Bear Creek Introduces 400 Legend Uppers, Complete Rifles

Straight-walled cartridges are the hot new thing in deer season, and Bear Creek is here for it. The AR specialist has just announced a new upper available in 400 Legend, turning your semi-auto into a deer gun that fits into the rulebook in the many jurisdictions that require this cartridge design if you want to hunt whitetails with a rifle. They will also sell you a fully completed carbine if you prefer to let them do the assembly work.

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Why 400 Legend?

Straight-walled cartridges like the .357 Magnum or .44 Magnum have existed for years, so why all the rush to develop new rounds in recent years? It’s because gun manufacturers wanted to figure out how to convert modern rifles to shoot straight-walled cartridges instead of being limited to old-fashioned lever-actions or bolt-actions.

In the case of 400 Legend, this is a .40-cal round originally designed by Winchester that is supposed to be a compromise between 350 Legend and 450 Bushmaster, offering a heavy bullet that penetrates deep without the recoil of the bigger-bore 450 round.

The BC-15 can be purchased with a right-side charging handle configuration, an 18-inch Parkerized heavy barrel with 1:16 twist and carbine-length gas system, topped with a 15-inch Talon MLOK split rail. See more details here. Or, you can buy the same rifle with a 16-inch barrel and no right-side charging handle—details here. Both rifles are priced at $499 and do not come with a magazine; mags are $27.90 apiece.

To put that in perspective, a traditional lever-action straight-walled rifle will set you back more than a thousand bucks these days. Even a lower-priced bolt-action like the Savage Axis 2 is just scraping under the $500 range in 400 Legend chambering.

If all you’re interested in is an upper, not a complete rifle, Bear Creek has your back. They’ll also sell you the 18-inch, right-hand-charging upper for $299—see here. The 16-inch upper with rear charging handle is the same price—see here. The uppers include the same MLOK-compatible split rail and other components as the rifle, and they will fit any mil-spec AR-15 lower, says Bear Creek Arsenal.

All photos: Bear Creek Arsenal