.22 AR

[Bad13Luck]

Thinking about building one of these, what happens in the lower? are all the changes in the upper? Is it better to buy a dedicated upper for this? I'm sure I will have more questions but this will get me started.

Thanks
Bad13Luck

 

[SJan]

Cheapest easiest way- buy one of these:

http://www.midwayusa.com/viewProduct/?productNumber=414445

take the bolt carrier out of your standard upper and replace it with the Ciener unit.

You can get a dedicated upper instead, the main difference will be the barrel twist will be better suited to the 40 grain (or less) 22's. I have a ciener and run it in a 1 in 7 bushmaster barrel and its accurate enough for plinking out to 50 yards.

The way I see it is this: A 22 caliber AR platform should be a low cost substitute for full power 5.56. Using the drop in ciener kit keeps everything on your AR the same.

If you want a separate 22 either for accuracy shooting or whatever, build a ruger 10/22.

 

[Jasper]

it's 100% what you're gonna be using the gun for.


plinking/blasting? get a Ceiner/Attichison(sp?)/M261 kit for ~ $200, and try to snag a few extra mags.

i'm going the dedicated .22lr upper route, because i wanted a carbon copy of my DCM rifle that will outshoot me. went through CompassLake (since they built my .223 DCM upper). 20" douglas match barrel, matching sights to what i've got now, etc etc.



the ONLY downside to the CLE upper's is their price [sad2].

mine should be shipping friday. hopefully range reports in a week or two when i figure out what it likes for ammo.

 

[vellnueve]

There are a number of advantages to a dedicated upper. The gas tube doesn't get fouled because there is no gas tube. There is less leading at the joint between the barrel and the conversion unit. The barrel twist is more appropriate.

 

[mac1911]

http://www.floridagunworks.com/Merc...uct_Code=1858&Category_Code=ARA+UP+DPMS+.22LR
Been thinking the same thing, spotted these recently. Also thought about the conversion kit. Theres just something not right about the kits though. plus the mags for either run about 30$ for ten rounders. Spikes Tactical also makes a dedicated 22lr upper for about 600.00

If you or someone you know has a C&R you can buy from midway or brownells for a bit less http://www.brownells.com/aspx/Search/ProductDetail.aspx?pid=27008

CMMG kits are in stock at brownells 179.00 with 1 10rnd mag with C&R account

 

[Mike S]

accuracy on most conversion kits is for shit, if you want accuracy spend the money. Go for for the upper.

If you want a fun tactical look that shoots great the GSG 5 is great and shoots more accurately than my stock 10/22. Smith and Wesson has a .22 AR in the pipeline as well for about the same price as a dedicated upper.

 

[Gammon]

I had a DPMS 22 LR upper and was not impressed with the quality control. The chamber was so rough that the rounds wouldn't always completely chamber and the gun occasionally fired out of battery, KB! Polishing the chamber cured the problem but shouldn't have been necessary. This is the third DPMS barrel (two 223s) that I have had this problem with. All chambers needed extensive polishing before the gun would function reliably. The 223s would fail to extract after the barrel heated up (30 plus rounds).

Another problem was the 22 LR mag. It was a steel mag inserted in a plastic housing to fit the AR lower mag well. I accidentally dropped a couple on the concrete floor at MRA and damaged them rather badly. No sweat, I'll just buy a couple of extra plastic housings. No way. DPMS will only sell complete mags and they were completely unsympathetic to my problem. I'm all done wiith DPMS.

 

[Bad13Luck]

Thanks guys, after doing a little thinking and reading the responses I think I’m going to go the dedicated .22 upper I only have one AR now and I’d like to keep the way I built it. But I still do not know about the lower, is the lower still the same as on my other ar? Nothing special need to be done to it???

 

[Romokid]

Your lower should be fine. I say should because you may have to use reduced trigger/hammer springs, and you might want to switch to a non-notched hammer if you have one. The notched hammer can get hung up on the firing pin, therefore you would have to cock the hammer in order to close the upper. I had to do this with my Model 1 dedicated upper. Some people have been ok, but I think Spike's even recommends using non-notched hammers. Spike's even has a group buy special going on right now on AR15.com. I think they knocked $50 off of their M4 upper and the 10 round BDM mags were $22.

 

[Bad13Luck]

cool thanks for all the advice guys

 

[ScottS]

accuracy on most conversion kits is for shit, if you want accuracy spend the money. Go for for the upper.

If you want a fun tactical look that shoots great the GSG 5 is great and shoots more accurately than my stock 10/22. Smith and Wesson has a .22 AR in the pipeline as well for about the same price as a dedicated upper.

You'd think so, but I reshot the Pelham Carbine match last weekend with my M261 conversion in my M4gery (1:9 twist), and had no problem making head shots or the "long" range shots. More often than you'd believe my two .22LR holes were close enough on the target to cover with a half-dollar. Surprised me.

And then I shot it with my GSG-5, and that was great, too...

 

[KMM696]

I've wondered with the conversion kits if the Aguila SSS Sniper 22LR ammo would be more accurate than the usual fodder. It has a 60gr bullet, which should be an appropriate weight for regular AR barrels.

I haven't found any of my 22s that really like the stuff yet, but they are all appropriate twist for the traditional 22LR weights.

 

[kristo]

I've wondered with the conversion kits if the Aguila SSS Sniper 22LR ammo would be more accurate than the usual fodder. It has a 60gr bullet, which should be an appropriate weight for regular AR barrels.

I haven't found any of my 22s that really like the stuff yet, but they are all appropriate twist for the traditional 22LR weights.

In general, you'd want to shoot only copper jacketed .22lr ammo in an AR with a conversion. Otherwise, you'd be spending a lot of time de-leading/cleaning it.
I had very poor results with the Aguila 60gr sniper ammo as my Ruger MKIII with 6 7/8" barrel failed to stabilize it and the bullet was tumbling. You may have better results in a longer barreled rifle.

 

[Gammon]

Thanks guys, after doing a little thinking and reading the responses I think I’m going to go the dedicated .22 upper I only have one AR now and I’d like to keep the way I built it. But I still do not know about the lower, is the lower still the same as on my other ar? Nothing special need to be done to it???

I recently built a dedicated 22 LR AR. Top and bottom designed to fire 22 rimfire. The big problem is that 22 rimfire is a lot harder to ignite than 223 centerfire. If you use a stock hammer and trigger, you shouldn't have any problems. If you try to lighten the pull with an after market trigger you must get a unit that uses a stock hammer spring. Light weight hammer springs often used to reduce trigger pull won't reliably ignite 22 LR. I settled on a trigger by Accuracy Speaks that uses a stock hammer spring but yields a crisp 4 lb pull. This unit has proven to be about 99% reliable in general use and 100% reliable in a clean gun with Blazer 22s.

I built my lower from scratch (Stag) but bought an assembled flat top upper from "Model 1 Sales". The upper wasn't cheap at $580 but it included a free floating hand guard and a beautiful fluted 20 in SS barrel. This upper uses a Ciener conversion. I mention this because "Black Dog Machine" makes some great mags for the Ciener conversions. These polycarbonate (super plastic) mags are available in 10 and 30 round models. They are full sized (same size and shape as a stock 30 round AR mag) and extremely reliable. With the advent of 22 Rimfire Tactical Matches, these mags will be the way to go. You can use the same AR 223 mag pouches in a match.

 

[Gammon]

I recently built a dedicated 22 LR AR. Top and bottom designed to fire 22 rimfire. The big problem is that 22 rimfire is a lot harder to ignite than 223 centerfire. If you use a stock hammer and trigger, you shouldn't have any problems. If you try to lighten the pull with an after market trigger you must get a unit that uses a stock hammer spring. Light weight hammer springs often used to reduce trigger pull won't reliably ignite 22 LR. I settled on a trigger by Accuracy Speaks that uses a stock hammer spring but yields a crisp 4 lb pull. This unit has proven to be about 99% reliable in general use and 100% reliable in a clean gun with Blazer 22s.

I built my lower from scratch (Stag) but bought an assembled flat top upper from "Model 1 Sales". The upper wasn't cheap at $580 but it included a free floating hand guard and a beautiful fluted 20 in SS barrel. This upper uses a Ciener conversion. I mention this because "Black Dog Machine" makes some great mags for the Ciener conversions. These polycarbonate (super plastic) mags are available in 10 and 30 round models. They are full sized (same size and shape as a stock 30 round AR mag) and extremely reliable. With the advent of 22 Rimfire Tactical Matches, these mags will be the way to go. You can use the same AR 223 mag pouches in a match.

PS The new Black Dog 22 LR mags hold the bolt open on the last shot.

 

[Romokid]

PS The new Black Dog 22 LR mags hold the bolt open on the last shot.

CMMG also now makes mags for the 22LR conversions, they look exactly like the BDM's but they are s solid gray color, and they are under $20. Their 10 rounder for those of us in MA are supposed to be ready for sale any day now and theirs also have the bolt hold open on last shot.

 

[highlander]

I had a Ceiner conversion kit it worked well,but then i bought a dedicated upper. The 60 gr subsonics ahot well from the Ceiner but they are very dirty and every once in awhile I got a big "poof" from unburnt powder that had accumulated in the action and one other thing,the powder that they use has THE most acrid smell of any powder that I've run across.

 

[Bad13Luck]

Thanks again guys for all the advice, I ended up buying a spikes tatical complete .22 upper ( thier lead time was not bad at all about two weeks they said) with YHM handgaurd and a couple blackdog mags. I think I will be building either a stag lower or a Rock river lower to go along with it. I will let you know how it turns out.

 

[Gammon]

Thanks again guys for all the advice, I ended up buying a spikes tatical complete .22 upper ( thier lead time was not bad at all about two weeks they said) with YHM handgaurd and a couple blackdog mags. I think I will be building either a stag lower or a Rock river lower to go along with it. I will let you know how it turns out.

Good choice. Spike's uppers aren't cheap, but neither was my Model 1 Sales at $580. You get what you pay for. Eventually the upper will pay for itself. I have over 20,000 rounds through my uppers (DPMS which I sold and my current Model 1). The obvious savings is in ammo, but 20,000 rounds is almost the service life of two 223 barrels. This significantly increases your savings.

 

[Gammon]

PS I am delighted with my Stag lower.

 

[Bad13Luck]

I do not have a stag lower currently, I figured it was a good chance to get one.

 

[Gadsden]

I use the conversion bolt and have had no problems with it. I like the idea that I can bring just a small bolt and a couple mags with me and go from .223 to .22 in 30 seconds w/o having to lug around an extra upper. I have seen little reduction in accuracy, but that does not mean there is none.

 

[Gammon]

I neglected to mention one problem I had with my Model 1 22LR upper and its Ciener bolt, etc. Extraction was weak to the point that this bolt assembly would not extract a dud. Apparently the firing pin hit would jam the round in the chamber. If the round ignited, the case would eject, but a dud would remain stuck in the chamber. This was a rare occurance, but a giant PITA.

When ordering some mags from Black Dog Machine, I noticed that they sold a "new and improved" extractor for the Ciener conversions and ordered one.
Installation was simple and the improvement was dramatic. At the range today (Harvard) I tried to get a case stuck in the chamber and failed. I highly recommend this part; short money, big improvement.

 

[Charger22]

"Light weight hammer springs often used to reduce trigger pull won't reliably ignite 22 LR. "
I guess I'm the exception to this rule. It was recomended to me not to use the light weight hammer spring, but I had to try and after being given one for free it made the decision simple. I'm 100% with primer strikes(and can cycle subsonics) and around 98-99% without failures of any kind. They didn't start till about 500 rounds deep.
This is running a Spikes tactical dedicated upper with nickle plated bolt and Green Mountain match barrel(16" hbar with M203 cut). Having a unnothced hammer helped big time as I was originally using this upper on a Bushmaster lower and had more failures.
Quick Pic.

This thing is too much fun.

 

[Gammon]

"Light weight hammer springs often used to reduce trigger pull won't reliably ignite 22 LR. "
I guess I'm the exception to this rule. It was recomended to me not to use the light weight hammer spring, but I had to try and after being given one for free it made the decision simple. I'm 100% with primer strikes(and can cycle subsonics) and around 98-99% without failures of any kind. They didn't start till about 500 rounds deep.
This is running a Spikes tactical dedicated upper with nickle plated bolt and Green Mountain match barrel(16" hbar with M203 cut). Having a unnothced hammer helped big time as I was originally using this upper on a Bushmaster lower and had more failures.
Quick Pic.

This thing is too much fun.

I have had problems with light hammer springs in several trigger groups. Some were over 90% reliable which is fine for practice but unacceptable for match use. This is what caused me to use the Accuracy Speaks trigger which works with a stock spring. Glad you are enjoying this reliability, but I would suggest that you keep the chamber squeaky clean. A little too much dirt could prevent the round from fully chambering which will most likely result in a light hit.

 

[Charger22]

I did polish the champer which has helped it's reliability as well as its ability to stay cleaner longer. I have about 750 rounds through it with out cleaning and still only had three failures at the range the other day.

 

[Gammon]

I did polish the champer which has helped it's reliability as well as its ability to stay cleaner longer. I have about 750 rounds through it with out cleaning and still only had three failures at the range the other day.

Failure to ignite the 22s, i.e. light hits?

 

[Charger22]

Nope, failure to eject. Looked at the gun today and the chamber is pretty dirty think the round was sticking. Looks like I will have to clean it Can't wait to get it out this week.

 

[mac1911]

I have read about Spikes Tactical 22lr uppers are "tuned" for federal bulk pak. "tuneing maybe needed for other ammo"

How is this "tuneing" done.

I want a 22lr upper, leaning twards spikes.

 

[TomH]

FYI, Colt now makes dedicated .22 ARs. www.colt22rimfire.com