The weight conversion at the gel point (oc 0 ) was determined by the gas bubble method in two sets of polyacrylamide (PAA) gels crosslinked with' N,N'-methylene-bisacrylamide (BA). oc 0 remained practically constant when the crosslinker ratio was C = 10% (w/w) and the total concentration of comonomers in the feed ranged from C T = 5 to 10 g/100 mi. When C T was kept constant at 5 g/100 mi and C changed from O to 25% (w/w), oc 0 showed a minimum at C = 7%. By comparing the experimental values of oc 0 with those calculated for an ideal network, it was concluded that the crosslinking efficiency of BA is very low. The dependence on C of oc 0 and other properties like the elastic phantom modulus, 1/ ;h l, and the polymer volume fraction at swelling equilibrium, v 2 ,, was explained in terms of the formation of network defects: the formation of BA sequences longer than unity and that of intramolecular cycles both have an increasing contribution at C > 7% but can be neglected at lower values of C.