Been out of the AR realm for about a decade and decided it was time to get back into it while the prices and availability were right. I also wanted to build my own so I sourced all my parts from about a half dozen different online vendors to get it built just how I wanted it and for the price I wanted. This journey led me to Brownells for a lightweight BCG at what seemed like a decent deal and I liked the weight it had versus many other lightweight BCGs along with the overall design.

BCG #1 came missing the ejector, spring and roll pin so I called and had a new one sent out to replace it since they couldn't just send me the missing parts. Easy enough, although this "complete" BCG was apparently inspected before shipping. This was the TiN finish LWBCG.

BCG #2 was also a TiN finish example but looked like they kicked it around the shop and slapped in whatever parts they had laying around before sending it out. There were scratches, scuffs and gouges all over this thing, although not crazy important in something that is going to be scratched up during use it was still annoying considering this was supposed to be new and the ejector in this one was not a matching finish. So I get another return label and figured why not.

BCG #3 was a slight departure from the first two, went with a nickel boron finish instead. When it got here it looked great and I thought finally, I can get the upper completed but not before one more step. Took the barreled upper and the new BCG to a local fun shop to check the headspace before I called it complete and lo and behold it eats it. Had to mortar it out and the gunsmith wasn't too happy about the skinned knuckles! We tried a mil spec BCG to see if it was the chamber or not and it passed the no go gauge. So I'll be sending Brownells garbage back and won't be ordering another replacement.

TL;DR...
What I learned from all of this is first never buy a Brownells LWBCG and second I will ALWAYS check headspace going forward. Figured I should probably do it in this case but glad I did and didn't decide to skip it before shooting. Also, I'd like to slap the guy who called these things Lego, I've had nothing but problems trying to get this completed including missing parts from a PSA parts kit but that's another rant for another time.