Hello everyone, long time lurker, first time poster. I have a long-winded question for you experts. The other day the BCM 14.5 inch lightweight upper I ordered came in. This is it:



On their website, the 14.5 inch lightweight upper looks substantially thinner in the area under the handguards right before the gas block.

http://www.bravocompanyusa.com/BCM-14-5-Mid-Length-LIGHT-WEIGHT-Upper-Receiver-p/bcm-urg-mid-14lw.htm

My question is, is this what their lightweight barrels normally look like or did I get something that’s not so lightweight? I realize this probably doesn’t weigh that much more than the thinner looking one on their website but my intent was to build an extremely lightweight AR. The only reason I pose this question is because I chose their lightweight upper because it looked to be a thin, A1 profile barrel. Is this substantially different from that? Does this really matter? Am I being too nitpicky? What say you?

Can't see pics.

Here is OP"s pic.

Pictures on a screen often do not like like real life.

Looks like a lightweight barrel to me

I see what he is saying. Can't explain it though.

Looks lightweight to me as well.

It IS a LW barrel with .625 at the gas block.

First of all, there is no industry standard as to what constitutes a "light-weight" AR-15 barrel.  That being said, many  do consider the Colt 6520 barrel as a sort of "defacto" definition of "light-weight" for comparison to other barrels.

The Colt 16" 6520 light-weight barrel has a barrel diameter of 0.625” at the gas block and approximately 0.57” forward of the gas block. The barrel profile has a slight taper underneath the handguards from the chamber to the gas block with an average diameter of approximately 0.64”. The stripped light-weight barrel weighs approximately 1 pound, 6 ounces.











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