

I'm not sure if I'm really going to bother replacing this barrel just yet - unless I get bored.  I think I can probably shoot several thousand rounds more of ball without keyholing... I suspect.

PSA makes a very good gun and barrel, IMHO.  In a separate parallels thread here, lots of posters are bashing 10.5's as unreliable and weak.  While I agree an 11.5 is probably a better choice for most settings, I have to say, I haven't seen any of 10.5" bashing to be true.  This 10.5" unit has been quite reliable.  Plenty accurate.  And while anecdotal, it sure does seem to ring plenty loud when it hits steel just fine.  

Keep going till it consistently sends keyholes with 55 or it is unsafe to shoot.

Yeah buddy

Nice detailed review, It's going to be even harder not pulling the trigger on a 11.5" psa kit now! Been trying to wait until the BS boils over.

That is quite impressive record keeping.  That pipe has given you quite a long service life, certainly far beyond its price point.

That's a whole lotta bangs for the buck! I have a PSA nitride 10.5" that has served me very well. It has shown a lot of people a 10.5" can be viably accurate out to 300.

Found a  photo of the knock-off Gamma afyer I wore it out in a few thousand rounds, before finally switching to the BCM.



It still worked actually,  mostly I replaced it seeking something less blasty.   Flat baffles bouncing it right back at you, and 10.5", aren't a great mix, BCM uses a 45 degree conical baffle that's far more pleasant.

(Thought about saving and selling it on EE for posers who wanted a build that looked like its been run hard. )

Thank You lazyengineer for that report on your experiences.

Well written and documented!

PSA makes some pretty good stuff - it holds up well (in my experiences) and their 10.5s are a hoot to shoot!

You bet!  Whoever sends me an 11.5 barrel can have my 10.5 - slightly used!.  I'll send the bolt too if a swap is desired.  BEWARNED, I'm going to run it too - and post about it, so be confident!  

Seriously - @PalmettoStateArmory is the best thing that ever happened to the AR community.  They make solid kit.  If this thread doesn't convince, I don't know what more is needed.  I laugh at fools who besmirch PSA.  They are all the good parts of the NORINCO and PolyTech of our time.  And then some.

As to the lower.  I did put an H buffer in it.  Same factory spring.  I SBR'd it and got rid of the arm brace.  I like it better now.  

I only ran a few hundred rounds suppressed.  TBH, it loved it and ran great.  I shit talk supressors (a lot), but can't deny, it was kind of great.   I never felt the gassy blast, had any jams, or anything like that.

Really, the most profound Usage Effect from a muzzle device was with the Gamma Break.  I'm not kidding. First shot, I put the gun down immediately and looked for damage - as I though the gun blew up, the blast was that intense.  After realizing it was just the break, I shot again, and AGAIN thought I blew up the gun.   Those are great breaks, but just brutal on a 10.5 - so much more pleasant with the angled cone baffle design of the BCM unit now.

BTW, also kinda love my Sightmark Wolvorine.  Got it for $100 on Amazon on sale - I won't say it's worth $200, but it's been a great tough sight that holds zero and takes a beating - I will say that.

Of course PSA sells a great barrel. FN-USA is still making all PSA barrels for them aren't they?

Still impressive though! I was expecting the gas port erosion to be 2-3X's what it actually is. Good job documenting. And run that barrel until its totally done and report back as long as it's still safe to shoot that is.

Awesome deal!

Lifetime warranty!

BOOM!  And THAT is PSA ladies and gentlemen!  PM sent, thanks Josiah!

Absolutely awesome.

Josiah is good people.

What a great thread and documentation. Fwiw I am with OP on the barrel length - it's fun, mine has been perfectly reliable, however I've shot a few animals with it and from my experience I want a little more velocity for game.

On to the gun at hand, I'm surprised the gas port doesn't look worse and you haven't had to swap out the entire bolt. But very cool, love to see this kind of info. Man, how I wish I'd kept this kind of log on even just a couple of my heavier-use guns!

I agree 100% on your PSA take too, they're the best thing that's happened to AR15s since I've been around. When I got into guns 10 or 12 years ago the market was a confusing zoo, and now we can get a sub-$500 fully built AR that works and will run 11k+ rounds like this. Crazy and awesome.

Then PSA grabbing a vine and swinging into the thread is the cherry on top

Magnificent thread. I don't know how I missed this one.

I have this same 10.5in. barrel and this is very encouraging. Mine will never see this level of stress. That struck me too. I've read where port erosion is supposed to be a problem at surprisingly adolescent seasons of barrel life. At least not in this case. Also, the way it's eroded is interesting. I was envisioning concentric erosion opening the port all the way through. That would definitely effect how it runs. This angled sorta ramp shaped wear still leaves the same overall port size. Maybe it introduces a slight venturi effect or something. I don't know. Probably not.

Good plug for Toolcraft BCGs too.

Rather hip n groovy of Josiah to reward our friend here for his fine work and priceless marketing. Not many, in fact maybe NO other companies would do that. This kinda community smooching would enrage the gun haters. The last thing they want to see is AR enthusiasts who are nice people.

550 bucks for this 10.5in pistol.

The level of record keeping for this upper doesn't really fit with OP's screen name.

Indeed, one would think the gas port would be trashed by now.  I have a couple thoughts on that.
1) PSA really does make good stuff.   Really, it was the Henderson Defense thread that put that to rest, where the PSA stuff holds and lasts.  My own experience mirrors that.

2) the other item is most of my ammo are reloads.  Which means I know exactly what's in them.  And at one time I was getting 8lb jugs of LT32 powder for $100-$110 / jug.  To say I miss those days, is an understatement.  LT32 is a fast powder made for 6BR, that works very well in .223, but only with the lighter end bullets.  55 FMJ is about as heavy as you want to go and still be able to hit spec velocity easily and the right port pressure to run.  I run my LT-32 loads above 223 book value and a little below 5.56 charge value.  As such, I get almost 3000 FPS out of a 16" BBL, and did a detailed study once in fact (I'll try to find the link) posted in our reloading section comparing MV of fast LT32, vs slower powders, as a function of BBL length.  (short answer is yes, faster powder does have less velocity drop-off as barrel length gets shorter, but only by a tiny tiny bit, and not really material).  This is a long answer, but with a point - the reason I like LT32 as my all time favorite 5.56 55 FMJ reloading powder is it is fast, clean, bulky in the case (low void space), meters like water (half the size extruded powder as 8208 even, which is a known fine powder already), and has all the latest Gee-Whize clean and T-sensativity formulation tech in it.  It's a premium powder I had line to getting for dirt cheap, even then.  I have gone through at least 6 8lb jugs, and should have bought 16 of them.    IMHO LT-32 is the single most underappreciated 5.56 powder out there, but again, it's too fast for optimal 62+ gr loads, but perfect for 55 and 50 gr loads.  Point of all this, is this barrel has seen most of its life with that fast and clean burning powder.  (not entirely, I use this gun for random-off spec reloads firing and for random round-disposal firing - if it fits it ships)  But if predominant baseline is commercial ammo, then Military ball uses CFE223 powder or H335, which is slower and often hotter burn temperature.  Meaning that gas port with GI powder is going to be impacted by hotter (ball) powder still burning and with partially burned powder ejecta impacting the port.  Whereas in my usage, it's been the fast burning and at high chamber P conditions, meaning completely burned up (the heavier the load, the more complete the burn), powder that I suspect is a bit cooler as well, impacting that port, and doing so at a more pleasant port pressure.   So I think that's also part of why the erosion rate looks much lower.

Update with link to reloading study on powder burn speed vs bbl lenght, where this gun's barrel, was the 10.5" BBL in that testing:
https://www.ar15.com/forums/armory/Test-results-affect-of-BBL-length-decrease-on-velocity-with-fast-vs-slow-rifle-powder/42-499814/?page=1

Send him an FN CHF/CL barrel to compare results.

Interesting on the LT-32. Honestly it's never even been on my radar. I've been doing the other two you mentioned, H335/WC844 for 55gr bulk loading and CFE223 for hunting rounds, for my entire 5ish year reloading life.

I'll keep my good eye open for it now, since my rifle loading is about 99% 55gr Hornady SPBTs on the 650 nowadays. If there's even small incremental improvement in short barrels and esp wrt full burn or port pressure then I'm doubly interested since I'm all-in on 12.5" barrels and shorter + always suppressed. BTW Powder Valley has 8# in stock at a mere triple your old price

Speaking of, I wish I'd bought another 32 or 64 lbs of that WC844 3 or 4 years ago. Sad.

Maybe he doesn't like to mow the lawn.

Great read. PSA has sold me several rifles that shoot  very well.

Just to update - sounds like PSA will be sending a new barrel.  While the old one is still on it, ran it some more.  Total count in the log book is now at 11,250 rounds.

Nothing actually new to add - other than confirmation of prior statements.  Here it is with MK262 ammo, with a 12" Group at 100 yards - which again shows the barrel is burned out.  Though, I will say "keyholing" can be an odd phenomena I don't fully understand.  Sometimes it seems like rounds can "keyhole" at 5 yards, yet be round circles at 100 yards - albeit not so good of a group.  Which is the case here, with the 77 gr bullets - none of whole are "keyholed", but obviously the group is one of a shot out barrel.  Recall for most of it's life this barrel would group and group well with heavies out to 600 yards (the farthest I've tested it on paper).


OK, so right, just a confirmation it's done.  But wait, as noted before, where it gets interesting, is Hornady 55 FMJ in my reloads, actually still shoots.  Here's the group with a red-dot at 100 yards.  


That's not bad, especially for just a red dot. (note impact at 100 is high by design since gun is 200 yard zero'd (which is also 50 yard zero))

Then, I loaded up a couple 30's, went and sat down on the concrete off the side (past the roof covering to not be so loud) and just while sitting on the ground, started popping the 200 yard 12" steel gong - pretty much every shot, with the 55 FMJ ammo.  With 55 ball, the gun actually still runs fine - heck I even had several people come up to watch and complement how impressive that little gun with just a red dot was popping the gong that reliably.  

So on that note:


Ha!  Kidding and fun self-over-appreciation aside, point there is yes just a confirmation that yes, the barrel is shot out for heavies, but interestingly enough still will run a decent 55 FMJ just fine.  I'll likely pull it anyway when the new one gets here (so I can shoot heavies when I want to); but kind of impressive really.

Great post. So much for me to learn here!

Thanks for the detailed writeup. That once again proves why PSA is one of the best companies out there.

No kidding! I in no way had a bad opinion of PSA at all but this whole thread confirms I will be looking much harder at their stuff.  Plus they are in my state which is cool.

Lots of great info on arfcom about folks' experience with different brands but you won't find much like this to see how a barrel would do under true heavy, heavy use.  OP did us all a real service here 😀