BAD-ASS vs. BAD-CASS

[Battle Arms Dev]

A little history on the BAD-CASS...

We developed the BAD-CASS-3P, M16 for a major firearms manufacturer that intended to use it on their improved carbine trials. In 4 months, 8 M16s with these selectors installed had over 100K rounds fired, the selectors never failed, and the screws never backed out.  The BAD-CASS features a dovetailed interface for lever attachment, this allows us to put the auto sear cut on the left side of the selector axis.  The dovetail interface also serves to remove load and stress on the screws, as the dovetail is primarily responsible in keeping the levers attached.  Thus, in the event of the screws backing out (more on that later), the loss of the mounting screw doesn't render the selector useless, as the dovetail interface allows the levers to stay on the selector axis.

BAD-ASS on left, BAD-CASS on right (thanks Jon for the pic!)

So this begs the question, is it necessary? 

Due to the use of high quality, Grade 8 screws with Torx heads, screws backing out on any of our selectors is very rare.  As with most firearms accessories that use screws, a little drop of thread locker is recommended.  We've had folks that purposely leave the screws without thread locker, and have been shooting the heck out of their rifles with our selectors installed, without ever having the screws back out.

I'm perfectly confident with the BAD-ASS family of selectors if I am going in harm's way.  Judging by its increased use and popularity on LE weapons, I'm definitely not alone.

The BAD-CASS as designed, was never intended for semi auto, even though it works in that role very well.  It is more expensive to manufacture, the dovetail interface requires a great deal of checking and tighter tolerances

The BAD-CASS does look pretty, though we never intended for it to look good.  As a policy, we spend most of our time on functionality and robustness, aesthetics are usually afterthoughts.

This is the very first BAD-CASS-3P, M16 prototype, notice the details of the lever:

We're in the process of porting all the available BAD-ASS levers to BAD-CASS, stay tuned ;)