AA EXCLUSIVE! CLPD BCM GBBR
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.” 12
DECEMBER 2021
