Up until recently I had chevy powered toys, including several big blocks. Unfortunately for me even mild flat tappet cams had high failure rate regardless of cam manufacturer, including both solid lifter and hydraulic... even with light seat pressure springs for break in some lifters would stop spinning and quickly failed.

Eventually I gave up and went to a solid roller cam with the recommended bronze gear on the distributor... which promptly ate itself. Then tried the super special plastic composite gear supposedly used by nascar... which promptly ate itself. Then the super special coated melonized gear...which promptly ate itself.

In desperation I ditched the billet roller cam and ordered a custom Crower roller cam with one significant difference... it had a cast iron gear and bearing journal pressed onto the billet roller section.

I put back on the regular iron distributor gear and ran it for 10K street miles, 20+ passes a the salt flats, hundreds of 1/8 mile passes, dozens of 1/4 mile passes... years later after I melted a piston and pulled out the distributor the gear looked perfect.

Now I have a 440 in my garage for my cuda and another block being machined for a 494. I have been thinking about my bad luck and starting to worry about the Hughes flat tappet cam I am installing in the 440...

So does a hybrid billet / cast gear cam exist for a BBM?

Thanks
Craig

To answer your question, no cam for a BBM exists with a pressed on gear. You might get lucky calling Oregon Cam Grinders.

Think about the oil pump drive gear size differences between the small ones on the Chevy distributors and the one used for your motor
Size matters
I've built more than one BB Mopar solid roller cam street pump gas motor that didn't have any wear problems on the bronze oil pump drive gear
I do have the # 4 cam journal groove for oiling the rocker arm shafts and valve springs full time to help the springs live longer on the street, I use between .035 up to a .050 oil restrictor to each shaft also
I have ask several different good cam grinders to make a two-piece billet steel solid roller or hydraulic roller cam to use a stock oil pump drive on the front of the cams, none of them wanted to do that

You can't blame them, the iron section would be at the driven end of the cam. Regardless of how you attached it the risk of breakage would always be there. Whereas the chevies all have the distributors at the rear where the only foces being exerted are the distributor and oil pump. I imagine a cam manufacturer might consider this for a smallblock Mopar !!

Been done quite a bit on small blocks. The 360/380 and 390 MP magnum crate motors had a 2 piece cam.
I believe the core might have been a Crane product but Comp was the listed grinder.

Today’s technology allows for this, question is, will people pay for it.

I will... after watching one lifter stop spinning after 5 minutes on a mild 454 and having to pull everything apart I will gladly pay more to avoid both lifter and bronze gear misery.

It's like a lot of things, it depends. If a composite cam cost around $1500, for peace of mind I'd buy one. If it cost $15,000, I think I'd pass.